Annoyance

When is annoyance at another individual justified?
By justified I don’t just mean that there ‘are good reasons’ for your annoyance, but ‘making it acceptable for you to be annoyed at another person‘. That is, I can allow myself to feel annoyed without trying to to eliminate those feelings, without feeling like I should try to be nicer and more understanding.

I suppose it’s entirely based on how high a standard you set for yourself?

Everything he says just seems to rub me the wrong way. And it feels like he’s doing it on purpose– being vague and deliberately difficult to understand and arrogant. Like he knows better than you. And if you can’t keep up with him, too bad. He’s not really interested in discussion anyways, just in shooting down other people’s opinions.

But I can’t tell if this is just me being biased. Or that’s just the way he expresses himself, he’s not really being arrogant. Maybe if he were a closer friend of mine maybe I’d just think, ‘Oh, that’s just the way he is. He doesn’t mean it that way.’ and take no offence. Maybe i’m just projecting a whole bunch of things that aren’t really there.

Maybe in being so quick to judge and blame and take offence, I’m the one who is being arrogant…

When in doubt, take a step back and err on the side of niceness.