Why you should just say what’s annoying you

Posted by Jul 25, 2020 Relationships Leave a Comment

Your roommate adds more garbage to the top of the pile instead of taking out the trash. Your neighbor doesn’t seem to understand street parking and takes up two spaces instead of one. Your coworker won’t stop using those stupid fucking virtual Zoom backgrounds and it gives you a headache.

And you wish they would stop being so annoying.

So maybe you casually mention something about it once hoping they will get the hint. Mostly, you try to let it go because you’re afraid if you say something, they’ll think you’re an asshole.

You don’t mind if I just keep doing this really annoying thing, do you?

But the annoyance builds….

Here’s the problem with that. One of you will do something the other person finds annoying, but since you “try to be nice,” neither of you will say anything about it. Then, something else will happen. Then it will happen again. The seed of annoyance will fester. It will continue to fester until one of you moves away, gets another job or dies. But, neither of you is going to move away or get another job or die any time soon! And that can’t be your actual strategy, can it?

So it continues festering.

One day you find yourself thinking about if that banana in the tail pipe thing really works. Or like, what if you got a BB gun and shot out their fucking flood light that shines on and off into your bedroom all night. That could work right? No one would know it was you, right?

Or wait… what about that episode of Ozark where the guy covers that mafia guy’s car in birdseed? Then the birds poop all over the car… that’s what you could do!

But… could someone somehow track your Netflix account and be like  – she sure did watch that scene with the birdseed a lot of times…. You realize you’re not cut out for that kind of life, but you still think the other person is being an inconsiderate jackass.

Just say it

So what do you do? Just say it. Just say – hey person, I’ve noticed that you do this thing, and it would be great if you didn’t do the thing because [fill in the blank].

If you’re lucky, they were unaware they were doing something annoying and are willing to make an effort. If you’re not as lucky, they now think you’re an asshole, but it’s ok because you have confirmed that they are in fact the asshole.

Which is fine, because you already know where to get bird seed.