People like to have something they loathe. It’s usually something that, in itself, is not actually evil, not, say, serial murder or child abuse. No, it’s some technical violation of the social compact.

I don’t mean actively dangerous things, either, most of which involve driving (looking at phones, cruising through stop signs with pedestrians in the crosswalk, running traffic lights) or disease (coming to social events or refusing to follow hygiene while actively infectious) because to me, annoyance is justified in those situations.

Generally, it’s an innocuous violation that the person doing the loathing has, for whatever reason (upbringing, self-improvement project, long habit) decided is (a) voluntary and (b) deeply and innately infuriating.

I confess I have some of those myself. Chewing with your mouth open puts me in a state of unreasoning fury, for instance. Cracking gum (people don’t seem to do that as much any more, I guess because they vape now instead) is even worse. I also, for whatever reason, cannot keep myself from muttering “imply” when someone uses “infer” incorrectly, or vice versa.

Grammar, word usage, punctuation, and spelling seem to set people off especially. People join together to attack anyone who doesn’t like the Oxford comma, who spells “judgment” wrong, or who uses the grocer’s apostrophe or no apostrophe where one is indicated. I have read many a righteous screed online about things like that. Usually a number of the writers, oblivious, are making other, more subtle errors, or they have let autocorrect have its way with their writing. Although I was an English teacher and a voracious reader and can detect mistakes in an instant from across the room, errors don’t bother me. Language is complicated, and people are doing their best. If I loathe anything in this category, apparently, it’s pedants.

Noise of various kinds sets people off: music or Tik-Tok on the bus, or loud conversations. That varies from culture to culture, too; I remember how horrified a German friend was at how loudly we Americans were talking in the hotel restaurant in Germany. That is not done, she said.

Littering has probably caused a number of deaths, given that people often do it while driving. I know I have had a momentary urge to assassinate anyone who tosses their fast food trash out their window as they drive through my neighborhood. I sweep that stuff up, muttering all the while.

Personal hygiene is the worst topic, though, and the most arbitrary. I know that’s a controversial opinion. I don’t mean hand-washing, which is a disease preventive. I mean whether someone takes a daily shower, uses one washcloth for face and another for nether regions, uses deodorant, cleans their fingernails in public, blows (or wipes) their nose, or scratches. Related is how often you launder your bedsheets. Anything associated with the body is fair game.

I think it’s partly having to do with the way we were raised and what people yelled at us for when we were young. And it’s partly just how our brain works. It seeks irritation, cultivates it, and presents it over and over for justification.

And I really get irritated by that. Nothing is more likely to make me post a contrary opinion than people going on and on about the perniciousness of other people’s bad habits. Nothing. Which is pretty funny.