If I asked you to make a quick mental list right now of things that make you happy and things that make you angry, you might be surprised to find that it’s easier to name stuff you hate than the stuff you like.
No matter how hard we try to think positively, it just feels so natural to be enraged for even the mildest, most petty reasons. Having a great day? Oops, time to ruin your mood by working yourself up over someone walking too slow ahead of you on the sidewalk. We just can’t seem to run out of pet peeves to be mad about.
From relatively benign to just having the weirdest bones to pick with other people, here’s a list of pet peeves you or someone you know might have.
Pet Peeve #1: Talking About Astrology
Okay, saying that people hate it when other people talk about astrology is too simplistic. Astrology on its own is a fun hobby for a lot of people. Some of them might believe in it more seriously than others, but as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, it isn’t really a big deal.
As questionable as it is to ascribe entire destinies, traits, careers, and even choice of a romantic partner based on something as random as the time and place of your birth, it rarely causes any real inconvenience to another person.
In a way, astrology is kind of like a FLAMES game for people who like charts.
It gets less fun when the person you’re talking to has literally nothing else to talk about but astrology. “Oh, you’re such a Taurus!” or “Cancer, you poor baby!” come to mind as annoying things that astrology lovers do that make the practice a pet peeve for other people.
If you’re particularly unlucky, you might end up like u/keyboardstatic whose career was almost ruined thanks to numerology. Not the same as astrology, I know. But the kind of blind adherence to pseudoscience seen in this incident can turn an astrology pet peeve into a life-destroying threat.
The user shared that a woman had done a number reading for him and determined he was the most dangerous person she had ever met. Was it because he had a 7 somewhere in his reading and 7 ate 9 so she made a wild conclusion that he would eat his students? We will never know.
The woman started advising his students to stay away from him to the point that other teachers began to think he assaulted them. Lo and behold, it was just a bunch of baloney and the numerologist lady and her cronies were expelled for false and baseless accusations against him.
Pet Peeve #2: Gen-Z Slang
Millennials have already ruined a lot of things from the diamond industry to real estate. Maybe that’s because wage stagnation and crippling student debt stop them from being able to afford either? I’m not sure. But as a member of Gen Z, my peers and I are ready to continue this honored tradition of ruining things for other people.
Our next target? Language as we know it.
Everyone else who isn’t a Gen Z-er seems to have Gen Z slang on their long list of pet peeves. Something being “cool” is fine, but when it’s “lit” it may as well be actual arson. A lot of people are of the opinion that Gen Z slang is the wrong way to speak. While not appropriate for formal settings, Gen Z lingo is increasingly common online and in day-to-day speech.
Honestly? What even is language when it keeps changing from century to century? Grammar Nazis hate it but chad sociologists are having a grand time figuring out what we’re saying. Once getting your wig snatched becomes a common idiom, Gen Z haters are going to have to get high on copium. Forsooth, however, shall our venerable ancestors cope?
Pet Peeve #3: Chewing Sounds
Minor pet peeve or actual mental condition? For some people, hearing others chew, lick, or smack their lips fills them with the blinding rage of a thousand suns. Called misophonia, the condition is defined by intense rage and disgust when hearing sounds, specifically sounds that come from other humans.
The sheer anger and discomfort that people with misophonia feel when they hear other people’s mouth sounds can be so intense that they purposely isolate themselves from other people.
But unless you experience the same altered brain activity that people with misophonia do, it’s just a pet peeve.
Us grumps might just find it mildly yucky to hear other people chew, especially if they can’t keep their mouths shut while they eat. Who wants spit flying around over the dinner table, especially in these virus-ridden times? Maybe some people just can’t wrap their head around that.
Pet Peeve #4: “Can’t Wrap My Head/Brain Around That.”
Looks like it’s not just Gen Z slang that people have a gripe with but also newer turns of phrase. Granted, it’s a fairly unpopular opinion if the fact that the original poster (OP) on r/petpeeve has literally zero upvotes is to go by. The OP wrote, “Can we bury this silly and meaningless metaphor for good? Maybe it makes sense to describe a motorist who destroyed himself by driving into a pole.”
That’s quite a metal way to picture wrapping your brain around something. Maybe this scene would fit in a Hereditary sequel? As cool as it sounds, other Redditors have pointed out that it isn’t really all that different from many other “nonsensical” idioms like “water under the bridge,” “raining cats and dogs,” and “beating around the bush.”
Someone else suggested “fathom” would sound better than “wrap my brain around” if only for the, ahem, opportunity it allows for one to imagine oneself the protagonist of a Victorian-era novel, sighing on a chaise as you fail to “fathom” what could compel a lady to turn down thine affections.
Pet Peeve #5: Excess Salt or Sugar =/= Flavor
Here’s a pet peeve for the cooks in the crowd. Redditor u/eternalrevolver has a bone to pick with people who “confuse excess salt (or sugar) with flavor.” According to them, the cheaper a brand is, the more it tries to substitute real tastes with boatloads of sugar and salt.
Another Redditor added that spicy flavors are also used to hide a lack of any real flavor. Petty pet peeve? Absolutely. But it does happen especially with cheap instant foods. Unlike real ramen, packaged instant ramen compensates for its lack of actual slow-boiled broth with enough salt to destroy your kidneys.
Pet Peeve #6: Women’s Clothes That Don’t Have Pockets
Ladies, show of hands. When was the last time you found a dress that was cute, fit you well, and had pockets? No matter what brand we go to, we can never win. Either a cute outfit we saw through a shop window doesn’t fit us as well as we wish it did or it does, but it doesn’t have pockets.
It’s bad enough that we’re forced to carry around a sorry excuse for a bag known as a purse but clothing manufacturers had to make the women’s shopping experience even more horrific. How, you ask? By giving us false hopes through a fae illusion known as fake pockets.
Pet Peeve #7: “It’s All Fiction Anyway.”
This is a really niche pet peeve but one that writers, dungeon masters, and your average fiction enjoyer will know all too well. You know when you think to yourself, “Wow. That had a lot of plot holes” after you finish a show or book? That’s this pet peeve right here. Nothing ruins the experience of indulging in a fictional work than lack of realism or, to be more precise, internal consistency.
When you’re reading a fantasy novel, you expect its magic system to at least stick to its established rules and not throw it all out the window just to give the protagonist plot armor. Shout out to Avatar: The Last Airbender for its fantastic writing.
If it’s a romance movie, it might come off weird or even creepy if the lead couple get back together even after some serious boundary and trust-breaking that would have ruined any real-world relationship just because the show tells you they’re soulmates.
Pet Peeve #8: “You’re Arguing With Emotion.”
Are you a rational person? If you are then there’s no way you can argue for a cause with even the slightest hint of emotion. Redditor u/_HelicalTwist_ shared this unique pet peeve over at, you guessed it, r/petpeeve.
To them, it’s actually pretty cringe when someone calls another person out for showing the slightest hint of emotion during an argument while claiming they’re being logical. After all, a logically sound argument and emotion aren’t mutually exclusive concepts.
Another user brought up that it’s especially true with online arguments where people try to gaslight another person for being “emotional” just because they can appear calmer on the surface.
Pet Peeve #9: “At Least You Don’t Have It That Bad.”
Everybody give it up for every mentally ill, neurodivergent, or even remotely underprivileged person’s favorite pet peeve: being told that you at least don’t have it as bad as other people do.
Redditor u/nireon posted about this issue on the depression subreddit asking if anyone else gets told this a lot. They’re not quite sure how to react since they’re aware that things could definitely be worse for them but then again, the fact that other people have it worse doesn’t make their situation suck less. Or mine and yours, for that matter.
While suffering is relative, what a lot of people tend to miss is that our capacity to handle life tragedies is relative, too. It doesn’t matter if you’re taking only a few units this semester. If you have a learning disability, those five or so units are going to suck more for you than it would for a neurotypical person juggling double the academic load.
Other Redditors commented that this masochistic competition about who has it worse seems to only ever happen to people who have depression or other invisible disabilities. No one tells a physically and visibly disabled person that they could have it worse.
The thread may be eight years old by now, but the issues surrounding invisible disabilities still persist today.
Pet Peeve #10: Public Grooming (No, Not That Kind).
By grooming, I mean personal grooming. Leave the dark thoughts at the door, thanks.
A person known only as Baze shared this pet peeve after seeing a girl cutting her nails during a morning commute. They describe it as “gross and dangerous” and they can’t wrap their head around — hold on, sorry, fathom why someone would groom themselves in public.
Nails aren’t the only target of public grooming pet peeves either. A lot of commuters are irritated by women who put on makeup during their commute.
“It’s something for someone’s private space – their bedroom or bathroom. So to find myself sitting on a train and then suddenly inside someone’s bathroom is very unwelcome,” said Michael, a 59-year-old man who reported moving train carriages each time he saw a woman put on blush in public.
Another person described it as being as uncouth as a man combing his hair in public. Both of the older gentlemen think personal grooming is something that should be done at home. For many of the women putting on the makeup, though, where they draw their eyebrows is no one’s business unless they’re actually being disturbed by it.