Age and theories on annoying people

I'm getting old.

Now... you all might call this a blinding flash of the obvious, as really we all get old.  It's kind of inevitable.  Those that know my age might scoff at my assessment, saying I'm really not that old.  I am still called a young'un from time to time, but really it's all relative.

About 5 years ago, I began to suspect that I was getting a little older when the local classic rock station started playing music that I had enjoyed back in high school.  It had never occurred to me before that the definition of what is considered 'classic' rock would change as the decades rolled on, slowly encompassing yet another decade into it's broad repetoire that began back before I was even conceived.   

Harsh reality, however, set in today that it's only a matter of time before I'm sitting on my front porch, brandishing Husband's shotgun (or a cane, for all you anti-gun ninnies) yelling at some young punk to "GET OFF MY LAWN!!". 

(For the purposes of this exercise, let's please imagine that (a) what I have can actually be termed a lawn; and (b) my 'lawn' isn't a couple of hundred feet from my front porch and hidden behind a small forest. Anyways, continuing on before my train-of-thought derails... this happens when you get old too... wait - what was my point here?  Oh yeah!  Ahem...)

The cause of this harsh realization you ask, oh fair reader?  Allow me to share.

I've always been highly annoyed by high school kids, even while in high school.  The problem has only gotten worse as time has passed, to the point where I'm now not only annoyed by high school kids, but also college and university kids and those just fresh out of these supposed sage institutes of higher learning.  This point was driven home to me today while overhearing a late-twenty-something year old gossiping on the phone to a friend about this person and that person while going all, like, what the hell?! and drama queen'ish.  And try as I might, I could not HELP but overhear because my personal space was being invaded and this girl had little concept of 'inside voice'.

Highly annoying.  Seriously.  You have no idea.  You know how I mentioned that shotgun earlier?? 

At any rate, it's not that I'm scared of the grey hair, or the wrinkles, or the incontinence (okay, okay... scratch that from the list.  Yeesh, a girl tries to make a joke...), it's just I have realized that at some point it is exceedingly likely I will be annoyed by most of humanity. 

Lemme 'splain...

Original theory on the Annoyance Level/Age relationship.

In the graph on the right, you see what my previous suppositions were on the whole age/annoying level matter, also referred to as my Original Theory on Annoying People, or OTAP for short.  I had always assumed that as an annoying individual aged, they at some point reached a level of maturity where they realized just how annoying they were, and simply grew up and became mostly un-annoying, useful members of society.

Now, you'll remember that earlier I mentioned that it seems the age category that I consider to contain annoying individuals seems to be expanding.  This would imply two things.

1. The annoyance of an individual is not, in fact, a factor of their age but is instead a factor of our changing society, in which people are becoming more self-centred and oblivious to their effect on the world around them.  Logic then leads us to the conclusion that the level of annoyance of an individual is more a function of your year of birth as opposed to age at any given moment (i.e. your annoyance is a function of societies morales that shaped you as you were growing up).

2. children in the 0-13 year categories are exempt from my theory irregardless of year of birth, because I am not annoyed by kids under approximately the age of 13 or so.  In fact, I'm actually a huge fan of kids and envy their ability to still be all innocent and exempt from all the shit that daily life has to throw at most of us.  Point, you ask?  We should all take a lesson and be more like children.  But that's yet another blog post.

New and Improved theory on the Annoyance Level/Age
relationship.

In order to illustrate my New and Improved Theory on Annoying People, or NITAP for short, I present another graph.  As you can see on this graph at the right, I illustrate how at some point in society there was some form of massive, singular, shattering societal event which began creating a cornucopia of annoying individuals.  While I couldn't pinpoint one event (which I guess kills the 'singular' part of that description), there was a lot that went down in the 1980's that shaped the world as it is today, so it shouldn't be too hard to imagine a societal shift happening within that time frame.    


Now after all that theory and postulating, I should add some caveats.  While I do believe NITAP does dominate in the creation of annoying individuals today, I suspect that OTAP does operate within NITAP at some sub-level.  There is even a possible third theory that may operate within NITAP based on the societal circles one operates in, but it's still a work in progress.  It would, however, explain individuals like Paris Hilton and assorted other celebrities.  Finally, in the interest of maintaining harmony with my younger work colleagues I should add the caveat that there are some people who while they fit the parameters of NITAP I don't find annoying at all.


In the meantime, however, I believe I will just simply accept the inevitable that I have a few more grey hairs today than yesterday, there will be an increasing number of individuals I find annoying, and sit back, relax, and wait for spring.  For this is when the front porch will become less of a frozen wasteland and a more inviting locale to sit back and yell at young punks on my 'lawn'.

Stay real, gentle reader, and remember you're only as old as you feel upstairs.