People That I Want to Punch, Episode 47

Today’s entry: the tender lovers in their bubble of self-importance who, in situations that traditionally warrant silence, communicate with urgent whispers that they think cloak their interactions from the rest of the room but end up being more distracting and irritating than if they’d just talked out loud. I’m sitting in the library as two such vermin whisper-fuck each other and it’s making my skin crawl—the pop of their hard consonants puncturing the grating whoosh produced by their unvocal enunciation. What makes them think they’re not being annoying? I’m no silence Nazi—it’s fine if you want to say howdy-doo to one of your mates when you see them in the library, or to ask to borrow a pen or whatever but to sustain such a lengthy and unnecessary conversation in such an inappropriate environment is pretty rude and takes quite a lack of awareness.

Maybe I’m being hasty in my annoyance here, but it’s not just limited to situations like this: last year I was in a film class, and during a two-and-a-half-hour screening a couple appeared to be planning their entire class presentation, among sundry other unimportant topics, through covert whispers throughout the entire goddamn movie. I could probably have ignored them had they not sat directly to the side and front of me. I mean, Christ, at least sit in the back, back row, if you’re going to completely tune out the rest of the people and activity in the room. It was all I could do not to summarily summon them into the hall and, well, um… and excoriate them very uncouthly indeed.