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It's completely psychological for me (as in, not a medical mystery). I have a strong, deep-seated association between loud eating and inconsiderateness, because it's often unnecessary (ostensibly). Grossness is part of it, but that's secondary - more of a multiplier rather than being the core problem. It's about the perceived unnecessary-ness: Chewing with your mouth open, biting the spoon, vocalizing, slurping, talking with your mouth full. However, there are other reasons for these things: Cultural, physiological. One often probably doesn't even notice one is doing it. Also, if it doesn't bother you, you may not even be aware that it bothers somebody else (or have trouble sympathizing).

The trouble is willing myself into accepting these reasons. The thought "Why are you doing that. Don't you notice?" is nigh unavoidable. It takes conscious effort to not show signs of irritation externally. Sometimes I simply have to politely remove myself.




I have the same “unnecessary-ness” variant.

I have a misophonia response to dripping faucets but only if they can be adjusted and turned off. When I spent the night somewhere with a broken faucet, the pain disappeared once I realized it couldn't be fixed.

Ive been turning that over in my mind for years, trying to figure out how to apply the lesson to chewing.


Because at first you thought a person was responsible, and should have turned off the faucet, and you were indignant? Somebody elsewhere in the thread doesn't mind (in fact enjoys) the sounds that pets make when eating, which ties in: animals can't be expected to do better.

Here's a theory. Do you normally have thought processes going on that you enjoy, and that seem fragile, that is to say easily disrupted, so you have a precious attitude when somebody distracts you, like Coleridge's hated Person from Porlock (who ruined Kubla Khan)? I mean that's a shot in the dark, we all have different potential reasons to fall into the same bucket, but this is one of them. So, naturally, what I hate most is if somebody starts some kind of performance, because a performance dominates the attention by design. This could be an inane conversation near me, or at me, or it could be music. Even music I usually love can be deeply aggravating when I was hoping to maintain a different mood.

In your case I suppose you were trying to sleep, which is a similar situation of being precious about mood, detesting being disturbed.

Chatter and music are only the most obviously disruptive forms of noise, the attention-grabbing ones. So what's the connection between other people's irresponsibility, and the irritation cause by more trivial noises, ones that ought to be ignorable?

I think this is a case of feedback. The injustice, and the potential escalation, and the social difficulty in reasoning with the person, all cause cogitation. The cogitation makes the distraction worse! Now it's even more unfair! And so on.

To mention animals again, sometimes the dawn chorus aggravates me: but this is when I've been burning the candle at both ends - in which case the singing birds are reminding me that I've run out of time, and that I've been forced to accept factors in my life that put pressure on my time, and it's so unjust - a thought that irritates me, taking away even more time. And that is disgusting. Those idiot birds!




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