Relationship deal breakers
You’re on a first date. He’s polite, he’s interesting, he’s easy on the eyes. But he makes slurping noises – loudly – over potato leek soup. Deal breaker? 
You stumble on each other through an internet site. Your email exchange is sparkling. You speak on the phone. She rambles. In an interesting way, but it annoys you. Deal breaker?
You’ve been together for two months now. The sex is good – very good in fact. But he’s quiet in bed. Very quiet. Even as your mutual music should ratchet up to a bold crescendo. And it bugs you. Deal breaker?
- He’s always late.
- She’s messy.
- He’s glued to his cell.
Do you know what drives you crazy in a relationship? Do you speak up? At what point?
Workplace interaction
Your boss picks you apart in staff meetings, in front of others. She doesn’t seem to behave that way with your co-workers. Do you take her aside and say something?
One long-time team member rides on the coat tails of others, gets away with it, takes credit where it isn’t due. It’s burning a hole through your stomach. What do you do?
- Do you know what drives you crazy in the workplace?
- Are you able to do anything about it?
- Do you speak up, or bite your tongue to keep your job?
Family dynamics
Your mother delivers irritating pronouncements with an angelic smile, and all too often, they’re hurtful. Even the compliments are back-handed. It drives you crazy. Do you say something?
Your two sisters have a pretty cushy life in your estimation – husbands who help with the kids, a comfortable income, someone to come and clean every week. But they pick at your housekeeping, at your parenting, at the fact that you seem frazzled and disorganized. You’ve had it. You want to say something, but don’t want to come across as envious.
Do you speak to your mother? Do you speak to your sisters?
Do you accept that certain things will drive you crazy and so you vent to a friend, a spouse, a shrink, but not to the one who is driving you nuts? Is it a matter of “appropriateness” or worrying about feelings? Is it a matter of context or timing that can effectively enable you to address an issue, or require you to sidestep it?
Etiquette, culture, behavior, feelings
If someone’s words or behaviors drive you crazy, how do you handle it?
Every culture possesses its own norms and etiquette. Every individual has a personal style, and personal preferences. It may have to do with table manners, sexual style, conversational give-and-take, hygiene or appearance, respect for parents or authority figures, and a hundred other possibilities. Each of us assesses what is acceptable or appropriate, and what isn’t. Sometimes we “judge,” outright. And quickly. Then we act, or choose not to act. Sometimes we walk away.
- Do you know what drives you crazy?
- How do you handle it?
- How well do you fare with differences in personal style, communication style, relationship style?
- Do you have strategies for minimizing its impact? Do you speak up?
I can usually tolerate people pretty well and have a high breaking point. However, when you go on a date, you are supposed to talk to the other person, right? I was on a date once and the woman just ate and looked around the room. I had to kick her under the table to bring her back to the conversation at one point. (I have told this story on your site before but it came up in my head again after reading this – kick me.)
And your story cracks me up, Steve! (Maybe she was sleep-deprived?)
Doesn’t matter who it is – child, teen, adult – I want someone who is talking to me to look me in the eyes. It drives me crazy when someone is talking to me but looking at their feet – or around a restaurant as in Steve’s case.
Speaking on behalf of all the people in the northeast part of America, I can tell you what is driving us all crazy at the moment. 😉
Yes, on a more serious note, I think cultural differences are huge, even within families. But the fact is that we are living in a more and more culturally diverse nation, and we’re just going to have to put up with some of those differences. I wonder which ones we’ll choose to find tolerable, and which ones we’ll decide are enough to sunder relationships.
Interesting. Thanks for getting me thinking this morning — I realize this took me in a different direction, so accept my apologies for straying.
No apologies necessary, Elizabeth. In fact, you took this in a fascinating direction. Much more than we realize is at least in part culturally determined, for example habits, mannerisms, communication style, body language. Issues of personal space (when standing next to someone and talking) certainly vary by culture. The extent to which one may initiate or lay back in conversation – as a woman, anyway – again, contains cultural elements. And Americans, if I may generalize, “judge” based on rapid and frequently superficial measures of a person (type of car you drive, clothes you wear, address of residence, square footage, overall appearance). Specific formulas of politeness are required in other cultures that we may not have here. So indeed, as we continue to deal with each other, a certain measure of moderation before we “decide” that something drives us crazy would be in order.
Add to this the individual nature of each person, plus their experience, and we could all be driving each other nuts – if we didn’t exercise common sense, take some perspective, and then choose what we want to do about it, if anything.
As for the snow, um… sending you non-snowy (albeit chilly) thoughts, from points south.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I am a practitioner of that ugly art of passive aggression. When someone annoys me, I react to it with stewy sarcasm. And I am also not above complaining about that person to someone else. As for confrontation, not really my thing.
Ugh, rereading that makes me realize that I have a lot of work to do in the transparent communication department.
I’m a firm believer in noting what annoys you initially, but not concluding anything. There are many reasons that people annoy us. Some don’t reflect everyday behavior, but may be a matter of a bad day, a poor night’s sleep, a headache, touching a raw nerve that we may not know about. So perhaps timing has something to do with our responses to annoyance in each other?
Confrontation is an interesting topic. Some do it easily. Some do it well in a professional context, but not personal. It isn’t something that we learn how to do. But I do think there is a skill (an art?) to it – how to confront issues effectively – so that you achieve your desired result, if possible. Now that’s an interesting discussion…
Deal breakers in relationships with me are people who belittle others to make themselves look better. Same sort of thing with business, people who use their power and prestige to hurt someone who is a really good person but is not in an equal position of power. Sounds like I’m talking about politicians!!!!
These are very interesting and important questions. When someone bothers me, I usually note it and do absolutely nothing. I guess I feel that by the time we are adults, personalities and patterns are kind of fixed and there is not much we can do to change them. As I write this, I feel like this approach is a bit pathetic, but I do feel like there are profound limits on the changes we can encourage in others after a certain point. That said, if someone I know well does something hurtful or annoying, I will point it out. I do not do well with letting things stew. Ultimately, for me it depends on how well I know the person and whether I feel like it is my place to say something. I will stop now as this comment is terribly inarticulate 🙂 Happy Friday!
It all depends on the person and the situation. In my marriage there is a lot of talking and a lot of embracing each other no matter what. Family and friend dynamics a bit trickier. If the situation can be helped by talking, then I usually do. If not, then I don’t. And if it is truly toxic to me and there is no action I can take to improve it, I usually severely limit my interactions with those folks.
As for work? Well, I work by myself at home. Chicken or egg?
Such a great post…and the whole time I was reading I was rooting for you, encouraging you to “tell it like it is,” – especially when you got to the mother/sister baggage. And then, I actually turned your questions on myself and thought about how I am with MY family. I’m a “stuffer.” I rarely speak out. I’ll distance myself and avoid – but never confront. I haven’t learned how to do that yet. But you go, girl! I’ll be your biggest cheerleader! (Then you can teach me how to do it!)
Oooo Jane. You used such a good term. “Stuffer.” I think women are “stuffers” more than men, generally speaking. We learn about pleasing and peace-making; we don’t confront directly, which we can learn, but oh-so-hard. And stuffing away what irritates us seems easier. Until it expresses itself in other ways (as Kristen said, passive-aggressive, or perhaps excessive eating or drinking).
as i’m reading this post and writing my comment, my ex-husband is in the next room watching spongebob with my kids and my daughter’s respite worker. he came to take my son sledding and then afterwards decided they would stop by with pizza and settle in for dinner. hell yeah, i know what irritates me.
oh, forgot to add he got some garlic out of my fridge and proceeded to start to cut it up to put on his pizza (yes, he has raw garlic on his pizza, remember we are divorced…) without asking. ugh.
Oh Amy… the “X” files and crossing the line… that’s a whole other post. Uh, and I don’t mean Emily.
yup. can you say, “time to draw the boundaries for the billionth time???” it was more difficult when we still lived in the old apt where he had lived, but there is no way he can claim this one as “his.”
I’ve lived this one. Galling. But exes are a special category of “drive you crazy.”
Oh, I’m so there with the X files!
The older I get, the less stuff people does bothers me. I see how things bug my kids, and I think, I used to be like that?? Yeah.
Fascinating topic, BLW. Here are my embarassing additions to the discussion: if someone bugs me, I call my best friend and try to get her take on it. I also try to see it from other angles and to remember that the whole world isn’t focused on little old me and maybe I’ve over-interpreted what was said/done (who, me?). But, in my family, here’s what we do: we all call my mother to complain about each other and then my mother, as a type of switchboard operator, filters the information out to rectify the situations (sometimes disastrously). But we never, never confront each other directly. That led to a lot of fistfights when we were kids.
Deal breakers? I think it serves to ask, “Is the person interesting? And, even more importantly, are they kind?” I’d say if the answer to both is yes, try to deal with the slurping, or lack thereof, depending on the context.
With mean bosses (and I’ve had my share), try to be the functional member of the dsyfunctional system. If you ask yourself what cosmic lesson is on your plate, and then master it (i.e. to always trust that people who feel good about themselves are generally kind, therefore the mean boss has impaired self-esteem and is parking their shit in you… but the gold is in the shit, if you learn how to hold it and not eat it).
True with mean bosses and difficult family members, one must learn not to take the bait and get agitated, as it feeds the need of the other to park their hurt, insecurity or rage in someone else. Smiling and not even aggressing in our minds, but rather telepathically saying, “I’m sorry you feel so badly about yourself, but I love you even though you’re miserable” is amazingly effective, if we can pull it off.
I know it’s hard to be Zen in the face of hurt, but merely trying for it is very growth enhancing… it doesn’t change other people, but it does change our own experience.
Finally, while people can argue regarding what we assert about them and their behavior that hurts us, inevitably being defensive and negating our assertions and our perspectives, if we confine our remarks to what we simply feel (and not what the other does), other people cannot really tell us that this is not how we feel. They can say that, but at that point you have clear evidence that a dialogue is simply not possible.
Even though the world isn’t fair, it’s still cool to be kind. Namaste
So much wisdom here, Bruce. Thank you.
I love this post, Wolfie. In my heart I want to be as transparent as possible, but of course that isn’t always possible. I have to adhere to the social stratosphere of the workplace so that I don’t alienate myself or worse, lose my job. I have to be kind and considerate of others’ inability to be quite so transparent. And to be honest, that last bit is taxing. I would rather just get it out in the open, ask the tough questions, be asked the tough questions. But that’s just not the way some people work. I have to respect that, and I most certainly do, but with friendships–and relationships–does it not interfere with our overall ability to KNOW one another (as we wish to be known)?
This is a rich, rich topic. Did you hear me? RICH!!!
Ah. I too do what Jane does. I’ve heard it explained as “gunnysacking.” You take the little irritations, stuff them in the sack on your back and say nothing. You keep doing that until the sack is so full that it explodes, and then each little item spills out in a flurry of confusion.
I do that. But I’m doing it a lot less…thank you, years of therapy! That said, I still suck at confrontation.
Relationship deal breakers: lack of ambition, insincerity, bad manners, bad teeth, bad hygiene, bad conversationalist, narrow mindedness, smoking.
I’m shallow like that.
I know what drives me crazy and I usually don’t speak up. I think I’m clinically non-confrontational. Different reasons for different situations. I also find that when any relationship is waning, be it friends or boyfriends, what drives me crazy is EVERYTHING. Then it’s time to walk away.
The tricky one for me is my mother. She doesn’t drive my sisters crazy, only me. I read a wonderful post awhile back on the The Fabulous Geezersisters. Ruth was talking about our mothers needing validation from us. I’ve thought about that a great deal and it has changed the way I deal with my mother. I don’t confront her, I just try to be more understanding. It’s a struggle but I think I’m getting there.
I’m with you, SimplyForties – I am non-confrontational to a fault. I usually come home and vent to my husband about what my coworkers or friends did to drive me crazy. I need to work on this – I want to be authentic, but I also want to be liked.
My pet peeve? People who talk too much about themselves. (I know, the irony – since I’m a blogger!) In a conversation, I prefer an equal sense of sharing, of interest in one another, of mutual respect.