Do or did you have specific characteristics that caused negative reactions?

[Pats]

When my daughter was still in school I was completely surprised when a friend of hers told me that all their classmates were afraid of her. While my daughter was visitng this week I asked her why (she is nothing but kind). She said it was her facial expressions, she thought. Like if she was getting a drink of water and someone called her name she would turn around and probably give a mean expression (unintentionally).

I got to thinking about the girl who wanted to beat me up because she didn't like the way I walked around with my hand in my pockets. I remember the reason I started walking with my hands in my pockets - because my older sister was trying to teach me that I needed to swing my arms when I walk and when I'd try, I'd swing them too far. I just couldn't get it so I just put my hands in my pockets hoping it'd be less obvious.

Anyway, I was just wondering how the rest of you - if you were aware or told of specific characteristics that people didn't like about you or that caused negative responses.

 

[Streetwise]

Children dont like my refusal to mollycoddle their need for info or mindnumbingly boring conversation ,staring at people,joining a conversation apparently my thoughts are bad.

 

[Rasputin]

When my daughter was still in school I was completely surprised when a friend of hers told me that all their classmates were afraid of her. While my daughter was visitng this week I asked her why (she is nothing but kind). She said it was her facial expressions, she thought. Like if she was getting a drink of water and someone called her name she would turn around and probably give a mean expression (unintentionally).

I got to thinking about the girl who wanted to beat me up because she didn't like the way I walked around with my hand in my pockets. I remember the reason I started walking with my hands in my pockets - because my older sister was trying to teach me that I needed to swing my arms when I walk and when I'd try, I'd swing them too far. I just couldn't get it so I just put my hands in my pockets hoping it'd be less obvious.

Anyway, I was just wondering how the rest of you - if you were aware or told of specific characteristics that people didn't like about you or that caused negative responses.

I recall in the third grade hanging out with classmates during a class break. The group decided to leave the school campus and walk to a nearby store. There was a rule prohibiting students from leaving the campus during school hours, so I refused to go to the store with the other kids. This stands out in my mind, because the incident branded me as an "outsider" because I did not follow the crowd. I recall the group who went to the store were disciplined afterwards.

I don't recall being bullied much, because I was bigger and stronger than other kids my age all through elementary school through high school. I got into weightlifting, so mostly I was just ignored.

 

[Pats]

Children dont like my refusal to mollycoddle their need for info or mindnumbingly boring conversation ,staring at people,joining a conversation apparently my thoughts are bad.

Oh yeah! I've had people actually get mad at me for not joining in naming a favorite actor or other trivial things that I just didn't have a favorite of.
I like the 'mollycoddle'. I'm assuming the meaning is basically to humor them.

 

[Streetwise]

Oh yeah! I've had people actually get mad at me for not joining in naming a favorite actor or other trivial things that I just didn't have a favorite of.
I like the 'mollycoddle'. I'm assuming the meaning is basically to humor them.

Yes and no it can be preventing any harm whatsoever

 

[unperson]

Helps with articulacy.

 

[Giraffes]

I have a problem with inconsistencies and annoy many by pointing out that they aren't approaching things in the agreed manner, prehaps this inflexibility comes across as bossy.

 

[Mia]

I was told by a girl in another group as a teen, that I walked funny. I'd actively changed the way I walked over time, because I had signed up for a high school ballet class. I copied the girls in the class, who had been doing ballet since they were seven or eight. And I practised all the time, every waking moment of the day. All the people I knew, thought the 'ballet' thing was weird at the time.

 

[Gracey]

Voicing observation. A thought was out of my mouth before I'd realised I'd thought it.

A senior school (high school) 'hippy' teacher encouraged this. Thought I was rad',
had strong, uncompromising beliefs and wasn't afraid to stand up for them.

In reality my filter didn't work so well.
I thought aloud.


I don't do it so much these days.
I've learned to observe silently,
(mostly)

I've done the resting/processing face thing too.
It used to happen when I looked at 'whoever' and was processing what they'd just said.
Often misinterpreted as my displeasure or some sort of challenge/offence taken,
when I was actually just thinking and catching up.

 

[Kit]

My existence would just provoke people, the way I talked because I had a language impairment and talked funny, I was naïve, copied people, asked way too many questions and wanted everything to make sense before I could move on and take it seriously. Plus I was clumsy so I would bump into other kids and they thought I did that on purpose I guess to be Abbott and Castello.

 

[Au Naturel]

Clumsiness. Being a stickler for precision and accuracy. Being all gaga over subjects nobody gave a cr@p about. Not understanding even the most basic grooming and having a complete lack of fashion sense. Laughing loudly at the wrong time. Getting the top score on a test where top score gets the "A." (Did that a lot.)

The list could go on.

 

[SusanLR]

Laughing loudly and at inappropriate times I suppose.
I had one friend in 6th grade that I liked being with and one day at her house
her father told me he couldn't stand the sound of how I laughed and don't come around when
he was home.

Blurting out what I thought was another that annoyed people. Tactless me.

 

[Progster]

I tend to correct people. That can get a negative reaction, when it's not in a teacher-student context.

 

[Streetwise]

Laughing loudly and at inappropriate times I suppose.
I had one friend in 6th grade that I liked being with and one day at her house
her father told me he couldn't stand the sound of how I laughed and don't come around when
he was home.

Blurting out what I thought was another that annoyed people. Tactless me.

Oh yes you reminded me talking loudly til teenage years, now too quietly ,I can't win !and sneezing too loudly !give me strength!

 

[Kit]

Me farting too loudly. Yes everyone farts but I didn't know people had control over their farts until I was an adult. That would explain why I would get in trouble sometimes for farting and it would be a loud one. Then I thought other kids and the adults were stupid when they would get mad at me for it because that is like getting mad at someone for sneezing or do people have control over that too and can hold in that sneeze and wait until it's a good time to let it out?

I was only able to learn to fart quietly but it still came out.

Laughing, I guess people have control over when to laugh and can hold in that laughter. I never could.


As a child I thought everyone was just stupid and were just bullying me over natural things we have no control over. Why else would they get mad at me if no one has control over it?

 

[Khendra]

Yes. Until my post-college adult years, I had no idea how I came across to others. In the last decade or so, I've learned that I often come across as very distant/passive, rude, and tactless. People also tell me they have a hard time understanding me, that I can sound too academic/informal. It's caused numerous issues in employment and friendship especially. I do fine in routine tasks, running errands, following baseline and standard social procedures in places like the grocery store, church, the library, the gym, and so forth. But in more elaborate social situations, and especially under pressure/when things don't go as planned, I've really had to learn to scale back my frustration and manage stress better. Our society especially doesn't take well to women being less than polite, so saving the blunt truth is something I have to continually monitor.

 

[Nervous Rex]

As mentioned above, being a stickler for accuracy is definitely one of my annoying attributes.

One of the biggest problems with this question is that people sometimes don’t tell me why they’re annoyed with me. They’ll just say I’m annoying and leave me to figure out why.

One that I figured out is that my default monotone voice sounds angry to most people. I realized that I was getting hostile reactions to what I thought were perfectly appropriate comments in conversation. I have taken (and still take) great care to make my voice sound cheerful, and to choose cheerful and up-beat language, so people actually know I’m trying to be friendly.

 

[Giraffes]

I dislike/have discord with peoples ability to see the bit between rules and flexibility, feel I come across as ‘black and white’ and lacking flexibility, hey yes in regards in some cases to health and safety and applications to policies and procedures so right however colleagues see they grey’ and pick convenience or speed over ‘good and consistent practice’ right but my experience soooo wrong!!!!

 

[zozie]

My perpetual "frown", which is me concentrating. I'd have people accusing me of being angry with them, which would hurt my feelings a lot when I was younger, especially because I was putting in so much effort to understand them.

Challenging opinions not supported with facts, regardless of authority. I did this so much in college that I developed a reputation for "keeping us all honest", as one professor told me. I gather she meant this as a compliment, but I felt despair, as though the baseline of educators was to lie.

I did find a home for this tendency to challenge opinions in Philosophy, which I majored in. It was incredibly refreshing to see a professor light up when I questioned them.

Getting upset when people change plans on me. I've done a lot of work on managing my upset over the years, but it used to give me panic attacks and a rage response. I would feel so discouraged when people called me "rigid", given the amount of work I was putting into seeing things from their perspective and not just dismissing them outright.

In middle school I was quite masculine in my appearance, so I got teased a lot and people called me "scary." Later, "scary" became "intense", a descriptor people still use.

Expressing myself decidedly. People called me "arrogant" and "close-minded", which also hurts a lot, because I spend so much energy genuinely trying to see things from other perspectives. I developed a "soft language" vocabulary of "maybe" and "possibly" and other non-committal words, but it stressed me out so much and no one seemed to appreciate the effort that it hardly seemed worth it. I mean, people didn't call me arrogant anymore, but they didn't acknowledge my effort, either. Lately, I've gone back to stronger language and people are again affronted.

Correcting people, though I do still make an effort to correct them silently. It's bad enough that folks think I'm angry, challenging, intense, and arrogant.

 

[Pats]

My perpetual "frown", which is me concentrating. I'd have people accusing me of being angry with them, which would hurt my feelings a lot when I was younger, especially because I was putting in so much effort to understand them.

Challenging opinions not supported with facts, regardless of authority. I did this so much in college that I developed a reputation for "keeping us all honest", as one professor told me. I gather she meant this as a compliment, but I felt despair, as though the baseline of educators was to lie.

I did find a home for this tendency to challenge opinions in Philosophy, which I majored in. It was incredibly refreshing to see a professor light up when I questioned them.

Getting upset when people change plans on me. I've done a lot of work on managing my upset over the years, but it used to give me panic attacks and a rage response. I would feel so discouraged when people called me "rigid", given the amount of work I was putting into seeing things from their perspective and not just dismissing them outright.

In middle school I was quite masculine in my appearance, so I got teased a lot and people called me "scary." Later, "scary" became "intense", a descriptor people still use.

Expressing myself decidedly. People called me "arrogant" and "close-minded", which also hurts a lot, because I spend so much energy genuinely trying to see things from other perspectives. I developed a "soft language" vocabulary of "maybe" and "possibly" and other non-committal words, but it stressed me out so much and no one seemed to appreciate the effort that it hardly seemed worth it. I mean, people didn't call me arrogant anymore, but they didn't acknowledge my effort, either. Lately, I've gone back to stronger language and people are again affronted.

Correcting people, though I do still make an effort to correct them silently. It's bad enough that folks think I'm angry, challenging, intense, and arrogant.

Yes, definitely the frown face - I call it a sober face (sounds kinder). My oldest son, when he was a toddler and I'd take him to have his picture made, they'd try everything to get him to smile and I'd tell them not to force a smile, it won't look like him. He was a happy child but he just didn't smile, he always had a sober/serious look.

And my teachers and bosses hated me because I was too honest, too. And I'd question them when they were not being honest or sincere. I walked out of a meeting once when my boss was talking about teamwork and how she's willing to help any of us and so on. She followed me out and asked what my problem was and I told her I couldn't sit in there and listen to that when I actually felt like a caged rat waiting for the next shock. She didn't make me come back to the meeting.