I've always found that people who have a million pet peeves annoy me to no end. But I started paying more attention to other people's behaviors and myself after slowly realizing that a lot of things annoy me. Could I be one of those people with a million pet peeves?
I never used to be, and then I realized that's because I never really cared enough to pay attention. And all of this didn't occur to me until I was sitting around a fire with most of my friends, when all of the sudden I realized that nobody was speaking, everyone was on their phones, and I found myself staring aimlessly at everyone while they were glued to their phone screens. And then I got angry. I got angry because these people are my best friends, friends I haven't seen in months.
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I don't know how their lives have been going, how they did during their first year at college, how work's been, how their families are, I wasn't sure about any of these things and instead of filling these moments with endless conversation, instead I'm sitting with my friends around a fire watching them do whatever they do on their phones. A real quality moment right? Granted, once I paid more attention to other people's actions, including my own, I see that I'm just as guilty. But when did technology start to take over these fond moments?
I know it's a habit to just be checking your phone, but I figured it was only really a habit when you're checking to see if someone texted you or someone gave you a call. Checking social media is a normal habit as well, but since when did it become a habit to check social media all day, every day? And again, I find myself checking social media all the time, but it didn't hit me that this became an all day, every day obsession until I was staring at my friends stare at their phones. Since when did it become okay to scroll through Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Pinterest, and GroupMe when you're spending time with other people?
Should I have said something? Should I have made a comment about the fact that we were all sitting around a fire in silence, with the only source of light other than the fire is the faint, pale glow of a phone screen on everyone's faces? I decided not to say anything. Maybe it was important, all seven of them were each doing something that was so important it could have been life or death. All seven of them on a Thursday night had something very urgent and important come up that required them to scroll aimlessly on their phones.
Anyway, I know that we all have that little something, or a lot of little somethings, that get on our nerves, make us angry, or even just see qualities in other people we would just not rather have in ourselves. For me, it's being glued to your cell phone, cracking your neck, and breathing too heavily. What's yours?
