If you ever wondered how to suck at friendships or how to be a bad friend, you’ve found your answer. Earlier this month, we ran a little poll called “The Most Annoying Behaviors of Your Friends.” It listed 20 eye-rolling behaviors and traits nobody wants to deal with. While all twenty options were incredibly annoying, we asked our readers to choose only the top three. A total of 102 respondents filled out the survey, and here are the results…
As it turns out, here’s what annoys people the most:
- When your friends make everything about themselves (28.43%)
- When they are overly judgmental (26.47%)
- When they insist on being right all the time (25.49%)
There was no clear consensus regarding the other behaviors — different things annoy different people — but every single one of the 20 behaviors got at least one vote. Here are all twenty options in order of “annoyance”:
1. Making everything about themselves (29 respondents or 28.43%)
2. Being overly judgmental (27 respondents or 26.47%)
3. Insisting on being right all the time (26 respondents or 25.49%)
4. Not being able to see things from my perspective (23 respondents or 22.55%)
5. Excessive talking (19 respondents or 18.63%)
6. Complaining and excessive venting (19 respondents or 18.63%)
7. Interrupting me (19 respondents or 18.63%)
8. Being unable to listen (17 respondents or 16.67%)
9. Lack of boundaries (16 respondents or 15.69%)
10. Using their smartphone when they are with me (15 respondents or 14.71%)
11. Lack of social sensitivity (14 respondents or 13.73%)
12. Insensitive comments (13 respondents or 12.75%)
13. Being overly negative (13 respondents or 12.75%)
14. Showing off and/or bragging about themselves or their children (11 respondents or 10.78%)
15. Being late all the time (9 respondents or 8.82%)
16. Repeating the same stories and jokes again and again (6 respondents or 5.88%)
17. Overstaying their welcome (5 respondents or 4.90%)
18. Constantly talking about how busy they are as a form of bragging (5 respondents or 4.90%)
19. Posting vague status updates on social media (4 respondents or 3.92%)
20. Forgetting to return things they borrow (4 respondents or 3.92%)
To be honest, we expected “being late all the time” or “forgetting to return things” to be near the top of the list, but apparently most people don’t find these behaviors as annoying as being selfish or overly judgmental.
There you have it: your semi-scientific guide on how to not be annoying!