Annoying

I had a thought about human nature.  It has to do with people who are “annoying.”

When a person perceives they are failing to win someone over, or not connecting, often their reaction is to double down on trying to ingratiate.

They become desperate to find connection, shared humor, to offer something of value, anything, to try and repair this.

But this, to the annoyed party, only makes them more annoying.

In their fear and insecurity, the annoyer make the problem worse.

If you think you’re annoying to someone, you should back off.  This is what the annoyed wants, and it offers the best hope of eventual repair.

There might be a larger meaning here, that our frantic solutions to problems often make them worse.  When we perceive we’re causing a problem, maybe our first move should be to stop doing anything.  Withdraw, pull back, cool out, consider.  It takes great discipline to do this though, it’s very rare.

This perception comes from being on both sides, both finding someone annoying and feeling they kinda knew it and watching them overreact, and feeling more annoyed.  And from cases where I suspected I myself was found annoying, and how my urge was to “turn on the charm”!

I used Fran Drescher as a gif here because I feel like “annoying” was kind of part of her brand, but let me be clear, I don’t find Fran Drescher annoying, I think she’s cool, and one of the most gifable stars out there.