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?

So true. The pink cup for my Fil is all very light hearted. It's not malicious just a funny in joke really.

@Ozgirl75 I do a similar thing on my bike, except I don’t obstruct, just take much glee in the ability to overtake and weave in and out of traffic (safely, I’m not an arsey cyclist who gets in the way) and use my superior mobility and agility to overtake cars at traffic lights etc - purely when they’ve intimidated me with their driving, revved or otherwise behaved uncouthly. I once did this on my London commute to work and discovered to my horror that the Mercedes I’d overtaken six times belonged to my boss!

I do things to annoy DP on purpose sometimes, but only in a lighthearted way. If he's already in a bad mood, or asks me seriously to stop, I do.

I hold my hands up, this is petty nonsense on my part. But I do it anyway, and it gives me two seconds of pleasure so I'm not stopping.

Once a week at work, I have to write a report and send to management and a selection of colleagues. Everyone else, without fail, cc's in the order of seniority.

I really cannot stand my Deputy Manager, for very good reason (details irrelevant).

When I submit my weekly report, I always put her last on my CC list. So Senior Manager first, then departmental managers, then colleagues, then Deputy Manager.

I'm not even certain she can see the order, but it doesn't matter. I enjoy it for a couple of seconds.

If he seriously asks you to stop it is not lighthearted to him. I think you're underestimating how irritating it is.

This. If he has to ask, a line has been crossed already.

Such a bizarre way of thinking, “I’ll irritate you until you’re cheesed off, and then I’ll stop, aren’t I good, what harmless fun”.

I do it to DH sometimes. He's very particular about some things for absolutely no reason (like having cables curled in a specific way when put away) and he used to get quite stressed if they were wrong.
I've been messing these things up in very small ways for a long enough time that he's become more relaxed about it now, which we both agree is a good thing. Now we have a little giggle at it.

In a similar way, he is absolutely incapable of handing me a bar of chocolate without snapping it. Makes no difference whatsoever to the taste but it gives me a second of "oh ffs."

It's childish but there's no malice in it whatsoever.

I find it quite sad really because it suggests a pettiness/inability to deal with the actual crappy situation they're in so they make themselves feel better or superior for 30 seconds.

There are loads of examples on this thread with people unhappy about a situation or relationship and therefore pointlessly rebelling.

No, but I know someone who takes pleasure in doing this. I think it’s about making themselves feel important, seen, spoken about, as well as trying to make others as miserable as they are deep down.

its just such a really sad thing when someone tries to deliberately annoy others with petty actions, that their life is reduced to that, that they think it gives them some power or attention, and makes them more important.

it’s important to not be annoyed, and simply understand the person as some significant issues in their life.

But you realise in hindsight you just looked uncouth and lacking in any social etiquette?

That made me cringe. Spoilt the evening for everyone else at that table and showed herself up to be ill mannered and common.

"But you realise in hindsight you just looked uncouth and lacking in any social etiquette?"

I presume the point was that she didn't care about other people's definition of social etiquette. I feel the same about people quoting Debrett's as if ordinary people are bound by it.

Sounds like a good laugh to me. She didn't harm anyone else, the 'wrong' wine was going into her own glass so it's a breach of etiquette rather than ill-mannered. Most people are common and so what?

It’s the performativeness that’s cringe.

It’s perfectly fine to mix up wine glasses due to not knowing, but it sounds like the PP was so over the top, because she couldn’t handle an evening with people very different to her in a civil manner.

"It’s perfectly fine to mix up wine glasses due to not knowing"

But it's wrong if you do know and you just don't care??
You remind me of a friend who once complained about getting wine in a plastic glass at a party of quite a few people (before the environmental concerns about plastic). He told me a few years later that he realised he'd been a twat that evening.

Wine from plastic cups is fine for student parties, but at a grand event to use the wrong glass on purpose just to spite the others at the table is quite immature.

I’m not even a wine drinker but I know there is a reason which glass for which wine, so it’s just silly and attention seeking to do what she did.

"to use the wrong glass on purpose just to spite the others at the table is quite immature."

How does it really 'spite' them though? At most it pokes fun at what they think is important.

My son might have done this to his sister when they were younger. Seems about the right stage in life to be doing that sort of thing; you know, when you are young and immature and your life is very small.

Yes, you get it. I did it to look uncouth on purpose because I thought it was funny and I think fine dining etiquette is bollocks. I still think it was funny and I’d do it again!

🤣🤣🤣

Tbf, I say this, and I have four pairs of crocs, and actively encourage everyone I know to buy a pair 😂

But that’s not annoying anyone. Not even remotely, it’s just embarrassing yourself. All you’d have done is make them cringe.

That must be the one off the A316 in SW London if not the Yorkshire one?!

Why don't you just not go if you think it's bollocks? Don't spoil it for everyone else and go to mcdonalds where you belong instead.

I didn’t want to go! My boyfriend was involved in it in a way he couldn’t get out of and I said I’d go to support him. I was seated on a different table so had to make my own entertainment. He thought it was very funny when I told him what I’d been upto.