When You Can’t Stand the Sound of People Eating Really Loudly
Adeline loves eating, a lot and often, both at home and out. Usually, that goes just fine, but sometimes it doesn’t. This week: people who eat really loudly.
I once heard someone in my family give such a remarkable explanation for the sound she made while eating that I almost forgave her. ‘I have very thin cheeks,’ she said. Are you also feeling how thin your cheeks are right now? Because I certainly was. What can I say: a very remarkable explanation.
Legally gross
Whenever I comment on the eating volume, my better half always says: ‘Have you ever heard yourself eat?’ or ‘Then just turn the music up a little.’ Very refreshing, that. When I actually do that, the sound disappears too. In my life, I never get annoyed by eating noises for more than five minutes. Unless you slurp your soup from start to finish, in which case you might get a little dig, but as far as I know that’s completely acceptable under the rules of soup slurping. Though with wine, you’re apparently allowed to slurp to your heart’s content, which falls under legally gross.
Tiny, quaint little carrot
I once heard someone eat those tiny, adorable carrots, and I’m still a little impressed. It wouldn’t surprise me if a decibel meter had gone haywire from the noise being produced. Picture a dead-silent workplace, where every thirty seconds you hear a plastic bag crinkle, followed by the hellish racket of a grinding machine starting up. You see the colleague opposite the chewer jump out of her skin and almost fall off her chair from the sound, right through the muffling effect of her headphones. ‘Tasty little carrot?’ asks another, fairly distant neighbour. She then nods happily, completely unaware of the double meaning behind the remark. I swear it sounded as though someone was starting up an industrial grinder with every tiny, quaint little carrot. Did you know that we Dutch people are particularly annoyed by our colleagues’ eating habits? That does explain this case, at least.
Everyday household annoyance
The reverse is difficult too, by the way. I once interviewed someone with misophonia, which means you can’t stand certain sounds, and these are quite often eating noises. I barely dared to breathe, and that makes listening to someone for two hours rather difficult. I really wanted a sip of water, but suddenly I was afraid I had cheeks just as thin as my family member’s and that it would sound like the Niagara Falls thundering away. Once I was back outside, I drank a bottle of water with an enormous amount of accompanying noise. I swear an unsuspecting passer-by briefly looked up. By the way, you shouldn’t confuse misophonia with my fussiness and everyday household annoyance, because you genuinely experience feelings of hatred, and scientists have shown that an abnormality can be seen in the brains of the people affected.
Chewing loudly in quarantine
Chewing loudly or eating at high volume is one of the biggest eating-related annoyances worldwide. Alongside your table companion ordering nothing for themselves but wanting a bite anyway (get lost, mate), or suddenly turning out to have a hundred-and-one intolerances or allergies (which showed no signs of existing during the first thirty years of their life).
Could it be that people chew more loudly in quarantine? No? I could have sworn it was true.
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