Pet Peeves and Things Which Are Overrated
Aug. 13th, 2008 12:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasaI always forget what my pet peeves are when people ask, so I've compiled a list of things which bother me. This is not exhaustive, I'll probably add more. This probably makes me seem really nitpicky and irritable . . . but read some of these things and tell me if you don't have just as many qualms about the world.
Hoverers, particularly those who do not clean up after themselves and therefore create the need to hover in the first place. Hoverers are the females who squat over public toilets instead of just putting toilet-paper down and sitting on them, consequently getting the seats covered in pee and leading to more hovering. You are not a man. You are not in Asia. Put some freaking toilet paper (or, you know, one of those paper covers they so nicely supply for you) on the seat, put your butt on it, and move on with your life. I swear, you will not get HIV. The toilet seat is too cold for germs to survive-- and it's not like you eat off your ass, anyway. And if through some irrational phobia you absolutely have to hover, at least CLEAN UP YOUR PEE AFTERWARDS.
Wet jeans. How can anyone stand them? They chafe like whoa and take three years to dry. I wear skirts and leggings and other types of pants any day I think it will rain to avoid this.
Wet footwear. Canvas sneakers+rain=no. Squish squish squish. Cold. Chafing through socks. On rainy days I like boots, flipflops, or even crocs. Or barefoot. Anything but cold, wet, claustrophic feet.
Snifflers. These are the people who just keep huffing back their snot into their head in complete defiance of gravity and the intention of the snot. JUST BLOW YOUR GODDAMN NOSE. I don't know if you think it's better for the environment or if you're just lazy, but can't you realize you're pissing everyone else off? I try to be nice about this; I'll offer people tissues but you'd be surprised how many people turn me down. Huh? Do you like having to repeatedly suck lukewarm olfactory refuse back into your nasal cavity? I was so glad I saw a Dear Abby column that condemned this the other day; this is considered officially rude, people, and is not just me.
People who tip their seat all the way back on airplanes (and then bitch at me when I bump their seat in order to get out to use the bathroom). I don't care if they make the seats to recline-- just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to always go ahead and do it. I don't know whether some airplanes are particularly excessive about it or I just get stuck behind the broken seats, but sometimes the seats recline so far the seat is practically in your lap; you can literally see the other person's head. (I've always kind of hoped Neil would happen to vomit on one of them). People always try to tell me, "Oh, well just tip back your seat; it fixes everything!" Um, no, it doesn't. First off, people in the exit and back rows often have seats that either don't go back, or not as far. And even those in the normal rows can have difficulty using their tray tables or getting out of their seats, even with their own seats pushed back in compensation. Instead of a normal rectangular space, I have this weird sheer area which is not horizontal enough to help me sleep and actually is more uncomfortable for reading and watching movies-- and is really difficult to maneuver in and out of. Anyone with long legs or a larger frame is basically locked in place for the duration the flight. It's particularly ridiculous when the person in front of me gives me flack (if I could count the number of death glares I've gotten . . . ) for bumping their seat when they're forcing me to do the limbo just to get up to pee. If I'm on an international flight, I'm going to need to pee sometime, and someone makes it so I have to inconvenience them to do so, they have no right no complain when I do.
Oscillating fans. When I want my hair blown, I will sit in front of the fan. When I don't want my hair blown, I will sit out of the range of the fan. I never want the fan to decide for me when and if my hair will be blown. Also, if there's any loose object in the room lighter than an ounce, it's not going to be stable. And if I didn't want loose objects in my room to be stable, I would get an anti-gravity machine.
Attempts to imitate foreign languages by noises alone. I don't expect everyone to speak and understand every language, ever, but what use ever is there in just pretending to speak it? Everyone-- even non-speakers, trust me-- can tell. It just screams ignorance and . . . well, stupidity. There was a short-form game we used to play in my high school improv club that I absolutely hated: someone shouted out the name of a country, and two performers spoke in gobblety-gook that was meant to resemble the language while two performers offstage "dubbed" them in English. I thought it was extremely ignorant and culturally insensitive. (The least we could have done was made up the names of the countries!). I get very, very sick of people who, upon discovering I speak Japanese, blurting out some random "Chinese"-sounding syllables: "Wung chung chow mein fat fuck. What did I just say?" Um, not only is that ridiculously culturally insensitive and stupid, Japanese isn't even a tonal language and doesn't sound remotely like that. And, um, neither does Chinese, honestly.
Most people accept that racism in the form of excluding a race or preferring your own race is politically incorrect-- but many people don't seem to realize that preferring a race outside your own for the sake of dating is still racist.
For instance, it's one thing to be attracted to many women who happen to be Latina, but it's quite another to specifically pursue Latina women as a general group to the exclusion of all other types of people. If you can say, sight-unseen, that you would prefer any Latina to any black, white, Asian, or mixed woman, you are a racist. Women who are pursued as a racial stereotype are not flattered by the attention if they know the reasons behind it. For instance, due to the current trendy "Yellow Fever," I know many Asian women who do not date outside their race not because of parental expectations or cultural racism, but because they know that many non-Asians only want them for their race and will stereotype them without getting to know them first.
I am all for interracial dating and marriage, and I believe that if you meet someone you are attracted to and intrigued by, no racial obstacle should ever hold you back. But I do not believe you should classify potential partners under huge generalities and pursue them as a group. It is antisocial, it is creepy, it is upsetting to the object of your pursuit, it encourages cynicism, and IT IS RACIST.
A whole slew of grammar mistakes, including when people who use the word "literally" incorrectly (no, you did not literally "die of shock" if you're here to tell me about it) and when people who cannot differentiate it vs. its, you're vs. your, affect vs. effect, or their vs. there vs. they're.
Once upon a time, schools contained a lot of prayer. Teachers would lead students in a daily Lord's Prayer, principals would start assemblies with a prayer in Jesus' name, etc. Students could be punished for refusing to participate, because this was an order from an authority figure; refusing to pray was insubordination. However, it dawned on us at one point that not every student is the same religion, and so to demand students to pray according to one specific faith was unethical and counter to the tenet of freedom of religion protected under the First Amendment.
But now there are a lot of people who misunderstand "taking prayer out of schools" to mean that kids are forbidden to pray, rather than all-class or all-school prayer just no longer being mandatory. Schools do not forbid students to pray as they please. Students can and do still pray on their own. (Trust me, as long as there are tests in schools, prayer will never be absent :-P). Students can pray in their heads (who could stop that anyway?) or openly, individually or in groups. It is actually illegal to stop them. The only thing that is illegal now is for an authority figure to demand that all students pray, so that a student to get in trouble for not praying or not praying in a certain manner.
There are a lot of ambiguous issues that are related (Can a public school fund a religious club? If it does, can the club be exclusive about who can join? Can teachers participate or sponsor such a religious club?), and I'll admit they are sticky, but the issue everyone cites is really quite cut and dry: Students can pray when they want and how they want; they just can't be made to pray when and how they don't want to.
"Embarrassing Moments" sections of (usually girly) magazines. These are very hard to pull off in principle, simply because different people are embarrassed by different things, and I am never quite sure whether to react with amusement or empathetic awkwardness. Furthermore, most of the stories aren't even particularly embarrassing-- and make the rest of the world feel ill-at-ease for implying that they are. You farted in public once? Good God, if every single person wrote in to Cosmo every single time this happened, it would come out twice a day and contain nothing but Oops-I-Farted testimonials.
Tied in with the above, "funny" home video shows. Particularly when a show host or someone adds commentary. (Like-- the cat eating the kid's piece of birthday cake might have been funny-- you know, if you were there at the party, watching it go down-- but the little pun in there about stealing being a "piece of cake" pretty much killed any potential there might have been). But, mostly, the videos are oftentimes more destructive than funny; property is destroyed and the people come out looking more hurt and confused than as amused as the videotaper. I for one don't like laughing at other people's pain, embarrassment, and general misfortune.
People who judge music. I think it's very rude when someone tells another that they have "bad taste" in music. Who defines that? You can like or dislike a song, artist, or genre personally, but don't assume that your preferences generalize to an objective reality. There is a lot of music in the world in a massive variety. Why does such a great variety exist if not for the large range of opinions?
When people value television over other people. I can empathize with being irritated by unnecessary disruptions to a show, but I don't like being told to cut an important conversation short because a show is starting or asked to be absolutely silent in my own living quarters just because fucking Hannah Montana is on. (Can you tell I had an incident with this? And yes, the incident involved Hannah Montana). Particulary now that television shows are all but completely accessible online, there's really no excuse. As my mom used to say, "it will be on again"; important conversations, however, cannot be TiVoed.
Jealous girlfriends and whipped boyfriends-- particularly in combination. Come on, girls; trust your man just a little bit. If he's going to cheat on you, he's going to find a way; you really can't stop him, even if you are like a stalker in a relationship. (And then-- I know you've heard it before-- it wasn't meant to be, anyway). Being a harpy does neither of you any good; your lack of trust is just going to give him a complex and you an aneurysm. But whipped guys don't always have a bitch behind them-- and that's often the worst. The guys who choose to be nothing but the simpery boytoy of their mates until they maybe someday snap out of it. (Which, strangely enough, usually occurs sometime around breakup). The younger, fairer-haired brother of the absent-father epidemic is the absent-guy-friend problem. What girl hasn't had a male friend totally remove himself from her life just because he's gotten a girlfriend, and either under her direction or his own blind obsession does he feel guilty even talking to her? It's sick. Guys, your girlfriend is not the only girl who thinks you're important and wants to spend time with you-- and every girl who does isn't out to seduce you. (Whatever you might want to believe).
(I must note that I also dislike jealous boyfriends and whipped girlfriends. However, society generally agrees that controlling men with submissive women is a sick remnant of an old society and often considers it abusive, so I feel less alone with that one. Yet somehow when it's flipped, society thinks it's perfectly fine or even "cute." Um, no.)
Redundant punishment. Redundant punishment is when someone in authority insists on punishing someone who is already thoroughly chastened. For instance, a child is already in guilty tears over having done wrong, and the parent insists on scolding them and grilling it into them even more just how terrible they were to do such a thing-- and even throws in a time-out or a spanking or a denial of dessert, etc, to boot. Even more awful is when the child even comes to the parent of their own accord to confess their crime-- and still get in just as much trouble. (There's something to be said about all those parents in childrens' shows who say, "Well, I think you learned your lesson" and opt out of whatever threat was lingering over the storyline). Admittedly it's often difficult to determine when/if a child really does feel guilty, or just upset at "having been caught" but when it's obvious someone has learned their lesson I think "punishment" is unnecessary. I suppose if you are of the philosophy that punishment is "payment" for a crime, something like karma, you'd have a viable argument against me in terms of your own world, but I'm of the general persuasion that the point of discipline is to correct behavior-- and if it's already corrected before punishment is administered (you know, by merits of the natural laws of the universe) . I mean, if after you forbid them to a kid touches the stove, burning their hand kind of takes care of the whole punishment thing. Trust me, they're not going to touch it again-- and you freaking out about it is only going to give them a complex.
Denying or diminishing other people's feelings. Just because you don't feel sad/hurt/angry, or don't think you would feel sad/hurt/angry in my position, doesn't mean that I don't or that I don't have a right to. I can't control how I feel, and you telling me that I don't feel a certain way (what, my tears are actually a delusion I've created for myself?) or that I shouldn't doesn't help anyone. (If I can't even control how I feel, how can you even stand a chance?). This includes "You shouldn't feel so[feeling]," or "I don't understand how you can feel so [feeling]" with the implication I oughtn't. If you really cannot empathize with how I am feeling, at least just accept my (or anyone else's) emotions as fact and move on with a solution or something, rather than getting hung up on how I do not comply with your platonic ideal of a reaction to a situation.
kimchi
Scarlett Johansson
SmartBoard
American Apparel
Twitter
typhoons in Japan
Gaman, or sucking it up/"just deal[ing] with it" (both in Japan and the US!)
Pet Peeves
Hoverers, particularly those who do not clean up after themselves and therefore create the need to hover in the first place. Hoverers are the females who squat over public toilets instead of just putting toilet-paper down and sitting on them, consequently getting the seats covered in pee and leading to more hovering. You are not a man. You are not in Asia. Put some freaking toilet paper (or, you know, one of those paper covers they so nicely supply for you) on the seat, put your butt on it, and move on with your life. I swear, you will not get HIV. The toilet seat is too cold for germs to survive-- and it's not like you eat off your ass, anyway. And if through some irrational phobia you absolutely have to hover, at least CLEAN UP YOUR PEE AFTERWARDS.
Wet jeans. How can anyone stand them? They chafe like whoa and take three years to dry. I wear skirts and leggings and other types of pants any day I think it will rain to avoid this.
Wet footwear. Canvas sneakers+rain=no. Squish squish squish. Cold. Chafing through socks. On rainy days I like boots, flipflops, or even crocs. Or barefoot. Anything but cold, wet, claustrophic feet.
Snifflers. These are the people who just keep huffing back their snot into their head in complete defiance of gravity and the intention of the snot. JUST BLOW YOUR GODDAMN NOSE. I don't know if you think it's better for the environment or if you're just lazy, but can't you realize you're pissing everyone else off? I try to be nice about this; I'll offer people tissues but you'd be surprised how many people turn me down. Huh? Do you like having to repeatedly suck lukewarm olfactory refuse back into your nasal cavity? I was so glad I saw a Dear Abby column that condemned this the other day; this is considered officially rude, people, and is not just me.
People who tip their seat all the way back on airplanes (and then bitch at me when I bump their seat in order to get out to use the bathroom). I don't care if they make the seats to recline-- just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to always go ahead and do it. I don't know whether some airplanes are particularly excessive about it or I just get stuck behind the broken seats, but sometimes the seats recline so far the seat is practically in your lap; you can literally see the other person's head. (I've always kind of hoped Neil would happen to vomit on one of them). People always try to tell me, "Oh, well just tip back your seat; it fixes everything!" Um, no, it doesn't. First off, people in the exit and back rows often have seats that either don't go back, or not as far. And even those in the normal rows can have difficulty using their tray tables or getting out of their seats, even with their own seats pushed back in compensation. Instead of a normal rectangular space, I have this weird sheer area which is not horizontal enough to help me sleep and actually is more uncomfortable for reading and watching movies-- and is really difficult to maneuver in and out of. Anyone with long legs or a larger frame is basically locked in place for the duration the flight. It's particularly ridiculous when the person in front of me gives me flack (if I could count the number of death glares I've gotten . . . ) for bumping their seat when they're forcing me to do the limbo just to get up to pee. If I'm on an international flight, I'm going to need to pee sometime, and someone makes it so I have to inconvenience them to do so, they have no right no complain when I do.
Oscillating fans. When I want my hair blown, I will sit in front of the fan. When I don't want my hair blown, I will sit out of the range of the fan. I never want the fan to decide for me when and if my hair will be blown. Also, if there's any loose object in the room lighter than an ounce, it's not going to be stable. And if I didn't want loose objects in my room to be stable, I would get an anti-gravity machine.
Attempts to imitate foreign languages by noises alone. I don't expect everyone to speak and understand every language, ever, but what use ever is there in just pretending to speak it? Everyone-- even non-speakers, trust me-- can tell. It just screams ignorance and . . . well, stupidity. There was a short-form game we used to play in my high school improv club that I absolutely hated: someone shouted out the name of a country, and two performers spoke in gobblety-gook that was meant to resemble the language while two performers offstage "dubbed" them in English. I thought it was extremely ignorant and culturally insensitive. (The least we could have done was made up the names of the countries!). I get very, very sick of people who, upon discovering I speak Japanese, blurting out some random "Chinese"-sounding syllables: "Wung chung chow mein fat fuck. What did I just say?" Um, not only is that ridiculously culturally insensitive and stupid, Japanese isn't even a tonal language and doesn't sound remotely like that. And, um, neither does Chinese, honestly.
Most people accept that racism in the form of excluding a race or preferring your own race is politically incorrect-- but many people don't seem to realize that preferring a race outside your own for the sake of dating is still racist.
For instance, it's one thing to be attracted to many women who happen to be Latina, but it's quite another to specifically pursue Latina women as a general group to the exclusion of all other types of people. If you can say, sight-unseen, that you would prefer any Latina to any black, white, Asian, or mixed woman, you are a racist. Women who are pursued as a racial stereotype are not flattered by the attention if they know the reasons behind it. For instance, due to the current trendy "Yellow Fever," I know many Asian women who do not date outside their race not because of parental expectations or cultural racism, but because they know that many non-Asians only want them for their race and will stereotype them without getting to know them first.
I am all for interracial dating and marriage, and I believe that if you meet someone you are attracted to and intrigued by, no racial obstacle should ever hold you back. But I do not believe you should classify potential partners under huge generalities and pursue them as a group. It is antisocial, it is creepy, it is upsetting to the object of your pursuit, it encourages cynicism, and IT IS RACIST.
A whole slew of grammar mistakes, including when people who use the word "literally" incorrectly (no, you did not literally "die of shock" if you're here to tell me about it) and when people who cannot differentiate it vs. its, you're vs. your, affect vs. effect, or their vs. there vs. they're.
Once upon a time, schools contained a lot of prayer. Teachers would lead students in a daily Lord's Prayer, principals would start assemblies with a prayer in Jesus' name, etc. Students could be punished for refusing to participate, because this was an order from an authority figure; refusing to pray was insubordination. However, it dawned on us at one point that not every student is the same religion, and so to demand students to pray according to one specific faith was unethical and counter to the tenet of freedom of religion protected under the First Amendment.
But now there are a lot of people who misunderstand "taking prayer out of schools" to mean that kids are forbidden to pray, rather than all-class or all-school prayer just no longer being mandatory. Schools do not forbid students to pray as they please. Students can and do still pray on their own. (Trust me, as long as there are tests in schools, prayer will never be absent :-P). Students can pray in their heads (who could stop that anyway?) or openly, individually or in groups. It is actually illegal to stop them. The only thing that is illegal now is for an authority figure to demand that all students pray, so that a student to get in trouble for not praying or not praying in a certain manner.
There are a lot of ambiguous issues that are related (Can a public school fund a religious club? If it does, can the club be exclusive about who can join? Can teachers participate or sponsor such a religious club?), and I'll admit they are sticky, but the issue everyone cites is really quite cut and dry: Students can pray when they want and how they want; they just can't be made to pray when and how they don't want to.
"Embarrassing Moments" sections of (usually girly) magazines. These are very hard to pull off in principle, simply because different people are embarrassed by different things, and I am never quite sure whether to react with amusement or empathetic awkwardness. Furthermore, most of the stories aren't even particularly embarrassing-- and make the rest of the world feel ill-at-ease for implying that they are. You farted in public once? Good God, if every single person wrote in to Cosmo every single time this happened, it would come out twice a day and contain nothing but Oops-I-Farted testimonials.
Tied in with the above, "funny" home video shows. Particularly when a show host or someone adds commentary. (Like-- the cat eating the kid's piece of birthday cake might have been funny-- you know, if you were there at the party, watching it go down-- but the little pun in there about stealing being a "piece of cake" pretty much killed any potential there might have been). But, mostly, the videos are oftentimes more destructive than funny; property is destroyed and the people come out looking more hurt and confused than as amused as the videotaper. I for one don't like laughing at other people's pain, embarrassment, and general misfortune.
People who judge music. I think it's very rude when someone tells another that they have "bad taste" in music. Who defines that? You can like or dislike a song, artist, or genre personally, but don't assume that your preferences generalize to an objective reality. There is a lot of music in the world in a massive variety. Why does such a great variety exist if not for the large range of opinions?
When people value television over other people. I can empathize with being irritated by unnecessary disruptions to a show, but I don't like being told to cut an important conversation short because a show is starting or asked to be absolutely silent in my own living quarters just because fucking Hannah Montana is on. (Can you tell I had an incident with this? And yes, the incident involved Hannah Montana). Particulary now that television shows are all but completely accessible online, there's really no excuse. As my mom used to say, "it will be on again"; important conversations, however, cannot be TiVoed.
Jealous girlfriends and whipped boyfriends-- particularly in combination. Come on, girls; trust your man just a little bit. If he's going to cheat on you, he's going to find a way; you really can't stop him, even if you are like a stalker in a relationship. (And then-- I know you've heard it before-- it wasn't meant to be, anyway). Being a harpy does neither of you any good; your lack of trust is just going to give him a complex and you an aneurysm. But whipped guys don't always have a bitch behind them-- and that's often the worst. The guys who choose to be nothing but the simpery boytoy of their mates until they maybe someday snap out of it. (Which, strangely enough, usually occurs sometime around breakup). The younger, fairer-haired brother of the absent-father epidemic is the absent-guy-friend problem. What girl hasn't had a male friend totally remove himself from her life just because he's gotten a girlfriend, and either under her direction or his own blind obsession does he feel guilty even talking to her? It's sick. Guys, your girlfriend is not the only girl who thinks you're important and wants to spend time with you-- and every girl who does isn't out to seduce you. (Whatever you might want to believe).
(I must note that I also dislike jealous boyfriends and whipped girlfriends. However, society generally agrees that controlling men with submissive women is a sick remnant of an old society and often considers it abusive, so I feel less alone with that one. Yet somehow when it's flipped, society thinks it's perfectly fine or even "cute." Um, no.)
Redundant punishment. Redundant punishment is when someone in authority insists on punishing someone who is already thoroughly chastened. For instance, a child is already in guilty tears over having done wrong, and the parent insists on scolding them and grilling it into them even more just how terrible they were to do such a thing-- and even throws in a time-out or a spanking or a denial of dessert, etc, to boot. Even more awful is when the child even comes to the parent of their own accord to confess their crime-- and still get in just as much trouble. (There's something to be said about all those parents in childrens' shows who say, "Well, I think you learned your lesson" and opt out of whatever threat was lingering over the storyline). Admittedly it's often difficult to determine when/if a child really does feel guilty, or just upset at "having been caught" but when it's obvious someone has learned their lesson I think "punishment" is unnecessary. I suppose if you are of the philosophy that punishment is "payment" for a crime, something like karma, you'd have a viable argument against me in terms of your own world, but I'm of the general persuasion that the point of discipline is to correct behavior-- and if it's already corrected before punishment is administered (you know, by merits of the natural laws of the universe) . I mean, if after you forbid them to a kid touches the stove, burning their hand kind of takes care of the whole punishment thing. Trust me, they're not going to touch it again-- and you freaking out about it is only going to give them a complex.
Denying or diminishing other people's feelings. Just because you don't feel sad/hurt/angry, or don't think you would feel sad/hurt/angry in my position, doesn't mean that I don't or that I don't have a right to. I can't control how I feel, and you telling me that I don't feel a certain way (what, my tears are actually a delusion I've created for myself?) or that I shouldn't doesn't help anyone. (If I can't even control how I feel, how can you even stand a chance?). This includes "You shouldn't feel so[feeling]," or "I don't understand how you can feel so [feeling]" with the implication I oughtn't. If you really cannot empathize with how I am feeling, at least just accept my (or anyone else's) emotions as fact and move on with a solution or something, rather than getting hung up on how I do not comply with your platonic ideal of a reaction to a situation.
Things Which Are Overrated
kimchi
Scarlett Johansson
SmartBoard
American Apparel
typhoons in Japan
Gaman, or sucking it up/"just deal[ing] with it" (both in Japan and the US!)
