Irritated by an individual, and changing my perspective.

This may be a somewhat incohesive train of thought, forgive me if this post lacks structure.

I share a house with two housemates, one of them I get on very well with though I wouldn't quite call us friends. Nothing he does really annoys me at all our personalities seem to get on fine. My other housemate is a source of near constant irritation for me. She is quite self absorbed, talks at me constantly about herself and her problems and her day, and you try to reply with any sort of solution to her problems she will brush it away with some feeble excuse like 'oh that wouldn't work for me I'm different to you'. She shows no interest at all when you talk about anything, never asks how your day was. She is also extremely loud about the house though she seems compleatly unaware of it, constantly banging doors, cupboards, running up and down the stairs in heels having her tv on in her room loud until early in the morning. She is also in many ways a huge hypocrite, loudly complaining if the TV in the living room is slightly loud at a reasonable hour and other such things.

She is not in any way though a bad person, she is polite, occasionally thoughtful and generally quite pleasent, if irritating to me.

Now in the past I have contemplated revenge upon her in rather childish ways, banging the doors on purpose, playing loud music, slowly hiding all the forks over a period of weeks so she thinks she's going mad. But I have done none of them, Ive realised that revenge either large or small would not make me feel any better. It seems to much effort to even annoy her.

Neither I think now would trying to get her to change yield any relief, direct confrontation would only make dig in and become stubborn. Asking her to be quieter about the house for example wouldn't work, even if she agreed she is always so in her own mind that she would forget very quickly. I don't believe that people really change by being pushed, and I don't like pushing anyway.

The only way I see therfore of being irritated by her is to change the way I perceive her actions. I know logically that she isn't doing anything on purpose to irritate me or the other housemate, but I find it very hard to remember that when it happens, it's as if a switch is flipped in my mind when she does these things that turns on my irritability, like a conditioned response. I have tried litirally suppressing it, biting my tongue as it were to not let it bother me but it's difficult.

In no way do I want to be anoyed with her, I'd love to get on with her like a house on fire because she is a nice person.

I suppose what I'm trying to ask is, from the Jedi point of view, or any point of view, can I change the way I perceive her actions and words, to not have that switch flipped? Can anyone think how I might achieve this?

Thank you, and MTFBWY

i like that fork hiding idea.... :lol:

i have a roommate that annoys the hades out of me...i've simply learned to ignore most of his actions....for the rest i simply take a deep breath and let it go....

Hello DanielJ,

How does your other roommate feel about this situation? Have you talked with her about it? Perhaps the two of you feel the same way.

Use her answer as a means to judge your own perception. See if it is only you that finds the troubled roommate irritating. If it is, look inward, and consider whether the actions this roommate performs are truly the cause of your annoyance, or if there is a deeper underlying issue. Perhaps something that you channel your distaste for her through these smaller, although frequent, minor events.

On the other hand, if the problem is in fact simply the noise, the best way to deal with the situation is going to be a direct conversation. Do not approach the situation as a confrontation, but rather, a civil discussion in which you sincerely express yourself, calmly, honestly.

Don't make your roommate feel attacked. Ask for a resolution instead of demanding one. You say she's stubborn, so let her feel as though it is HER decision to choose to be quieter.

That is how I would advise going about the situation.

I hope this helps, feel free to reach out to me if you would like to discuss this more.

As Always,
~Lestaut

Lestaut had a great response. It is important that you be able to address this person directly. If you were to do otherwise, she could feel attacked. It's always better to know where you stand. If you are honest with her, you will have her respect however she handles in initially. A possibility for why she is behaving the way she does, is that she may have trouble focusing on things if hearing other things is a distraction. Someone with ADD would struggle with this. It could also be some form of hearing damage where she doesn't hear certain frequencies very well, while other frequencies are more easily heard. It could explain a lot.

if you want a suggesstion on how to reorder your own perception of the situation (as opposed to a suggestion on how to change the situation to something more agreeable to you) then i would say this

every time she irritates you it is the Universe providing you ith an opportunity to keep your own positive sense of well being in the face of mild irritation (and this sort of thing is mild really, compared to radiation sickness or kidnapping for instance)

the idea being that keeping your own mental equalibrium under these minor duresses will help condition you for the more serious difficulties to come

being able to keep a good mood in the face of things we dont expect and especially which we dislike is a preety jedi trick that doesnt get a lot of publicity but definitely makes life a lot easier

Thank you everyone for your ideas I really do appreciate the level of thoughtfulness

@OB1Shinobi
Thank you in particular that actually seemed to help. Earlier this evening she kept showing me random garbage from her Facebook she thought was funny, normally I'd just sort of grit my teeth and make that ' I'm not really interested' humming sound. After reading your suggestion though I kind of thought of it as the universe/force kind of cheekily sticking it's tongue out at me, and I actually smiled with amusement. Hopefully I can keep that view up.

One thing I wanted to mention about your roommate she may not be constantly "banging doors, cupboards, running up and down the stairs and in general being loud on purpose" I have dyspraxia, when I get up from the couch, open doors and cupboards I am pretty loud it's not on purpose it's my complete lack of coordination. I don't run up stairs though this is a bad idea and means I would be likely to fall down the stairs. There are other issues that could have similar results as well.

One thing I noticed about what you said, Daniel, is that you have not attempted a conversation with your roommate, instead simply doubting such a conversation would work. I agree with Lestaut. You don't actually know that it won't work.

Luke: "I don't believe it."
Yoda: "That is why you fail."

(I haven't read any of the replies so I apologize if I repeat someone)

Something you may try is speak with your other roommate. See if it's something you think you should be annoyed at or not. Honestly (depending on the level) I would be annoyed too. But I like my quiet

After that, hold a house meeting. Talk about it. Or if you'd rather do it unofficially and you think you can get through to the roommate you're having problems with, do that. Start a Roommate Agreement Contract (although I wouldn't go as far as Sheldon does in details haha) This'll alleviate the hypocrisy. "The living room TV will only be set to *volume* between the hours of X and Y. Between the hours of B and C, it will be set to *this other volume*." Set quiet hours, ground rules, exc exc. Since there's three of you, one can be the judge if there's a dispute between two of you. If you need to go this far, set consequences for rule breaking. Anything between extra (joint) chores to bringing home dinner or donuts, or extra long quiet hours. Or maybe a "Rule Breaker's Jar". $1 for a broken rule. When you have enough, order a pizza for everyone I'd say make it more 'fun' than strict where the consequences come in. You're all adults, no one is the mommy or daddy. Making them fun will make it easier to enforce, follow, and hopefully help alleviate disgruntled feelings.

Any conversation you hold, try to remember to be calm (the calmer you are, the calmer they will be) respectful, considerate, and companionate. I'm not saying you should give up everything and be miserable, but go in with an idea of what you're willing to surrender to peace and what you're not.

As far as the conversations between you two go, that's a little more difficult. I know when I have issues, I just want to rant about them to someone. This drives my husband up the wall because all he wants to do is fix things so he suggests fixes and all I want is sympathy. (and I'll go fix it later ) Maybe she's like me in that manner. Try making sympathetic noises next time and see how that goes.

If she's one of those talkers but never listens, I don' t know how to fix that other than limit contact. I know a few people like that. Annoys me but they are nice people. I just can't hang around them too much

Meh. There is nothing you can really do. Sure you can have a sit down and talk things out, but you've already described how conversations go. Do you really think that one would go any better? Besides, you might have a fantastic conversation, but within weeks all the things she never really even thought of before will creep back into her behaviour and you will be back at square one.


People can be annoying. I'm sure your annoying too, to somebody. Were I you I would meditate on that different perspective idea you had. You are the only one you can really work to change over time.