Not Noticing Weird Habits

[livingdeb]

Isn't it weird how people can have habits that annoy other people and not even realize it?

The first time I noticed this was when I noticed that person A kept saying, "you know" a lot. Also "ya know," "y'know," and even shorter versions that I don't know how to spell. So I told her this. She did not believe that she was saying it every sentence at least. So I asked her to talk and said I would hold up my index finger every time she said that phrase. She barely got through a paragraph without getting terribly frustrated. Sometimes she could still hear her "you know" echoing in her head when my finger went up, sometimes not. And she'd try not to say it but it would keep coming out. Finally, she couldn't even talk any more and wanted to stop the experiment. After that, she did stop saying it so often, but to this day (decades later) she still hates the site of that index finger going up. (Well, I did it once fairly recently to be funny, but it turns out that wasn't funny.)

Then there's person B who hates seeing tags sticking out of the backs of people's shirts and has taken to tucking them in for people in certain social situations. Now other people (including me) have become more sensitive to people's tags sticking out, and some of them have even taken to tucking other people's tags in for them to prevent person B from having to see it. But many of us are still completely ignorant of tags sticking out of our own clothing, including person B. (And my long hair doesn't completely keep this from being an issue for me.)

My third example is from when Robin was in the middle of installing the front door and asked me not to step on the threshold because it wasn't yet supported underneath and it bothered him to see it bending under my weight. I agreed not to do so, after which time he informed me that I step on it every single time I go through the door. Isn't that odd? I would have expected myself to be randomly switching between stepping on it and stepping over it. Since that time I have occasionally noticed where I am stepping, and some of those times I have paid attention in time to refrain from stepping on the threshold. Now the threshold is stabilized, but I'm so surprised by this new knowledge of myself that I'm still trying to pay attention.

And how did I get into this habit? Robin says most people step over thresholds. Is it leftover transferred behavior from learning to step on logs rather than over logs while hiking in the woods? (If you step on the log, you can see if a snake is on the other side before you have put your foot over there.) I don't think I'm in the habit of checking for snakes at thresholds, though. Or did I not quite make it past the threshold and scraped the back of my ankle down the side of a threshold one too many times so now I automatically just step on it? I don't know, but it's very hard to start noticing on my own. I had to ask Robin to remind me every single time we went through the door together.

Comments

[amandapage.livejournal.com]

I have noticed that I ise the word "like" a lot. ( as in "I said like this, and he was like that"). Whenever I notice, I try to stop it. I'm not being very successful at this. I did adjust my previous verbal tic, which was to say "Um" or "Uh" or other of those verbal fillers. I now let the silence be, and just finish talking when the word comes.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Sometimes those fillers are useful, though, when it wouldn't otherwise be clear that you're not quite done with your thought yet. But mid-sentence, you probably don't need one.

[sallini.livejournal.com]

Verbal tics / over-reliance on stock phrases can be pretty annoying and distracting. I was in a meeting the other day in which one person always used the phrase "Without question" where anyone else might have said "Yes."

"Would the new camping loop maintain high usage rates during the week?"
"Without question."

"Is water recreation the primary draw at your site?"
"Without question."

Fortunately, in this particular instance, I was primarily running the computer projection and did not have much of anything to say on the substance of the meeting; I am always tempted to start parroting this language back to the person and see if they even notice, which is a fundamentally bad idea in most situations.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

My experience is that they don't notice. At least a Bostonion didn't notice when I said "a potty" while referring to a party. And a New Yorker didn't notice that the girl from Connecticut trying to learn a new bit of basketball terminology wouldn't say "awk" like he does, but "arc."

Quirks/tics

[fraeuleinchen.livejournal.com]

I say 'these ones' a lot, where others would just say 'these'. A. has teased me good-naturedly about it. Recently, though we discovered that I am far from alone; sheenaqotj, for one, admits to using the phrase! I also say 'oh my god' a lot, which has nothing whatsoever to do with God or god or my belief or non-belief in a deity.

As for physical tics, I have heard that one of my fellow echocardiographers, when concentrating during an exam, will lick his lips excessively while studying the monitor. Another coworker tends to widen her eyes and lower her chin, as if peering over the tops of non-existent glasses worn low on her nose.

Funny, we people are! and thank God/god/heavens/goodness for that!

Re: Quirks/tics

[sallini.livejournal.com]

Peering over non-existent glasses - that's a fun one.

Re: Quirks/tics

[fraeuleinchen.livejournal.com]

Indeed; and she doesn't wear contacts!