Eating on the phone

[Icehockeyflowers]

This is my first AIBU but its not the first time this has happened and I am really enraged at the moment.

I have to phone an elderly relative every couple of weeks. Every second time I phone, this person is either eating a sweet (sounds like a boiled sweet and hitting it off their teeth and grinding it) or eating food when I call.

From experience, I have learned to ask if they are eating so I can call back when they have finished but they always reply that they are not, even though they clearly are. Or they reply 'just a sweet'. Now for an ordinary person, a sweet is eaten within a minute or two but this person can make it last ten to fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of chewing and hitting it off their teeth.

I avoid ringing at meal times. I ring at odd times to try to catch this person when they are not eating. But every bloody time I ring they are eating or even worse begin eating while I'm on the phone.

I rang this week after 9pm. The phone was answered and I mistakenly thought the person was eating a sweet. Eventually after ten minutes I couldn't stand it anymore and asked 'Are you eating a sweet', to which they replied' 'No. I'm eating cream crackers'. WHO picks up the phone and eats cream crackers while on the phone.

I'm annoyed and tired of it. Its literally ten minutes a week. If I say 'maybe you can call me back when you have finished' the standard reply is 'oh I'm finished (when they clearly haven't) but they won't ring me back anyway but will get the hump that I didn't stay to make small talk.

Should I suck it up? It is only ten minutes a week. - YABU.
Its rude (but the person doesn't think or care its rude) - YANBU.

When I hang up the phone, sometimes I can barely contain myself. I end up shouting at the kids. I'm peri menopausal and I am finding myself getting more and more worked up about about this and then angry at myself for not controlling my temper.

Oh god, my mother does this. She insists on chatting through it, and she's the kind of person who could talk the hind leg off a donkey (our phone calls are usually two minutes of me talking and then an hour or more of her holding forth while I just go "uhuh" "ok" "yep" while playing solitaire on my phone).

She eats at completely unpredictable times too. Lord knows why she's incapable of ringing me back after she's eaten.

It cuts right through you.

Doesn't bother me in the slightest. She didn't have to answer, but she did, just to speak to you!

I would suck it up in this case but keep the call as short as possible.
We don’t know why they are doing this, maybe to annoy you but the more obvious reason is that they are eating sweets all the time. Are they trying to give up smoking by any chance?
You can’t reason with unreasonable, just do your nails at the time of the call or make yourself a cup of tea and drink it. Reward yourself afterwards.
Don’t plan to change them - you will fail. Just plan to make a call for checking.
Be glad that you are not FaceTiming, it’s the worse!

You need to learn to take a hint. This person doesnt want you to phone. She eats when you phone, to annoy you. & if you hang up, doesn't call you back. Very obviously ok, I think. Leave her alone - thats what she wants. If she needs you she will call you. For all you know she finds your regular calls overbearing. So you're both annoyed with each other aren't you.

If I don't call, I'm accused of not bothering with them/never hearing from me/they 'could be dead or alive'. But I do care and want to say hello. They are in their mid 80s, they are grumpier with each passing year (like I am I suppose), and will complain that they don't hear from me but I can do what I like. Its a no win situation.

It honestly is no joke. I feel it really impacts me. I was working one day in quite a stressful situation and a man was chewing gum in my ear. Everything I was looking at was a blur, my heart was racing, I couldn’t think or process the information. Thought I was having a panic, it is a sensation beyond being annoyed.

Eat a packet of Kettle Crisps (or any other extra noisy crisp snack) when you call them. So your own crunching muffles theirs.

This would drive me up the wall too. I feel for you.

Could they have ill fitting dentures? I know what you mean about eating noises. But everyone has to eat. Discouraging an elderly person to do so might not be a good plan. It sounds daft but maybe they can't eat normal meals easily and suck sweets constantly for energy?
I suppose you'll have to suck it. Like they do. Lol.

They never stop eating! They are supposed to be on a healthy heart eating plan but they eat constantly. Cornflakes and sandwiches are other favourite things to eat when on the phone. Any and every time I ring they are putting something into their mouth.

The boiled sweets are crunched and grinded, then sucked. The toffees are chewed. I never say hurry up and swallow them because I'm afraid they'd choke on them and they wouldn't stop if I asked anyway. I have often said that I couldn't hear them properly or understand them because they are speaking with food in their mouths. They just repeat it over and over - still chewing, still sucking, still grinding.............even pausing to swallow the food and take another bite before continuing!

But I think if they were eating yoghurt, they'd somehow manage to chew it and make noise they never eat yoghurt

@Icehockeyflowers gawd, cornflakes! Why do they eat so much. Lol
I had an image of this frail person who might have issues, sucking sweets for nutrition. They're having five course banquets!
Text relationship only?

Are they lonely and eating out of boredom?

The sound of people masticating makes me so irrationally mad. It really is enraging like you say.

TBH I would have stopped calling.

My heart rate is going up just reading this.

Go to the Drs, your relative is old, you are lucky to have them, most old people do this and don't shout at children they've done nothing wrong.

Honestly - stop phoning them.....
They don't seem to appreciate it, you get nothing out of it.....
Drop them a text once a week - it's something, and if they want more, they can ring you.

Be a bit selfish - you have your own family. Concentrate on them xx

It doesn’t bother me when people do this. I do hate eating noises in general, but over the phone… I don’t know, I suppose the sound doesn’t carry with anyone I know, but they aren’t speaking with their mouth full or eating with their mouth open. Then again, my phone calls aren’t ten minutes long - had a four hour chat with a friend while doing housework the other day, so if they’re willing to chat to me for that long, it’d be a bit unfair of me to moan about them eating. 😂 (I no longer live near some of my close friends, so it’s our alternative to a proper meet up.)

However, it obviously bothers you, so I’d just say, “Oh you’re eating, let me call back later.” I don’t think it’s disrespectful, but I don’t call people for a chat who I’m not close to, so I don’t know if I’d feel differently in that instance.

but will get the hump

I don't get this? Hump?

I was about to write the same, misophonia is a very misunderstood condition and the distress in causes is underrated.

I went to a Chinese restaurant with a friend once and she brought her teenage daughter. They know how much I struggle with misophonia and my friend is usually very sympathetic towards it.

Her daughter insisted on ordering prawn crackers and noodles and deliberately crunched and slurped away right next to my ear. She was over emphasising the noise so my friend asked her to be more considerate. Instead her daughter insisted I was selfish and ridiculous for getting annoyed.

I lasted 5 minutes and could feel the rage building, adrenaline was coursing through me and it was like the background noise was fading and her eating noises were becoming amplified. I was shaking and close to tears but then my fight, flight, freeze response (flight) kicked in.
I jumped up and left the restaurant and my food and walked out.
My friend called me later upset and shrugged it off saying teenagers are selfish but I overreacted.
I have eaten out with my friend several times and she was usually very considerate but her daughter was just trying to get a reaction.

Unless you suffer from misophonia it’s not easy to understand how strong the feelings are. It looks like pettiness or an overreaction but a lot of people find listening to these sounds painful and distressing.

In a very strange way I’m lucky my partner suffers from it too, we sometimes eat in separate rooms and can always be brutally honest if we are making noises that upset each other.
We were once sat on a train and I had a bit of a cold, DP suddenly snaps at me “OMG you are doing my head in! I wish you’d just stop breathing!”
English is his second language so he phrased it badly and everyone surrounding us looked over shocked, I wasn’t offended at all because I’ve said similar to him. I think a few passengers thought he was just wishing me dead 😂.

Can you send text messages instead? I could not listen to that, it's definitely an irrational hatred that gets worse with age. But there's also something so selfish about it, making someone listen to your eating. Uggghhh.

It sounds like the rage is a reaction to the whole person, not just their chewing though. The chewing is the focus but I would also feeling frustrated at the manipulation of them being deliberately annoying/provocative when you call but complaining if you don't.

It's like you can't win.

No idea what to suggest, except to keep the calls short and end them quickly if you are getting too upset. And continue to say, 'can you stop chewing in my ear?' or "I'll call you back when you've finished eating." If that doesn't work, get interrupted by some made-up distraction in your own house, and move to text messages if you can.

Eating in separate rooms sounds sooo relaxing. I would love this 😂

I can’t even stand the sound of me eating crunchy food. I love crisps but the crunching makes them so unenjoyable. Skips are good though…they just dissolve!

Same. Fuck this. I don't care how elderly they are I'd be saying don't fucking call me when you're eating it's completely unbearable.

My older DD has a habit - when she rings me, or I ring her for a chat - of putting her phone on handsfree, leaving it on the worktop (in the kitchen,) and washing the dishes, or cleaning the worktop, or putting the pots and pans away, (while we talk!) The clattering and knocking of her activity is SO annoying.

OR she puts her phone on the dining room table and starts sorting her filing, shuffling papers about, and screwing paper up, and opening and closing drawers! (While we talk!!!)

Drives me batshit! 😠Luckily we only speak on the phone once a month roughly. It's whatsapp, twitter, or in person usually.

But yeah @Icehockeyflowers I agree, someone eating on the other end of the phone is really annoying. Slurp, much, crunch, gulp, lip-smack, FUCCCKKKK OFFFF!