The Beauty Denominator

Have you ever noticed that when you are in love you tend to over look many irritating habits of your mate, but as you get more settled and comfortable together they start to stand out and really jar on your nerves, but just remember that it’s a two way street. No one is perfect even though we like to think we are and many times we aren’t even aware that we are doing anything irritating.

Some of the things we do like whining, criticizing, driving and talking on the cell phone, grinding your teeth, smacking your lips when you eat or talk, chewing with your mouth open, popping gum, cracking your knuckles, tapping your foot, tapping your pencil or fingers on a desk, making inappropriate body noises in public, blowing your nose at the table in a restaurant just to name a few can be very irritating for the people around you.

I get irritated when people with a basket full of groceries goes through the express lane or someone jumps in front of you in line, now that’s a very rude bad social habit that some people have developed and it’s one that should be curbed because your time is just as valuable as theirs and you are just as important as they are. It’s different if you let someone with a couple items go before you, that’s nice.

Another very irritating habit people have developed is having their cell phone constantly glued to their ear. It doesn’t matter where they are, standing in a line at the bank, checking out at the grocery store while the poor girl is trying to conduct business with you and count your money out, but your too busy fussing at your girlfriend and the line is getting longer with even more irritated people.

Many people in restaurants don’t watch their children and let them run all over the place, while others are very stern and either way it can be very irritating and unpleasant to be around. Some people are very loud and like to be the center of attention now that is very annoying if your trying to have a relaxing dinner out. I don’t like to have attention drawn to me so that irritates me.

I was a waitress for many years and have seen many things and a really irritating habit is when someone reaches over and takes someone else’s food off their plate without even asking, how rude. I have actually seen people blow their nose on a cloth napkin, how uncouth and irritating. I really don’t know if these were just bad habits that they didn’t even think about or they just didn’t care.

Another thing that always irritated me was when the loud mouth would say make sure you give me the check or you wont get a tip of course the nice gentleman at the head of the table had already requested it and I often wanted to tell the loud mouth where they could stick that tip. Even if no one else had asked for the check first I never gave it to anyone that ever said that to me.

I often found that the loud mouth invariably thought that a dollar was good for a hundred dollar check. Well, I really hadn’t planned on discussing the bad social habits of some people, but they always  irritated me so I got carried away. The point is there are so many types of bad habits that can be broken down into categories.

Irritating habits may be just the little things we automatically do and not realize how irritating they are and the effect that they could have on someone else. It’s much better to tell someone nicely what is bothering us instead of letting it build up till you can’t take it any more and explode, that would only make the situation worse. Regardless of how nicely you phrase it, it will probably hurt their feelings.

I’m quite sure they will start pointing out all your irritating habits at that point so that they will feel better. Don’t get defensive because remember no one is perfect and regardless if it’s a partner, friend or relative try to stay calm and discuss the things that are annoying you both or better yet make a list then everyone will know what irritates the other and you can work on it together. Chances are you had no clue you were just as irritating.