Do you do stuff to deliberately annoy others?

[EveSix]

Just read a comment on a different thread where a poster stated that as they realised other posters found a particular action irritating (something quite inconsequential, but annoying to some), said poster said they felt inclined to do this thing more frequently. A subsequent poster immediately agreed.

It doesn't really matter what it was (but for full disclosure, it was about MN quoting etiquette) as this thread isn't about that, but more generally: do you find that you purposely do things because you know it annoys or irritates others? If so, what is it about for you?

I'm not talking about things which are necessary for you to do but which may disturb someone else for instance -like get up for a wee in the night-, but things which are of no consequence to you, but which you might go out of your way to do because you know a specific person will notice it and feel aggrieved.

DP couldn't give two hoots which way the looroll goes on, but because he knows I like it a certain way, he puts fresh rolls on the opposite way. Just because.

In my workplace, one cleaner knows the caretaker does a particular task in a certain order, and deliberately does a seemingly insignificant thing which means that, once a week, the caretaker's routine is disrupted. Just because.

I can't wrap my head around it and am really curious as to what the motivation is?

Quite mad. It's really a form of bullying.

I wonder what she was like at school?

@Milkshakeandcream fair enough. I’m really trusting and tend to miss red flags but that sort of thing is a very obvious sign that I need to keep a wide berth! A mixture of “testing” people and spite, possibly?

@Milkshakeandcream I'm going to hazard a guess that there's underlying beliefs and values for those things. The veg/vegan thing, how do they even retain friends to do that? Nobody would do it more than once to me. Encounter all the time people who want to waffle or rant like they're an expert dietitian that they're not, I find that weird. It's fine to not be certain or ask questions about stuff

This is a nice change. Often these threads seem to fill up with people saying actually really nasty things they've done as though they expect loud acclamation for doing them.

I work with a couple of people like this. You can guarantee that if someone said "I'm cold today", they'd suddenly feel the need to go round and open every window, pretending that it was totally innocent, even though they themselves are sat next to the window and turning blue with cold.

It's passive aggressive behaviour isn't it. Pure and simple.

Always feeling the need to get one over on someone just for the hell of it.

Probably comes from unhappiness and being very insecure.

With that she wouldn't have told the vegetarian she'd done it. So they'd have never known but in her mind she's 'shown them'.

Other stuff is done playing innocence. But she's told me stuff she's done. She just thinks it's funny. They annoyed her by hinting to leave therefore she stayed as late as possible.

Some people seem to think it’s funny. As in entertaining to them and to others, a kind of teasing. I don’t get it, so they think I’m humourless.

Yeah, its something for sure. I think the worst kind is when the person doing something doesn't acknowledge or understand the real root of their behaviour. I'm sure some people might well be "wrong uns", as some people say, but I think most bad behaviour is rooted in an internal problem or maladaptation. The lizard part of the brain that will maintain any habit they've learnt which achieves, or seems to achieve, a goal as long as it doesn't kill them

Honestly it's all in good fun. I just find it ridiculous that he will go out of his way to not use the pink cup. All the cups are the same shape and size it's only the
Colour that different. I'm sure he knows I do
It too. We do get in quite well really.

I actually have irrational thoughts about doing bad things like opening the car door to hit a pedestrian, or feeding my vegan son meat, or telling a cashier to switch to a less customer facing roll.

I plan to fuck shit up if I ever go into a nursing home, like switching the false teeth and cling filming the commodes.

In my defense, I like many others, spend all day, day in day out, doing shit for others, I think doing something bad on purpose could be thrilling!! (I won't though)

Milkshake, your acquaintance sounds unhinged. I think someone like her would be at the far end of the spectrum of people who do this kind of thing. "...but in her mind she's 'shown them'." sounds really sinister.

As Spookehtooth suggests, I think it can be a maladaptive strategy for expressing disagreement or dissent or to reject perceived attempts at control.

A PP used the word 'glee' to describe her FiL's (?) expression when deliberately setting out to irritate someone, and this is the bit that I really don't get. Ditto teasing ‐I get absolutely zero satisfaction out of doing things which disrupt, disturb or inconvenience others. But quite a bit of 'old school' comedy will feature 'cheeky' wind-ups and pranks ‐there is clearly an audience with an appetite for it.

@EveSix I think the differentiator is when you stop. If it’s good-natured teasing and I’m playing along, I’ll play up to it and it’ll all be in fun. The difference is that the acceptable form of that is that the second you show signs of distress or annoyance, it stops. Like you, I can’t imagine anyone taking pleasure in actually annoying someone else.

No. It's so small minded.

Sometimes I have a choice to do things A or B. I really don't care if it's A or B, but someone I know who is otherwise annoying me, probably by being controlling, will really want A, or insisting B is wrong. I don't agree that B is wrong. Fuck it. I'm doing B because I'm sick of them going on about it.

I used to work with someone who would deliberately tell people the wrong way if they asked for directions, and yes, took glee in doing it. If he could make someone's day worse, at no inconvenience to himself, then he would.

I got to know his ex after I Ieft that job and unsurprisingly, he turned out to have waged an extremely nasty harassment campaign against her after they split up. He was the one who ended the relationship, so I don't think it was revenge for her leaving him (not that that would have been an excuse). He just really enjoyed making her life miserable.

No, I never feel the need to upset other people. If I do, then it's accidental.

I can't understand why people would do this? Being rebellious isn't a reason. I've been rebellious all my life and I've never done anything to intentionally piss someone off.
I've never had a fear of authority because I've had confidence in my own views and actions, which were rooted in fairness and calling out what I considered absurdity.
Theses kind of actions are reflection of pettiness and people who feel powerless.

No this is next level and plain nasty. It’s one thing to order yourself a rare steak if out for dinner with a vegetarian (for example, would also be petty) but rubbing meat on their food? No that goes beyond doing something that’s petty but ultimately harmless like the loo roll example or me wearing the cardigan my ex hated. There are levels to this stuff and this crosses a line.

I'd argue that having an issue with the way a toilet roll goes on the holder in the first place is pretty bloody annoying.

If I’m driving at the speed limit or just above and some twat is tailgating me, I’ll always slow down to just under the speed limit. It’s probably 30% to protect my stopping distance but 70% just to annoy them. I don’t go crazy slow or anything, just basically drive slightly slower than they would like to punish them for being an arse.

I would also give the FIL the pink cup.

I don’t do anything annoying to people I know (not on purpose anyway).

allhell, the irony hasn't escaped me 😉.
But in my mind, it's because the back of our toilet roll holder seems to 'attract' the paper, so if it's fitted with the end hanging down the back, I have to actively 'grasp' it from where it hangs flush with the back of the holder. Whereas if the end falls down the front of the roll, dangling in the air, it's easier to just pull.

Maybe we need a vertical holder.

Peace and unity restored.

@Cecil - My mum’s like this. She does it to be awkward and provoke a reaction because she wants to be the centre of attention.

At the opposite end of the scale, back in the old days when phones were attached to their bases with a curly wire, my bugbear was if the curls were kinked the wrong way. The guys I worked with discovered this random fact. Cue my phone wire being eternally kinked. Cue my "revenge" of plugging their keyboards into different machines (there were 4 machines all back to back in a square).

There’s definitely a difference between having an “in joke” and it being fun/banter and everyone has an eyeroll and laugh about it and another thing entirely when it’s done out of malice and the "doer" gains some sort of sadistic pleasure out of knowing they've upset or pissed someone off.

No I certainly don't do that. It isn't funny or clever. But on your original point, MN attracts trolls and troublemakers, so it isn't surprising that we see people jumping onto threads to deliberately wind people up.