It doesn’t matter where - sitting on the couch in front of the TV, in an elevator, at the dinner table, or standing in line at the post office - if a person within my field of vision is eating noisily, I find myself going insane. Literally. We’re not talking a mild irritation here - an internal silent wish that the person would stop; I have to physically restrain myself from running out of the room, or, in the case of an elevator or bus, where a quick exit is less realistic, from screaming out loud in frustration. I can’t think of a habit that annoys me more in a person.
I have been afflicted with this intolerance for as long as I can remember. I am the youngest of four, and I recall as a bratty and spoilt five-year-old, I would threaten to leave the room (and actually acted on it) if my brother didn’t stop biting down on the spoon as if his life depended on it every time he ate soup. If I wasn’t only five years old at the time, and had greater powers of articulation and persuasion, as well as access to the then-non-existent Internet, I would have told him to take a leaf out of the Chinese book, and breathe in while sipping from his soup. According to the Chinese, this method prevents slurping.
Definitely the worst offences are eating cereal, munching on chips, slurping on soup, and chewing gum. I really thought that my violent reaction against noisy eating would have been something I would have grown out of by now, but no. If anything, I am even MORE intolerant now than I was when I was a child. I have more words at my disposal to lash out against the offender.
I am vaguely aware that this intolerance is not something to be proud of, and it is even quite trivial in the whole scheme of things, yet I wonder what it is that makes people eat as unabashedly loudly as they do. There are times when I even have to tell certain people in my life that I can’t watch TV with them if they plan on eating, and that kinda wreaks havoc on your recreational activities.
I’m interesting in hearing from either those who share a similar distaste for noisy eating (if so, do you know of a cure?) or better yet those who are noisy eaters themselves, who can help me understand what lies at the root of noisy eating. Is it your background? Your nationality? (I’m British, after all.) Your religion? (Just kidding.) Is it an emotional attitude towards eating that manifests itself once the food is in your mouth? (I know, I’m a freak.)
Before I sign off, I have to say that an interesting element of all this is that the only two people in the world who don’t disturb me when they are slurping or munching are my two little girls. But that’s probably because I am just so grateful that they are eating at all - they eat like birds - that I block out the noise. Hmm.
13 Comments
I am exaactly the same but worse, i actually cry at meal times i people are making noises and i’m not allowed to leave and eat alone. I’m only fifteen so i get forced to eat with the family. It makes me feel sick and shake, its kind of like a phobia… Isn’t it just absolutely horrible. I can’t even stand the sound of my own eating, but i can manage to eat quietly by letting the food mellow in my mouth. I don’t understand why people can’t just refrain from usuing straws, slurping, crunching, opening their mouths and (this one sounds silly but) breathing around me!
Ahhh i’m getting tense just writing this haha. Email back…any luck in finding a cure!?!
Amy
Amy, that’s awful. I totally hear you. I guess one approach could be, if you can’t beat em, join em, and eat as loud or louder than they do??
Either that, or when you do move out of home one day, invest in a really long table, so that you can be on the other side of the table.
Seriously, though, I really do empathize. People laugh at me when I tell them how much it bothers me, so it’s nice to know that I am not the only one:-)
I agree enirely. When I read your first paragraph, it was great to realize someone has the same feeling. And I beat myself up for it. I think, “I shouldn’t care so much about this.” I also notice it’s worse if I haven’t gotten enough sleep or for some reason am more generally irritable.
I don’t know if it’s something that needs a “cure”, which often implies we need a drug or something that can make us not care. I do however want to know why we have this intense irritation with it, and why other people don’t even notice. Hell, I’d go for just an effective way to communicate it to people without making them all defensive and offended.
Brian: Thanks for coming by. I too wonder why I am the one who freaks out at the table, while everyone else continues eating, happily oblivious. I feel pretty bad cuz my husband eats loudly, and I KNOW he is not doing it to annoy me, but it drives me insane!
Im so glad others feel this too, when it happens to me i feel like slapping the person doing it and punching anything within my reach, it really bothers me and i feel so vicious at times!
THIS IS BY NO MEANS AN UNCOMMON CONDITION.REST ASSURED WE ARE MANY.ITS IRRATIONAL THOUGH! IS IT MY PROBLEM? OR THE PROBLEM OF THE NOISY EATERS? THEY DONT SEEM TO CARE. ITS SO BAD WITH ME THAT EVEN THE SIGHT OF SOMEONES MOUTH GRINDING AWAY OUT OF EARSHOT TURNS MY SOUL TO A CAULDRON OF SEETHING HATE. AND I’M A NICE GUY! HONEST. I HAVE EVEN SUBCATEGORIZED THE VARIOUS SIGHTS SOUNDS ONE ENCOUNTERS IN DAILY LIFE, INCLUDING;
SLURPING-a tight-lippedmouth emmitting a short sharp ripping sound typically from soup eater
THE BLOW N SLURP- as above but with long introductory cooling blow
AQUA GULPING- liquid contents of mouth shooting down gullet at high pressure
THROAT CLUCKING-rare and hard to describe. you’ll know it when u hear it though
CUTLERY ON TEETH
FROWNING WHILST EATING
VOCALISATIONS OF ENJOYMENT
INNER SQUELCHING-closed mouth
FINGER SUCKING
I COULD GO ON.
ON THE SUBJECT OF A CURE, THERE AINT ONE. ONCE THOUGH I TOLD MYSELF THAT THE GUY BEHIND ME ON THE BUS WASNT EATING CRISPS BUT TURNING THE PAGES OF A NEWSPAPER- A SOUND I REALLY LOVE. IT WASNT IDEAL BUT IT STOPPED ME GETTING UP AND TWATTING HIM.
THE NEAREST I HAVE COME TO EXPLAINING WHY I HATE IT IS THAT IT IS A BEHAVIOUR THAT DISREGARDS OTHERS AND THE CULPRITS SEEM SO BLIND TO THE REACTIONS OF PEOPLE LIKE US.
I agree with everything here and hate it with a violent passion. Like Andre I’m a nice guy and will go out of my way to help others but once I detect the slightest hint of chewing I go to ‘code red’ in an instant.
For me it started at the dinner table with my Dad and brother the worst offenders and my Mum to a lesser degree. I’m not sure how old I was when I first noticed it, maybe 8 or 9 but when I did I took the initiative and told my Dad straight ‘Dad, can you close your mouth when you eat as it really bugs me’ to which he replied, ‘What? I’m enjoying my food!’. [I've just spent a minute clenching my fists thinking about that!!!]and is still an inconsiderate muncher to this day. As for my brother, he got a belt from me at the first opportunity and my Mum was and still is very sympathetic to my issue so ‘behaves’ nicely when I’m around.
I’m now 35 and my wife and kids are well aware so they are also sympathetic and at work I happened across another sufferer so we share the bond of hate together. There is a coworker who is absolutely the worst offender I’ve ever heard - he’s so bad he even munches water! How is that possible? To be honest he is a hell of a lot better these days after I have told him a thousand times to STFU when eating.
As for a cure I think we are all well aware that this is a psychological issue but feel like we need or have to live with it. I mean, we can all appreciate how it seems like a none issue to none sufferers and that such an incidental, intangible noise should stir such violent, hateful emotions.
The annoying thing (apart from the condition itself lol)is that AFAIK there is no current classification for the ‘condition’ so where do you start to look for help? It’s not a phobia as it instils a feeling of rage rather than fear. I would love to be free of it but what do you do? Go to the doctor? Where do you even start to explain it without him having you sectioned under the mental health act? The other issue is that the usual treatment for phobics is ‘de-sensitivity’ therapy and that scares the shit out of me as I couldn’t be held responsible for murdering whoever tried to de-sensitise me!
A few months ago I emailed a few hypnotherapy clinics detailing the issues and feelings I go through in the hope that was the way forward and received a couple of emails that were quite vague and mentioned being able to help in the inner rage side of things but not enough to make me take any further action down that route although I’m still of the mind that it would probably be the way to go.
Over the years I seem to have become less tolerant and will just stand up and get the hell out of any place I need to. A story about that is when myself and the missus went to one of the kids end of year play and in one scene about 20 kids had to pretend to be eating sweets (!!!I know!!!!!!). Well there they were all making extra loud noise (to get the point across - I know!!!) and my missus looked at me with a ‘please contain yourself’ look of pleading, dread and sympathy and I looked back with an incredulous look of ‘is this for real’ rising to ‘AAAARGH STFU’ and then it went silent and they moved on. So I’m sat there clenched, fuming and shocked that the bloody teachers would write something like that into a play and calming myself down telling myself that it’s over and calm down (why is it that after the noise abates you still hear it in your head, over and over?)
Anyway, after a few minutes I’m returning to a calmer state when they do it again! That’s it for me I shoot straight up and pace straight out of the building and have to stay out for 10 minutes trying to chill out.
That’s me anyway and I hope you can relate to things I’ve said.
I wish you all peace and quiet.
Matt.
Apologies for the long ranting comment above BTW but I’m glad to get it off my chest!
Matt.
I live in Oshawa Ontario Canada and work in Markham - North of Toronto. There is a major Chinese community here - i work for a very large IT company and there are many cultures in the building. I do not do to the cafe to have lunch anymore as i can’t stand the noise they make when they eat!!! I find it so disgusting and they don even care. It’s bad enough that they make no effort to speak English - they slurp, suck, grunt and all other kinds of Godly irritating noise!!!!
Am i racist? I work well with them - just cant be anywhere near them when they eat!!! - I feel so bad! I just want to scream - CLOSE YOUR GOD DAMM MOUTH!
I googled “noisy eater” and found this. I am not usually that bothered by other people’s table manners, but I have this Indian man sitting across from me at work who eats like a pig. He takes 5 hours to eat his lunch (yes 5 hours - not an exaggeration), which is usually soup (yes it must be stone cold). I quietly told him once that he is distracting as he eats noisly and he was receptive to my complaint but unfortunately thought it only related to his slurping. Now he still makes loud clucking noises (whilst nodding his head) with every mouthful and this goes on for 5 hours, he takes one mouthful every 5 minutes. What makes it worse is no-one else seems to be bothered by him.
I feel I have been tolerant with the fact he clicks his fingers and plays his music loud enough for me to hear, but this drives me mad. It’s the disrespect that aggravates.
He has 7 days left of his contract but I am not sure I can last out - should tell him again?
I am glad to find that there are other people with this issue. I have been “suffering” from this pet peeve for as long as I can remember. My entire family eats noisily and I am sure that it stems from some sort of irritation with that when I was little. I am a very nice person as well, but I sense extreme rage whenever I am within distance of noisy eaters. It is definately worse if I have no escape root. I think that there is an additional sense of rage added due to the fact that others seem oblivious to what is typically the loudest sound in the room. I get so frustrated that people can not consider the noise that they are making and the distraction that it causes. But, why are others not distracted? The worst instance I can remember happened in a college class that covered spanish art. At one point, the class was treated to an early nineteenth century silent film by Luis Bunuel. During this film, several people ate chips and chewed gum and slurpped coffe at such an astonishingly loud level that I thought my eyes would bug out of my head. It ruined the experience and infuriates me to this day. But my question was, how were others not angered as well? It was like watching an art movie with a score of smacking, slurping and crunching and even a burp. I can understand maybe people not noticing while they are eating as well, but how did they all overlook this? Was that room silent to them? My point is that the most frustrating thing about this pet peeve is that it is hard to realize that it isn’t the norm when it feels like it should be. I assume that if I walked around with a chalk-board and some forks and scratched it as people went about their business that they would not be able to drown it out. Even ones that don’t mind that scratch sound, would probably start to mind if I did it during that movie. If I had made any other sound, (a banging or a whistle) that loud I would have been asked to stop. But eating and coffee slurping at that level is completely overlooked.
I have also noticed that I can turn on other quiet eaters to the pet peeve, but they do not notice it until I point it out. It will slowly develop over time. I have converted two or three friends. I seriously think that as much as you could say that it is a psychological problem that it exists for me, it is also psychological that others don’t notice. I belive that most people would say a room was dead silent if asked because they would look for other sounds other than a person standing there chewing their gum like a cow. Others don’t acknowledge it as noise for some reason that I am extremely jealous of.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest!
I am glad to find that there are other people with this issue. I have been “suffering” from this pet peeve for as long as I can remember. My entire family eats noisily and I am sure that it stems from some sort of irritation with that when I was little. I am a very nice person as well, but I sense extreme rage whenever I am within distance of noisy eaters. It is definately worse if I have no escape root. I think that there is an additional sense of rage added due to the fact that others seem oblivious to what is typically the loudest sound in the room. I get so frustrated that people can not consider the noise that they are making and the distraction that it causes. But, why are others not distracted? The worst instance I can remember happened in a college class that covered spanish art. At one point, the class was treated to an early nineteenth century silent film by Luis Bunuel. During this film, several people ate chips and chewed gum and slurpped coffe at such an astonishingly loud level that I thought my eyes would bug out of my head. It ruined the experience and infuriates me to this day. But my question was, how were others not angered as well? It was like watching an art movie with a score of smacking, slurping and crunching and even a burp. I can understand maybe people not noticing while they are eating as well, but how did they all overlook this? Was that room silent to them? My point is that the most frustrating thing about this pet peeve is that it is hard to realize that it isn’t the norm when it feels like it should be. I assume that if I walked around with a chalk-board and some forks and scratched it as people went about their business that they would not be able to drown it out. Even ones that don’t mind that scratch sound, would probably start to mind if I did it during that movie. If I had made any other sound, (a banging or a whistle) that loud I would have been asked to stop. But eating and coffee slurping at that level is completely overlooked.
I have also noticed that I can turn on other quiet eaters to the pet peeve, but they do not notice it until I point it out. It will slowly develop over time. I have converted two or three friends. I seriously think that as much as you could say that it is a psychological problem that it exists for me, it is also psychological that others don’t notice. I belive that most people would say a room was dead silent if asked because they would look for other sounds other than a person standing there chewing their gum like a cow. Others don’t acknowledge it as noise for some reason that I am extremely jealous of.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest!
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