Is "Annoying" a Personality Trait?

Grammatically, "to annoy" is an active verb, and "to be annoyed" is a passive verb. I think we need to start seeing it the other way around.

Think about things and people you find "annoying." Their intent is never "to annoy;" their action simply feels annoying to you. For example, in my last post about me singing at the party, the action I had chosen was "to entertain others," or "to make others laugh," but to the party's host, my action was simply "annoying."

The problem with people who use this word is they never say, "Your behavior is annoying to me." They simply say, "You're annoying." They take that feeling, their feeling, and claim that's all you are, not just to them, but to the whole world. Something that should simply describe how you are perceived by one specific person at one moment in time has now become a personality trait that defines you.

At the party in high school (recounted in my last post), I didn't force others to listen to me sing. Nobody asked me to stop singing. Nobody left the room because I was singing. Yet I was supposed to pick up on an unspoken social cue that "singing for no reason is annoying." Note: not "it annoys me, the birthday girl," but rather "it's annoying," implying that everyone feels the same way; she's just the one who had the courage to speak up.

Social media is always awash with comments about "annoying" celebrities. These celebrities' actions have no effect on our lives, but we complain about them as though they are a threat to everything we hold dear. Rather than simply disliking Kanye West's music or Kim Kardashian's reality show, people on Facebook wish death on them and their child.

People who do this are usually compensating for something. They see today's celebrities as inferior, perhaps sometimes for legitimate reasons, but they also see themselves as inferior. They can't say, "I'm a better musician than Kanye and better-looking than Kim Kardashian. Why can't I get a record deal and a reality show?" They know that would be dishonest. So instead, they sit behind the scenes, touting their superiority by ranting, "UGH, can Kanye and Kim just STOP already?" The ranters on Facebook generally aren't talented, aren't famous, aren't attractive, aren't athletic, aren't wealthy or accomplished, but they take solace in the fact that they aren't "annoying," either.

There is a difference between "to annoy" and "to frustrate." The teenage stranger you see at the supermarket with saggy pants is "annoying;" your teenage son who sags his pants is "frustrating." With the stranger, you don't like his fashion choices, but they have no direct impact on your life. You can choose to ignore, or you can choose to criticize a person you don't know. With your own son, it does affect your life. His teachers, his future employers, his college admissions deans will make assumptions about him, and even if you know those assumptions aren't true, you don't want to set your son up for failure. So you tell your son to wear a belt when he leaves the house, and as a result, he gets into college, gets a job, gets his own home, and lets you live out your golden years in peace.

If someone finds me annoying, I put that on them. If someone finds me frustrating, I put that on me.  I reexamine what I am doing and try to make a change. People get annoyed when they feel inconvenienced, but if they've gotten frustrated, it means they actually care about my well-being, not just their own.

The verb "to annoy" assigns motive to person's actions where there often is none, and it can be used to describe virtually any type of action, depending not on the person doing the action, but on the person doing the labeling. If they want to find you annoying, they'll figure out a way.

...and when they do, it frustrates me.