LAST week I wrote about basic social etiquette and received so many emails in relation. I mentioned that my biggest pet peeve was someone calling me more than once if I did not answer the first time. I received an email asking about pet peeves and why we experience them. I’m happy to oblige.

By definition, a pet peeve is a personal annoyance to someone that is particularly exaggerated and has a more negative effect than anything else. The word peeve literally translates to ‘annoyance’, and they are done by those around us, often those closest to us. A key aspect of a pet peeve is that it may well seem acceptable or insignificant to others but very irritating to you personally. If you want to know what your biggest pet peeve is, ask yourself what minor thing do you complain about the most that don’t seem to have such a negative effect on anyone else? They can be visual, audio or tactile.

I know it can have a negative effect on us but having pet peeves is very normal; it does not mean you are impatient or angry unless your reactions to them are over the top. If it affects your quality of life, then it’s time to do something about it. If not, learning to adjust and not overreact is the best solution.

Honestly, I’m the queen of pet peeves; I have so many that I’m sure I couldn’t count them if I tried, but what can I say? We can’t really help how something makes us feel, only how we choose to react to them.
In their collective book ‘Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us’, Joe Palca and Florence Lichtman explore the history of research behind pet peeves. They came up with the three U’s as a way to better understand why they have these effects on us. These are

1. Unpleasant: The annoying stimulus can’t be something we like.
2. Unpredictable: There’s no way to determine when the annoying stimulus will happen.
3. Uncertain Duration: It is repetitive and will continue for an indefinite amount of time.
Pet peeves annoy us so much because they are generally unpleasant, they tend to be unforeseen and we have no idea or control over how long they will last. Many studies examine what happens in the brain that causes pet peeves in the first place.

The Wellcome Institute and Newcastle University tested pet peeves on individual brains by subjecting them to very common pet peeves such as nails scraping on a chalkboard or people chewing loudly. They saw that the amygdala, the part of the brain involved with processing emotions based on memory and fear, was the most affected.

This posited a few theories. A key one is that memory association of bad feelings or situations create a long-term effect of irritation. Humans associate unpleasant things with negative or uncomfortable thoughts. For example, certain people may dislike certain words because past visions or illusions of disgusting things may have been associated with them and therefore deter individuals from using them. Once the word is connected with something of disgust, most individuals will always think of that unpleasantness when the word is brought up, thus creating a mental pet peeve. Once this happens and there is a bad connection, and there is often exposure, chances are the pet peeves are there to stay.
The study also collected some specialised data. The two most common pet peeves in the world are people who talk incessantly and people who often interrupt others. The most annoying pet peeves for women were also different to men. Women hated being interrupted the most, while men hated slow drivers more.
Other common examples which are also my biggest pet peeves include others being late, talking loudly on the phone next to me, people not acknowledging or apologising when they are wrong, slow wifi, people chewing loudly next to me, and people who look at their phone when I’m answering questions they asked me, when people walk slowly in front of me, when people stand up in a plane as soon as it lands, people who are passive aggressive or rude for no reason. Yes, all those things aggravate me daily and because they are so common, I’ve had to learn how to not let them affect my mood throughout the day.
I read something that was interesting and also humbled me the other day. I was wondering what people had to say about why other people talking on the phone around us is so annoying when we ourselves do it all the time. One author, Flora Lichtman, had an interesting theory- that human beings love closure and we are naturally inquisitive (fast) and hearing only one side of a story would automatically annoy us. She called it a ‘halfalogue’ and while it does fit into all of the 3 Us (unpleasant, unpredictable and uncertain duration), she still basically said it annoys us because we don’t know the full story. So, I guess minding our own business will ensure that we are less irritated.
But, like everything else, there are things that we can do to aid in our pet peeve frustrations.
The most important thing is to be aware and admit what your pet peeves are so you can avoid as much surprise as possible. It would also be beneficial to rate how aggravated they make you on a point scale. On a 10-point scale, everyday irritations such as a printer paper jam and traffic jam should be 0 to 3 minor upsets. Dealing with difficult people may raise it up to a 4-7 point scale, but no pet peeve should take you higher. If you try to deny that they annoy you, your reaction will probably be worse and, of course, if you can’t handle the 0-3 point peeves properly, the higher ones will ruin your entire day.
Address them when possible. If someone is doing someone that aggravates you, you should say something in the kindest, calmest and most informal manner. Here you have to know how to choose your battles, but if you do this, it almost 100 percent avoids the possibility of you snapping.

If it’s not something you are able to address, there is only one thing left to do, accept it. Understand and empathise with the fact that the majority of the time, people do not set out to aggravate us and persons and situations around us can’t always bend to accommodate our needs. It’s hard to empathise sometimes, believe me, I know, but the same people who annoy us are just like us- flawed human beings who probably get just as annoyed with us when we had no intentionality to do so.

So, what are your pet peeves and if you are already aware of them, can you now be better equipped to handle even the most unforeseen of them?
Thank you for reading and please continue to send column topics to caitlinvieira@gmail.com