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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Why can't people just be quiet?!

53 replies

Janey50 · 02/04/2017 18:42

Not so much an AIBU but just need to vent. I was sitting in my usual coffee shop and after half an hour had to move because of a girl on the next table's screeching laugh shattering my eardrums every 30 seconds. It wasn't just occasionally,it was every other thing she or her 2 companions said had to be accompanied by a high pitched screech of laughter. So I moved a comfortable distance away,only to have the woman on the next table start watching a TV programme on her tablet,with the volume up really loud. Haven't these people ever heard of earphones?! Am I just getting grouchy as I get older or do some people have absolutely no consideration of how their noise impacts on other people?

OP posts:
Elledouble · 02/04/2017 19:52

I have a slight tendency to be oversensitive about noise, but the family watching Peppa Pig out loud on an iPad on a train to London got everyone's hackles up. In the end a chap asked them to turn it off and got filthy looks from the grandparents who then made a point of telling the kids "no, no, the man doesn't want you to watch it".

Twats.

SaudadeObama · 02/04/2017 19:56

You're not being unreasonable. Although to be fair screechy-laugh girl probably isn't fitted with a headphone jack.

Gwenhwyfar · 02/04/2017 19:57

"Screechy laugh woman probably didn't realise she was bothering anyone: it probably doesn't sound loud to her,"

More likely she wants as many people as possible to hear her speak. Some people like to 'perform to the crowd' and I think they generally learn it from their parents in the same way that some people have conversations with strangers in shops etc. and others find it strange.

MargaretCavendish · 02/04/2017 20:05

I think that's possible, but a really unkind first assumption. I find that life's a bit nicer if I don't assume the most malevolent possible interpretation of other people's actions.

user1471545174 · 02/04/2017 20:07

YANBU OP, and as GloriaV said this was very much not the norm until quite recently.

STFU people, we are judging.

user1489261248 · 02/04/2017 20:07

Sounds like you may have misphonia OP. Nothing wrong with that and you can't help it, but you will ultimately find unnecessary noise more annoying than some.

I get irritated to fuk with

Constant dog barking
Children squealing
Loud music (particualry thum thump thump!)
People shouting and yelling
ANY noise between 10pm and 8am!

I do not mind the sound of...

Birds
Farm animals
Airplanes, trains, cars, motorbikes
Music at a decent volume (with no thumping.)
The noise of D.I.Y being done (within reason)

One of my neighbours - 2 doors down, was singing songs from the sound of music at full pelt in her garden, (last summer when I was in the garden,) and I loved it. But the next day our next door neighbour was playing an action film between 8pm and 11pm, and we could hear it at full volume through our wall for three hours. We could hear it from the other side of the house. Not acceptable imo.

A neighbour we had several years ago had adult kids and grandkids around all the time, (the kids who were 5+ outside school hours, and the younger ones more often.) And she had anything from 8 to 12 people (half were children,) around 12 hours a day EVERY DAY during the summers hols, who screamed and hollared the whole time. The adults spent half the day, each day, shouting and yelling, and screaming at the kids. How they were not aware how noisy they were is beyond me.

But yeah, some people have no CLUE who loud they are. Very annoying.

YANBU.

user1489261248 · 02/04/2017 20:08

The noisy family from hell are no longer our neighbours BTW, thank fuk.

supermoon100 · 02/04/2017 20:41

Noisy people I can tolerate. Noise from electronic gadgets - absolutely not. I always ask them if they have headphones they could possibly use. I've had a range of responses!

Gwenhwyfar · 03/04/2017 00:35

"I think that's possible, but a really unkind first assumption. I find that life's a bit nicer if I don't assume the most malevolent possible interpretation of other people's actions."

It's not really 'malevolent' to make a bit of a performance is it. Plenty of people are brought up thinking that's normal. You can usually tell when they're doing this because they'll be looking around quite a bit.

ExplodedCloud · 03/04/2017 00:53

I'm frequently heard bellowing "Everybody! Stop talking at me!" at home. I swear to god I'm the only person in possession of a functioning pair of ears. Devices. Telly. Singing. And then someone starts complaining they aren't being listened too...

Original poster
Janey50 · 03/04/2017 03:23

user14892 - I think it is quite possible that I have misophonia. I have fibromyalgia and apparently one of the symptoms is an over-sensitivity to certain noises,especially erratic,irregular, unpredictable noises. I find that a lot of the noises you have listed that annoy you are the same ones that annoy me. Likewise with the ones that don't annoy you. I live near a major,very busy airport and I can honestly say that the noise of the planes hardly bothers me. And like you,I once had the neighbours from hell. They made my life a misery for several years. Happily they moved away 6 years ago,to a place by the sea. And as Basil Fawlty once said, hopefull 'in it'. I've said that before on MN when I was ranting about them.Grin

OP posts:
KoalaDownUnder · 03/04/2017 03:45

YANBU.

Cinema last night. Fucking talky fuckhead woman behind me, giving her two cents' worth in normal speaking voice every 5 mins.

Camera pans across some scenery. 'Ooh, isn't it beautiful'. Yes, you tool, that's the whole point. But the rest of us big grown-ups are just thinking that in our heads. Which keeps getting interrupted by your stupid fucking commentary.

Can you tell this gives me the absolute rage? I just can't understand it. How utterly self-centred do you need to be to carry on like that?

Goldfishjane · 03/04/2017 17:38

Koala "Yes, you tool, that's the whole point"

I so wish you had said that out loud.

Mermaidinthesea123 · 03/04/2017 17:46

It's the same in the cinema, I have lost count of the times some arse has ruined the film for me. I told some woman to take her phone outside once as she was doing my nut talking on it all the way through the film and she had a massive tantrum, I had her removed by the ushers.
How I wish they had plug in earphones so you didn'y have to listen to all the crunching, laughing and chatting ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE GODDAMED FILM.
Me and my ex husband went for a romantic anniversary dinner once at a quiet country pub which was almost empty, seats free everywhere, it was obvious we just wanted to be together but this awful loud couple plonked themselves down right next to us just inches away and started trying to drag us non stop into their boring conversation.
In the end we felt the only way to get through to them was to be super rude so I said do you mind, we are celebrating our anniversary together and we'd like to alone.
They didn't budge so we made a point of moving all our stuff to another table but the evening was over after that.

Gwenhwyfar · 03/04/2017 18:02

I went to see a film in a foreign language. There were no subtitles because it was a festival, but this was made clear when buying the tickets. In one couple, one of them was translating everything for the other so whatever was said in the film was repeated in the other language. I gave a few dirty looks, but they obviously didn't care. I should have gone to get an usher I suppose.

GloriaV · 03/04/2017 19:21

I went to an Eric Clapton concert at the Albert Hall many moons ago and the woman behind talked loudly through it - hard to believe
She was talking to the person beside her but as I was in front it was clear and v loud for me- boo hooo
I shuffled a bit and turned round once or twice but had no effect.

Pigface1 · 03/04/2017 19:30

Agree with the OP. No one expects silence but I can never, ever work out what is going through people's head when they watch /allow their DCs to watch films/tv on an iPad without headphones.

A couple of years ago I was on a train going up to Edinburgh when a family a few seats in front let their child watch 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' on full blast without headphones.

Honestly, you could see the entire carriage wincing.

JonesyAndTheSalad · 04/04/2017 15:45

We currently have guests. A Dad and his teen DD. He usually lives alone and she lives just with her Mother.

The NOISE they make is amazing!

I'm really struggling. ONe of them opens a door and it's BANG! They get a plate out and it's SMASH!

They talk in a way which is more like shouting.

I do like them but I'm so TIRED!

Sciurus83 · 04/04/2017 16:13

YANBU. Other people are the absolute worst. No respect for quietude. I can't tolerate noisy eating/drinking, have been known to evil people across a train carriage because there is no way I should be able to hear someone chew from that distance. The horror of it.

Goldfishjane · 04/04/2017 20:15

When I was 11ish I started emptying the dishwasher if mum tried to do it. She's otherwise quiet but her ability to make noise with that was something else. She's almost a cat burglar in physical movement....weird.

scottishdiem · 04/04/2017 20:24

At this point in the thread people usually ask/point out they might have special needs.

Like headphones dont feel right or can only really communicate at one volume....

I never leave the house without noise cancelling headphones. Which works on my own but have seen DP and I scan a cafe to see where there are seats away from children, babies, bathroom doors and kitchen door before deciding to sit down. Only works with people there already though but its a good start.

livefornaps · 06/04/2017 09:59

I am a very nervous person and in the cinema I often do a lot of involuntary shrieking and wincing as I cope badly with tension/violence. Sorry all. Would never dream of talking during a film/concert though. Feel so sorry for the pp at the Eric Clapton concert - I would have had to have said something. Just chattering away through "layla". What was she thinking. Maybe she'd had too much "cocaine". Eh, eh?

Speaking of concerts, anyone else get the rage at people holding their phones aloft to take a crappy video they'll likely never watch again and thereby blocking the view for everyone else??

Cherrysoup · 06/04/2017 10:42

I always book the quiet carriage on trims, so I was appalled to find three mates sitting next to me who talked all the way from London to Edinburgh. I mean, you can't really complain, but I didn't want to hear about their plans for the house for four hours. I had headphones, but the wifi was too poor to let me watch a film on my iPad. :(

pirsonal · 06/04/2017 10:48

And it's always women that are screeching and braying like mad donkeys. Are they trying to prove that they are having a good time or what? Extremely annoying.

alltouchedout · 06/04/2017 10:49

I'm fine with big noise- I actually quite like it because I am weird but I cannot stand it when it's quiet apart from one small, annoying noise like a ticking clock or someone doing whistly breathing.

The worst noise I have ever heard was someone with squeaky dentures eating a sandwich. It was so awful that even remembering it now makes me retch a bit.