I’M NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM!

Imposter Syndrome
(not to be confused with Syndrome, the imposter superhero from Disney’s The Incredibles)

Imposter syndrome is that gnawing feeling of self-doubt and incompetence coupled with the dread of being exposed as a fraud. Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, or perceived fraudulence), involves feelings of self-doubt and personal incompetence that persist despite education, experience, and accomplishments.

Famous “Imposters”

Phoenix Performance Partners listed 18 famous people who suffer imposter syndrome.

“The exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.”
Albert Einstein: Nobel Prize-winning Physicist

“I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’”
Maya Angelou: Nobel Laureate, poet, author

“I still have a little impostor syndrome… It doesn’t go away, that feeling that you shouldn’t take me that seriously. What do I know? I share that with you because we all have doubts in our abilities, about our power and what that power is.”
Michelle Obama: lawyer, author, former First Lady

“Very few people, whether you’ve been in that job before or not, get into the seat and believe today that they are now qualified to be the CEO. They’re not going to tell you that, but it’s true.” 
Howard Schultz: former CEO of Starbucks

“Every time I took a test, I was sure that it had gone badly. And every time I didn’t embarrass myself — or even excelled — I believed that I had fooled everyone yet again. One day soon, the jig would be up.”
Sheryl Sandberg: Harvard graduate, Facebook COO, author of Lean In

“There are an awful lot of people out there who think I’m an expert. How do these people believe all this about me? I’m so much aware of all the things I don’t know.”
Dr. Margaret Chan: former Director General of the World Health Organization

“Today, I feel much like I did when I came to Harvard Yard as a freshman in 1999. I felt like there had been some mistake, that I wasn’t smart enough to be in this company, and that every time I opened my mouth I would have to prove that I wasn’t just a dumb actress.”
Natalie Portman: Harvard graduate, Academy Award winning actress

“No matter what we’ve done, there comes a point where you think, ‘How did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything away from me?’”
Tom Hanks: Academy Award winning actor and filmmaker

“I’d been obsessed with going to Cambridge even before I’d learned English, and my mother had somehow helped make it happen from our one-bedroom apartment in Athens. I felt like there I finally was, but the minute I opened my mouth, people would know I didn’t really belong. My mother taught me that fearlessness isn’t the absence of fear, but the mastery of it. I leaned into my fear by trying to get into the Cambridge Union (the debating society,) where I eventually became the first foreign president. What I learned was that what you have to say is more important than how you sound, which is to say that that feeling that we don’t belong is much more likely to come from us — from that obnoxious roommate inside our heads — than it is from someone else (who is likely dealing with their own forms of imposter syndrome).”
Arianna Huffington: author, columnist, founder of Huffington Post

“Yes, you’re an impostor. So am I and so is everyone else. Superman still lives on Krypton and the rest of us are just doing our best.”
Seth Godin: author, lecturer, teacher, business owner

“The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania, and a complete feeling of: ‘I’m a fraud! Oh god, they’re on to me! I’m a fraud!’ So you just try to ride the egomania when it comes and enjoy it, and then slide through the idea of fraud.”
Tina Fey: comedian, author, and actor, winner of Emmy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actor’s Guild Awards, and the youngest ever recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

“I have spent my years since Princeton, while at law school and in my various professional jobs, not feeling completely a part of the worlds I inhabit. I am always looking over my shoulder wondering if I measure up.”
Sonia Sotomayor: Supreme Court justice

“I go through acute imposter syndrome with every role. I think winning an Oscar may in fact have made it worse. Now I’ve achieved this, what am I going to do next? What do I strive for? Then I remember that I didn’t get into acting for the accolades, I got into it for the joy of telling stories.”
Lupita Nyong’o: Academy Award winning actress

“It’s almost like the better I do, the more my feeling of inadequacy actually increases, because I’m just going, ‘Any moment, someone’s going to find out I’m a total fraud, and that I don’t deserve any of what I’ve achieved.”
Emma Watson: actress, UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, founder of the United Nations HeForShe campaign

“On the first season of Top Chef, I suffered from impostor syndrome.”
Padma Lakshmi: author, model, host of Top Chef, UN Goodwill Ambassador, founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America

“I think even being an actress for over a decade now, I still have imposter syndrome. Where you’re asking yourself, ‘Oh, is this really what I’m supposed to be doing?’”
Maisie Williams: award winning actress and producer

“Who doesn’t suffer from imposter syndrome? Even when I sold my business for $66 Million, I felt like an absolute fraud!”
Barbara Corcoran‍:‍‍ real estate mogul and long-time judge on Shark Tank

“There were two Venus Williamses in our family. It was crazy… my parents would make me order first, but once she ordered, I’d change my mind. It was tough for me to stop being Venus and become the person I am.”
Serena Williams: considered the grestest women’s tennis player of all time, winner of 23 Grand Slam singles titles

.

Conclusion: how one sees oneself may defy all sorts of external validation.

What is Imposter Syndrome?

According to a 2020 review featured in Medical News Today, 9%–82% of people experience impostor syndrome— a range so broad as to be almost meaningless! But whatever.  The numbers vary depending on who participates in a study. 

Imposter syndrome is prevalent within the tech industry, with about 58% of tech employees stating that they currently experience some form of the condition within their careers. It’s especially common in software engineers, developers, and designers.

Many people experience symptoms for a limited time, such as in the first few weeks of a new job.  For others, the experience can be lifelong.

Imposter syndrome is likely the result of multiple factors, including personality traits (such as perfectionism) and family background. One theory is that imposter syndrome is rooted in families that value achievement above all else.

Women Beware!

In their Women’s Leadership Summit Report (2022), international financial auditing firm network KPMG announced some interesting findings

  • 75% of executive women report having personally experienced imposter syndrome at certain points in their career 
  • 85% believe imposter syndrome is commonly experienced by women in corporate America 
  • 74% percent of executive women believe that their male counterparts do not experience feelings of self-doubt as much as female leaders do 
  • 81% believe they put more pressure on themselves not to fail than men do

What might explain these gender differences? In studies of how women and men explain their successes and failures, women tend to attribute their successes to luck or other external factors while blaming themselves for failures. Men are the opposite: they attribute their successes to talent and hard work and blame failures on luck or other external factors.

Some women are genuinely imposters!

However, a report published in Harvard Business Review suggests that women experiencing self-doubt in the workplace may be facing systemic discrimination and exclusion rather than imposter syndrome. When accomplished, capable, intelligent women are consistently reminded, both subtly and overtly, that they do not belong in the upper echelons of power, it is inevitable that some of them will begin to internalize this message.

Recognizing Imposter Syndrome

Symptoms of impostor syndrome can look different for different people, though there are some consistent and tell-tale red flags. Symptoms might include

Holy stunt doubles, Bat Man! …er, Spider Man!
  • Extreme lack of self confidence
  • Feelings of inadequacy
  • Constant comparison to other people
  • Anxiety
  • Self doubt
  • Distrust in one’s own intuition and capabilities
  • Negative self-talk
  • Irrational fears of the future

In professional settings, efforts to counter these feelings might include taking on extra work to make sure you’re “doing it all”; shrugging off accolades; not responding to job postings unless you meet every single requirement; working harder and holding yourself to ever higher standards.

Though the impostor phenomenon isn’t an official diagnosis listed in the DSM, psychologists and others acknowledge that it is a very real and specific form of intellectual self-doubt. Besides anxiety, impostor feelings are often accompanied by depression. FYI, women are nearly twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with depression. 

The Flip Side of Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome
Coach and NASM trainer Ben Meer

On the opposite side of imposter syndrome sits overconfidence, otherwise known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It derives its name from a study published in 1999 by David Dunning and Justin Kruger in the Journal of Economic Psychology. While imposter syndrome develops when one underestimates their own values, skills, and accomplishments, those experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect do the reverse. Some say this syndrome is much more harmful because people without competence are extremely confident.

Bottom line: Note your own tendencies toward imposter syndrome and stay in touch with reality

Something tells me these Disney heroines may be imposters.

EXTERNAL VALIDATION: WHO NEEDS IT?

Olympic Gold Medals are Pretty Good Signals of External Validation

Short answer = everybody needs external validation.

We all begin life in a state of complete reliance on external validation. From cues we receive from others around us, we form opinions about whether our behaviors/opinions/attitudes/beliefs/values are good and praiseworthy — or not. For example:

  • Is it okay to take food off another person’s plate?
  • Is there a god? And if so, which one?
  • Is going to a place of worship necessary?
  • Is walking naked down the street acceptable?
  • Is the world a safe place?
  • When is it okay to lie?
  • What sort of beauty, hygiene, or grooming standards are most desirable?
  • Is sex before marriage okay?
  • Is it okay to be LGBTQ?
  • What obligations are owed to family members?
  • Are handwritten thank you notes necessary?

When we are validated by others it feels good, and this tends to make us want to behave in a similar fashion in the future, in order to experience the same good feelings. Seeking validation from others means seeking their approval for your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, choices, values, and actions.

Social psychologist C. H. Cooley called this reliance on external validation “The Looking Glass Self.” In his book On Self and Social Organization, he summed up humans’ tendency to rely on others’ perceptions to form their own sense of identity as “I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am.”

A Necessary Thing

Seeking external validation in unfamiliar situations is normal, healthy, and valuable.

Pat on the Back

You need to be able to take instructions and constructive criticism from others in order to collaborate with peers or even simply to function in society. Thus, as adults, external validation is a necessary part of being human, even if the American ideal of individualism tells us otherwise.

The desire to seek validation stems from the basic human need to be liked and accepted by others. If all our behaviors, opinions, attitudes, and beliefs are ignored or wrong (based on cues from others), low self-esteem is a likely result. If one has a fragile sense of self-worth, it can be hard to validate one’s own experiences, resulting in a need to seek approval from others.

social media external validation

Seeking validation from others has become a common way of living. Often we do things hoping to be praised by others so that we can feel good about ourselves. Or we avoid doing or saying something because we worry that we will be criticized by someone for our opinion, idea, action, or choice.

The need for external validation is at an all-time high. More than ever, people want to feel seen and heard and to know their life matters. Indeed, perhaps the extensive use of social media is evidence of that. When you turn down the volume of everything going on in the world around you, these questions are probably on repeat in the back of your mind, too.

A Good Thing

You don’t need to seek external validation for it to feel good! Whether someone compliments you at work, comments on a picture you posted, or expresses gratitude for you, this is external validation.

In some cases, external validation is more concrete than in others. For example:

  • Pay raises
  • Promotions
  • Scholarships or fellowships
  • Medals
  • Awards
  • Winning elections
  • Making the NYT bestsellers list

Good news: If you are in a relationship that makes you feel heard, valued, and understood, the positive effects spread. Having someone who understands and validates your feelings can be nothing short of fulfilling. Such validation builds one’s self-esteem and one’s confidence in a broader sense.

As Belgian psychotherapist Esther Perel said, “Self-love is about letting others love us even when we feel unlovable because their version of us is kinder than our own.”

Too Much of a Good Thing

Everyone Gets a Trophy!

Some people need constant validation because they’re not confident in their own abilities. Some say that the root cause of most approval-seeking behavior is low self-esteem. This feeling of inferiority stems from factors like inherent personality, upbringing, peer pressure, education, culture, and work-life. As negative feedback accumulates over time, the need to seek approval for anything and everything grows.

Besides low self-esteem, attention-seeking behavior may stem from jealousy, loneliness, or as a result of a personality disorder.

While desiring external validation is normal and healthy, it can go too far when desiring praise and attention from others becomes an addiction, and/or when it is not balanced by healthy levels of self-esteem. Why do you need constant validation? Dr Preeti Kocchar, says that people crave attention for a variety of reasons, including—in some extreme cases—the presence of personality disorders.

Perhaps Not the Sort of Recognition One Wants

For example:

  • Narcissists constantly need attention and validation. They constantly try to elicit praise and approval from others to shore up their fragile egos, but no matter how much they’re given, they always want more.
  • Histrionic personality disorder is a type of psychiatric disorder that features attention-seeking behaviors, seductive behavior, and emotional over-reaction.
  • Perfectionism also leads us to constantly seek positive approval from others, impeding our ability to accept constructive feedback from others or internal validation from ourselves.

What does an unhealthy reliance on external validation look like? Not being able to confront people or disagree, changing your thoughts and beliefs because someone else either approves or disapproves, and ascribing your self-worth to the approval of others — all are examples of a reliance on external validation.

People always looking for external validation to feel good about themselves can be extremely irritating, leading to negative feedback, resulting in a greater need for external validation … a vicious circle.

Do You Rely Too Much on External Validation?

You may be searching for too much external validation if you find yourself doing the following:

  • Feeling guilty about setting boundaries with others.
  • Overachieving in an attempt to garner praise from others.
  • Pretending to be unable to do something so someone will teach, help, or watch the attempt to do it.
  • Expressing controversial opinions or behaviors primarily to provoke a reaction in others.
  • Pointing out acgievements or “humble bragging” to elicit compliments.
  • Embellishing stories to gain praise or sympathy.
  • Jumping from relationship to relationship without taking the time to heal because you feel you can’t be alone.
Not Every High Five is Good for You!

Want to seek external validation less? Try these five ways:

  1. Trust yourself.
  2. Stop comparing yourself with others.
  3. Be aware of your actions.
  4. Practice self-love.
  5. Don’t measure yourself on the basis of social media likes.

Bottom Line: Everyone seeks external validation sometimes, in some situations—which is not only natural and healthy, but also necessary. However, in this case, too much of a good thing is NOT still a good thing.

“Just Friends”?

Today’s blog post was written by Kathleen Corcoran

The term “just friends” makes me grit my teeth every time I hear it. It implies that romantic and sexual relationships are somehow worth more than platonic friends. Friendship is relegated to a consolation prize or afterthought.

An Irish Gaelic word, anamchara, captures the importance of intimate friends in our lives. It means both friend and soul mate. In the Martyrology of Oengus, Brigid of Kildare said, “Anyone without a soul friend is like a body without a head.”

The ancient Greeks agreed. Aristotle defined friends as “A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

So if friends are the other parts of our souls, why does society (and the media) refer to intimate companions as “just friends”?

Humans are a Friendly Species

The Friendship Cure
The Friendship Cure by Kate Leaver

Since the days of wandering tribes of hunter/ gatherers, homo sapiens have needed to rely on the strength of the community for individual survival.

  • The benefits start in childhood. People who spent more time with friends as a child are likely to have a lower body mass index and blood pressure as adults.
  • Being around friends causes humans’ brains to release dopamine, norepinephrin, vassopresin, oxytocin, and serotonin, making people happier, calmer, less stressed, and more likely to survive and recover from difficult situations.
  • Having intimate friends decreases your chances of developing dementia.
  • When in proximity to friends or other loved ones, a person’s brain releases fewer stress hormones in response to threats.
  • People with close friends have lower rates of cardiac disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and excessive abdominal fat. If they have a heart attack, people who report not feeling lonely are much more likely to survive.
  • Even the perception of having the emotional and practical support of friends improves the likelihood of a good outcome when a person goes through hard times.
  • Having friends is even good for your career! According to a Harvard Business Review study, women with strong friendship circles, particularly when those friendship circles are primarily other women, advance more in their careers and earn 2.5 times higher pay.

“Just friends” keep us alive and healthy!

We Need Friends More Than Family or Romance

As Dr. Marisa Franco wrote in Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make-and Keep- Friends, intimate friendships provide people with unique benefits that other relationships cannot. Friends provide emotional support without getting bogged down in decisions about retirement and childcare. Platonic friends have all the intimacy of romantic relationships without the obligation to provide sexual gratification.

  • Katherine Wu divides love into lust, attraction, and attachment. Intimate friends combine the attraction (dopamine, norepinephrin, and serotonin) of romantic relationships with the attachment (oxytocin and vasopressin) of family relationships without the libido involvement (estrogen and testosterone) of lustful relationships.
Friends provide all sorts of support!
  • A study by William J. Chopik found that people with strong relationships with friends and with family experience better health and happiness overall. However, at advanced ages, people with intimate friendships have better health even than those with strong family ties. This might be because friendships that last into old age have already withstood the test of time.
  • Many women experience more intimacy with same-sex friends than they do with romantic partners.
  • Close friends (and family and romantic partners) develop similar brain-wave patterns when they are together. However, when they part, friends keep those similar patterns longer than they do with familial or romantic intimates.

That’s a lot of brain chemistry and health benefits from people who are “just friends.”

Things Weren’t Always This Way

Gilgamesh and Enkidu shared what might now be called a “romantic friendship.”

Until recently, most people married for reasons of politics, progeny, or property. According to Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, the understanding of marriage as an emotional institution did not arise until the 19th century.

Before then, people much more commonly turned to friends for emotional intimacy and affection. Friends kissed and cuddled each other, slept together, and provided the kind of support that, today, society only condones in romantic relationships.

  • When his friend Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh mourns him, saying, “My friend Enkidu, whom I loved so dear, who with me went through every danger, the doom of mortals overtook him.”
  • In the Bible, King David said of his friend Jonathon, “Your love was wonderful to me, passing the love of women.”
  • When he lived in Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln had a very close friend named Joshua Fry Speed, with whom he shared a bed and had pillow fights in his pyjamas.

With the rise of women’s suffrage came more female-only spaces, such as women’s colleges, where intimate friendships developed into new traditions and forms of expression.

When a Vassar girl takes a shine to another, she straightway enters upon a regular course of bouquet sendings, interspersed with tinted notes, mysterious packages of “Ridley’s Mixed Candies,” locks of hair perhaps, and many other tender tokens, until at last the object of her attentions is captured, the two women become inseparable, and the aggressor is considered by her circle of acquaintances as — smashed.

Yale student newspaper, 1873

The Lord of Montaigne, a Renaissance-era French philosopher even claimed that friendship was so intense and intimate that women could not understand it.

Seeing (to speake truly) that the ordinary sufficiency of women cannot answer this conference and communication, the nurse of this sacred bond: nor seem their minds strong enough to endure the pulling of a knot so hard, so fast, and durable.

Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne
John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton
detail from The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trunbull

Letters to friends frequently included language that modern writers would reserve for romantic or sexual partners.

  • In 1779, Alexander Hamilton wrote to his friend John Laurens, “Cold in my professions, warm in [my] friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it m[ight] be in my power, by action rather than words, [to] convince you that I love you.”
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson said of his friends, “What is so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling?”

So how did people move from intimate companions, romantic friendship, and soul mates to … “just friends”?

Blame Technology

Well, sort of. For most of our history as a species, humans have lived in small communities with strong social networks. During the Industrial Revolution, people moved to cities in droves, where those strong social networks were more difficult to maintain. Instead, people turned for intimacy (as well as child-rearing and basic survival) to romantic partners and connections within the nuclear family.

Friends work together to pull heavy loads.

Until the 1800s, the word “loneliness” did not exist. The closest word in English, “oneliness,” simply meant being without other people, without any negative connotations. A growing consumer economy, research in psychiatry, and a spreading understanding of evolutionary biology emphasized the importance of the individual alone rather than as a member of the community.

The closed doors and relative anonymity of living in a crowd also changed people’s understanding of sexual orientation and intimacy. Victorian ideals of male and female behavior as being opposite and complementary meant that people restricted their opposite-sex friendships for fear of signalling romantic attraction.

At the same time, people restricted their friendships with those of the same sex due to new fears of perceived homosexuality. As Dr. Marisa Franco wrote in Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make-and Keep- Friends, “Our discomfort with affection in friendships coincides with the rise of homophobia as it is expressed today.”

Psychiatrists like Sigmund Freud and Richard von Kraft-Ebbing characterized romance among people of the same gender as a sexual disorder, creating the concept of sexual identity. As historian Lilian Faderman writes in Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, the turn of the 20th century “was also the beginning of a lengthy period of general closing off of most affectional possibilities between women. The precious intimacies that adult females had been allowed to enjoy with each other earlier — sleeping in the same bed, holding hands, exchanging vows of eternal love, writing letters in the language of romance — became increasingly self-conscious and then rare.”

Homohysteria, the fear of being perceived as being homosexual, drastically curtailed people’s demonstrations of affection and intimacy among their friends. Before the 19th century, society stigmatized people for non-cormforming sexual acts but not for attraction or for non-sexual behaviors. Freud and Kraft-Ebbing, among others, created the modern definitions of sexual identity, which included homophobia.

Today, people are lonelier than ever. People shy away from expressions of intimacy and love with friends lest they be perceived as declarations of romantic or sexual attraction.

Social media technology, despite filling our screens with the activities of friends, can actually make us lonelier. When people use social media platforms to facilitate face-to-face interactions, they report less loneliness and stronger relationships. However, when they replace face-to-face interactions with activity on social media platforms, they report weaker relationships and stronger feelings of isolation. Research tells us that there is no replacement for communicating with or spending time with intimate friends.

Today, on St. Valentine’s Day, I’d like to celebrate all the friendly people reading this. Friends make us happier and less stressed. Friends help us in our careers. Friends keep us healthy and sometimes even keep us alive. Friends make our lives better in innumerable ways. Friends are so much more than “just friends.”

FLUTTERBIES!

AKA Butterflies. When my grandson was two, I took him to a butterfly garden. I carried him for the entire visit hiding his eyes against my neck, whimpering. I guess the flashes of color were too surprising, too unfamiliar.

Butterfly garden in Union, NJ
Butterfly Garden in Union, New Jersey
Dirce Beauty Butterfly
Dirce Beauty Butterfly

Fortunately, he didn’t become lepidopterophobic.  However, there are people with an irrational fear of butterflies and moths.

For those of us who welcome butterflies, their season is coming. June is the main flight period for many butterfly beauties, including swallowtail, black hairstreak, large blue, marsh fritillary, and glanville fritillary.  There are almost 20,000 butterfly species.

Butterflies are Fascinating!

Butterfly anatomy
Butterfly Anatomy
Butterfly puddling
Dryas Lulias butterfly puddling in the tears of a turtle
  • Butterflies use chemoreceptors on their feet to taste. 
  • Adult butterflies of most species only live for a few weeks, although the caterpillar may take months to develop.
    • Exceptions include migratory species, which may live up to 10 months.
    • In warm climates there are continuous generations, producing adult butterflies year-round. 
  • Butterflies have a liquid diet using a flexible tongue called the proboscis, which resembles a tube.
  • In addition to nectar, butterflies seek out nutrients in moist environments, such as mud, tears, and puddles. Scientists call this behavior “puddling.”
Black hairstreak butterfly
Black Hairstreak Butterfly
  • Butterflies will happily drink blood if they come across it, though they do not seek it out.
  • Nectar-filled plants naturally attract butterflies:
    • Joe-Pye weed
    • Ironweed
    • Coneflowers
    • Goldenrod
    • Brightly-hued asters
  • Butterflies actually have four wings, not two.
  • Butterflies can perceive ultraviolet light.
  • Butterflies have three body sections- head, thorax and abdomen. Other than this, they have two antennae, complex eyes, and an exoskeleton just like all other insects.
Pink Cottontail Butterfly
Pink Cottontail Butterfly
  • Butterfly wings are transparent.
  • Scales called lamellar cover a butterfly’s wings, giving them the patterns and colors we see.
  • The dust you may see on your finger after touching a lepidopteran wing is actually made up of tiny wing scales (modified hairs). If too many scales are rubbed away, the wing is more likely to tear or fail.
  • At night, or when the day is cloudy, adult butterflies rest by hanging upside down from leaves or twigs, where they are hidden among the foliage.
    • They become quiescent but do not sleep like mammals do.
  • Butterflies are able to learn signs that nectar is present.
  • Adult butterflies communicate mostly through chemical cues—the males produce chemicals called pheromones to seduce the females.
Tiger swallowtail butterfly
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly
  • Size varies greatly:
    • One of the smallest butterflies is the Eastern Pygmy Blue (Brephidium isophthalma), from the coastal southeastern United States, with a wingspan of about 5/8 of an inch.
    • Among the largest are the Queen Alexandra Birdwing butterflies (Ornithoptera alexandrae) from New Guinea, with wingspans of up to 12 inches.
  • Butterflies have the ability to go through a full metamorphosis; their life cycle includes four stages – egg, larva, pupa, and adult.
  • If you see two adult butterflies with their abdomens linked tail-to-tail, they are mating. The male grasps the female and deposits a sperm packet, which fertilizes the female’s eggs.
    • Butterflies can fly while mating, but they usually avoid moving unless they are disturbed.
Blue Spotted Butterfly
Blue Spotted Butterfly
  • Tiny sensory hairs called tactile setae cover a butterfly’s body.
  • Butterflies have huge compound eyes with numerous light-sensitive lenses, both of which have their own refractive systems and which together contribute to the formation of the image.
  • Butterflies have a long chambered heart that runs the length of its body on the upper side.
  • Butterflies must have a body temperature of 86F or above in order to fly.
  • Some species of butterflies can fly at speeds of up to 3, 4.9-12.4, 25,or 30 mph depending on the source cited.
  • According to entomologists, butterflies do not feel pain.
  • Butterflies (and moths) can remember what they learned as caterpillars.
  • Some butterflies protect themselves through camouflage—by folding up their wings, they reveal the undersides and blend in with their surroundings. 
  • If you want a butterfly to land on you, stand still and don’t wear perfume, aftershave, etc.

Facts About Monarch Butterflies

Monarch Butterfly
Monarch Butterfly
  • They’re bright orange and poisonous.
  • They weigh less than a paperclip.
  • Pilots have reported seeing monarch butterflies as high as two miles up.
  • Monarch larvae are picky eaters, thriving on a diet of milkweed, which is poisonous to most animals.
  • Males release pheromones from scent glands on their back wings to attract females.
  • They migrate from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 2,000 miles, and return to the north again in the spring. 
  • Overwintering monarchs live up to eight months, while other generations only live about two to six weeks.

Save the Flutterbies!

Aile Violette Butterfly
Aile Violette Butterfly

So why am I writing about butterflies in January? Because the Environmental Defense Fund sent a flyer, “Butterflies are disappearing,” that cites pretty alarming statistics. 

“Across the country, the entire monarch butterfly population has collapsed by nearly 1 billion since 1990.” It is now officially endangered.  Many species of butterflies have already gone extinct.

Of course the point was to solicit donations to help restore butterfly habitats. But besides being eye candy, why bother about butterflies

  • Like bees, they are plant pollinators for many veggies and herbs, such as carrots, legumes, and mint
  • About 1/3 of our food supply depends on butterflies as well as other pollinators 
  • They control the populations of insects like aphids
  • They are food for birds and small mammals
Rhetus Butterfly
Rhetus Butterfly

Butterfly personality is a thing! We all know the social butterfly! This personality is social and influencing. They need to interact with others and are friendly, charming, persuasive, talkative, impulsive, and optimistic. They are usually good leaders and can motivate others.

Butterflies represent new beginnings, giving us hope for what the future has to bring.  Their fluttering wings bring beauty to many! All across the globe, butterflies are viewed as symbols of rebirth, representing change, hope, endurance, and life!

“[Butterflies] represent strength, endurance, spirituality, trust, sustaining what they believe, transformation, and evolution.”

Cristina Panescu

BOTTOM LINE: What’s not to love about about butterflies?

SECRETS!

Elephant Secrets
secrets

The word “secret” implies scandalous, illegal, or at least embarrassing. Actually, it could be anything that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others. Note: intention is essential; that’s what separates secrets from things merely unknown.

Of course there are “official” secrets: state secrets, corporate secrets, secret formulas/recipes, even secret ingredients. All can be important, even interesting.

But most of the secrets in our lives are personal, such as

Dog Secrets
  • The first erect penis I ever saw was my brother’s.
  • I overheard people at my sister’s concert talking about what a terrible musician she is.
  • My father in law helps me remember my wedding anniversary every year.
  • I put already dead batteries in obnoxiously loud kids’ toys.
  • I’ve had sex with 13 men.
  • I lose on purpose when playing video games with my spouse.
  • I’m afraid to see a therapist, because then I might have confirmation of what I suspect.
  • My dog is a better sleep partner than my spouse.
  • I never wear pants when on video calls for work.
  • I resent the cat for stealing my spouse’s affection.
  • If my dick wasn’t so small, I wouldn’t be such a great athlete.
  • I shave my face every day, and I’m a woman!
  • I haven’t washed my socks in three days.
  • I steal the kids’ Halloween candy.
  • I pretend to snore so my partner isn’t as embarrassed about her own snoring.
  • I shoplift at yard sales.
  • I fell for her when she said my sweaty body was sexy.
  • I’m the one who lost my sister’s Totally Hair Barbie when we were kids.
  • My mother is an alcoholic, and I pretend I don’t know.

PostSecrets

Perhaps surprisingly, people are eager to share their secrets!

In November of 2004, Frank Warren printed 3,000 postcards like the one below and started dropping them in public places. 

PostSecret
Secrets
Top: Sample PostSecret card
Bottom: Submitted PostSecret card
PostSecret
secrets

Thousands of postcards poured in, in several languages—and braille—from all over the world. The project exploded beyond its original intent. By early 2006, Frank Warren had compiled early postcards into PostSecret: Extraodordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives

The project spawned shows, exhibits, a website, and several more books: A Lifetime of Secrets (007), The Secret Lives of Men and Women (2007), My Secret (2006)and PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God (2014).  (Eventually the website was taken down because viewers started posting porn and attacking some of the secrets shared.)

.

Warren believed that sharing secrets, even anonymously, was liberating, and often therapeutic. I highly recommend any and all of these books as fascinating reading, and also as sources of insight and (for writers) inspiration.

Psychology of Secrets

Horse Secrets

The topic of secrets is so seductive that of course, psychologists got onto the topic. At Psychology Today, you’ll find a pretty comprehensive research overview in the article, Why We Keep So Many Secrets, 2022. The facts and statistics that follow are from that article.

There are 36 common types of secrets identified by researchers, and about 97% of people have a secret in at least one of those categories.  The average person is currently keeping secrets in 12 or 13 of them. Examples of the categories include:

  • Hurting another person (emotionally or physically)
  • Illegal drug use, or abuse of a legal drug (e.g., alcohol, painkillers)
  • Habit or addiction (but not involving drugs)
  • Theft (any kind of taking without asking)
  • Something illegal (other than drugs or theft)
  • Physical self-harm
  • Abortion

Among more than 50,000 research participants  surveyed, the most common secrets include a lie we’ve told (69 percent), romantic desire (61 percent), sex (58 percent), and finances (58 percent)

Monkey Secrets
secrets

It’s OK to have secrets, says psychotherapist Gillian Straker. “We are definitely entitled to have our own inner subjectivity and our own inner lives. “With social media we are having less and less private space — so to have some private space, even if it’s from your partner, feels to me a positive.”

On the other hand, the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual impact of secrets are well documented. In fact, research suggests keeping secrets can significantly boost stress hormones, impact blood pressure, inhibit sleep, contribute to mental health and substance use disorders and even increase chronic pain.  Every time you think about a deeply held secret, stress hormones such as cortisol can surge, impacting your memory, blood pressure, gastrointestinal tract and metabolism. “Those hormones also include norepinephrine,” Gopal Chopra, CEO of PingMD says, “which affects parts of the brain where attention and responses are controlled.

Bison Secrets
secrets

OF course, some people are more secretive than others. Some common synonyms of secretive are reserved, reticent, silent, and taciturn. While all these words mean “showing restraint in speaking,” secretive also carries a suggestion of deviousness and lack of frankness or of an ostentatious will to conceal.

Yes, there are differences between some of the secrets of women and men, at least with regard to sex. According to Justin J. Lehmiller Ph.D.:

  • Women are more likely to report keeping sex secrets because they don’t think their partner would understand.
  • Men are more likely to report keeping sex secrets because they don’t think their partner would approve of their behavior.

Bottom line: Secrets are common, numerous, wide-ranging, powerful, and personal. Consider your secrets and the pros and cons of keeping them.

Secrets

The Principle of Least Interest

The Principle of Least Interest for Writers quote

Sociologists, economists, therapists, and every other sort of -ists have studied The Principle of Least Interest, but it’s incredibly important for writers as well. This is one of those areas in which science has confirmed what common sense has long maintained: the person who cares the least has the most power. This principle works everywhere from the housing market to the marriage market. (I wrote about this topic previously in 2015.)

That’s definitely a selling point.

If the buyer is more eager to buy than the seller is to sell, the seller will determine the selling price. If he loves her more than she loves him, he could end up the proverbial hen-pecked husband of so many comedies; vice versa and she is a candidate for the downtrodden foot-wipe—perhaps abused—wife of so many tragedies.

This principle is so well understood that sometimes people try to disguise their true levels of caring/interest (talk of other great offers forthcoming, flirting with or dating a rival). Inherent in disguise is the understanding that what counts is often the perception of least interest.

The First Take-Away for Writers:

For your characters, know who has the power (the least interest) and who is perceived to have it. And if your work has more than two characters, you need to understand the power relationships for each pair.

The elephant has the least interest in this relationship.

Unlike a credit score, people can’t go on-line and check out their power ratings. The primary reason that power relationships are often unclear is that the bases of power are virtually limitless: expertise, physical attractiveness, intelligence, wealth, athletic ability, knowledge of secrets, ability to make the other’s life miserable, being popular, great sense of humor—anything and everything that is important to that pair. Knowing the facts doesn’t tell you/the reader who has the power.

If she married him for the money and he married her for the Green Card, who cares more? What if we add in that she is beautiful and he’s a great problem-solver; she’s moody and he’s uncommunicative; he’s a natural athlete and she manages their money; they’re both extremely intelligent and care mightily for their two children. As the author, you can determine who has the power by giving weight to these factors based on the characters’ perceptions of what is important.

The Second Take-Away for Writers:

Anytime you think humans have total power over dogs, just remember which one is picking up the other’s poop.

Power is seldom one-dimensional, and if you don’t recognize the complexity, your characters will be flat and unrealistic.

In many relationships—for example, boss/employee, parent/child, older sibling/younger sibling, teacher/student—the general expectation would be that the total power package would favor the former. But my guess is that most readers don’t read to confirm the norm; they like to be surprised.

The Third Take-Away for Writers:

You should at least consider writing against common power expectations.

And just to end on a high-brow note: according to Lord Acton, “Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Consider how less-than-absolute power might corrupt your character(s).

Bottom Line

  • Know who has the power and who is perceived to have it.
  • Power is seldom one-dimensional, and if you don’t recognize the complexity, your characters will be flat and unrealistic.
  • You should at least consider writing against common power expectations.

Learn more

“Who Has the Upper Hand? Power, Sex, and Seinfeld” by Dr. Benjamin Le

The Personal Use of Social Psychology by Michael J. Lovaglia (2007)

Social Psychology and Human Sexuality: Essential Readings by Roy F. Baumeister (2001)

THE NOSE KNOWS!

Suku Jahai from Penang, Malaysia – Suku Jahai, CC BY-SA 2.0
By Muhammad Adzha

English is pretty anaemic when it comes to scent. We have to attach adjectives like “putrid” or “mown grass.” On the other hand, the Jahai people of Malaysia have words attached to specific smells, with meanings like “to have a stinging smell, to smell of human urine,” and “to have a bloody smell that attracts tigers.’

Horse nose (scent)

Researchers at Rockefeller University estimated that humans can detect at least a trillion distinct smells. That leads me to conclude that need determines what we do with specific ones.  This conclusion is supported by other evidence: in tribes that have recently switched from hunting and gathering to farming, smell words often vanish. 

Abigail Tucker explores the sense of smell in the Smithsonian Magazine article “Scents and Sensibility.”  (Full reference below). Do read it! To whet your appetite, here are some bits that I found particularly interesting.

Cow nose (scent)

Scents and the Body

Proboscis monkey nose (scent)

Females are more sensitive to smells than males.

Research indicates that infants are habituated via mothers’ milk to react more positively to the smell of things the mothers eat.

The human nose comes in 14 basic shapes and sizes.

(FYI, not in the article: noses and ears do not continue to grow during adulthood. They do change shape, however, due to skin changes and gravity.)

Many “tastes” are actually smell; chocolate, for example.

(I remember a classic psychology experiment that demonstrated that, without olfactory or visual clues, people couldn’t tell bits of apple from bits of onion.)

Nose (scent)

The exposed nature of scent receptors in the nose make them especially vulnerable to environmental toxins.  

Apparently olfactory receptors can become fatigued.

The sense of smell declines with age, especially in those over 50. By age 80, 75% of people exhibit what could be classified as a smell disorder. (Oh, sigh.)

Pretty much everyone has “blind spots” when it comes to smell. For example, not everyone can smell asparagus in their pee—but if you can, you can smell it in anyone’s urine.

Also not covered in this article: virtually everyone can become noseblind when exposed to the same smell for a prolonged period of time. Consider entering a room and noticing an odor at first but not later.

Vintage advertisement

Scent Power

Tapir nose (scent)

A human without visual or auditory cues can track a scent through the grass of a public park—but not as well as a dog can.

Some psychological conditions affect sense of smell. For example, research has linked autism to an enhanced sense of smell. On the other had, depression and Parkinson’s disease are related to decreased sensitivity.

Culture affects what we smell and how we react to specific smells. 

Besides genetic and cultural factors, certain smells evoke a visceral reaction specific to the individual, depending on life history.  Research participants are able to access more emotional memories when exposed to a smell as opposed to a picture of the source of the smell. 

Anteater nose (scent)

Andreas Keller, a prominent neuroscientist specializing in olfaction, has opened a gallery, Olfactory Art, where smell is central to the experience!

How does the nose know? We still don’t know!  “Olfaction has always been an underdog sense. It’s both primitive and complex, which makes it hard to study and harder still to transfer to our increasingly digital existence. … smells cannot at this point be recorded or emailed or Instagrammed.”

In a 2011 survey, more than half of the young adults said they’d rather give up their sense of smell than their cell phones. Little did they know what that sacrifice would entail.

BOTTOM LINE: COVID’s notorious effects on the sense of smell has triggered a new appreciation of the role of scents in our lives, for both pleasure and safety.

“Scents and Sensibility” by Abigail Tucker, Smithsonian Magazine, October 2022, pp 66-80.

Pig snout scent

THE WONDER OF WATER

I’m in Corolla, NC now, reveling in the wonder that is water. I grew up more-or-less in the middle of Ohio—not exactly water country. I first saw the ocean at age twenty, during spring break on the east coast of Florida near Tequesta/Jupiter. It was love at first sight: soft, white sand; clear, warm water; and the sounds of moving water… 

Since then I’ve been near—or better yet, sailing on—water at every opportunity. Life is just better on water.

And this isn’t a placebo effect, specific to me! 

The Wonder of Water Outside the Body

There are psychological benefits to water, especially oceans.  Research indicates that, being by the sea has a positive impact on mental health.  (Psych Central)

  • Minerals in the sea air reduce stress
  • Negatively charged ions in the sea air combat free radicals, improving alertness and concentration
  • Salt in the water preserves tryptamine, serotonin and melatonin levels in the brain, which aid in diminishing depression or increasing your overall sense of wellness
  • The sounds of waves alter the brain’s wave patterns, producing a state of relaxation

So, even the sound of water is powerful, soothing. Water sounds have long been used in meditation.  The benefits of “blue space” – the sea and coastline, but also rivers, lakes, canals, waterfalls, even fountains – are less well publicized, yet the science has been consistent for at least a decade: being by water is good for body and mind.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏)
from Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai

Whenever I’m near the ocean, a bay, a river, I’m awed by the vastness and the interconnectedness of water. Water makes up 71% of the Earth’s surface. I often think about cells sanded off my feet and ending up oceans away. 

And I’ve experienced nothing more awesome than being on the water in a small boat during a storm. Watching lighting go from the earth up. Furling the sails and trying to hold the tiller steady. And knowing that the water is primal, and ultimately has all the power. I’m inconsequential.

Listening to ocean sounds is a popular sleep aid:  people are able to let go of thoughts and allow sleep in.

And then there is the beneficial environmental factors, such as less polluted air and more sunlight. Also, people who live by water tend to be more physically active – not just with water sports, but walking and cycling. (The Guardian)

The Wonder of Water Inside the Body

In addition there are physiological benefits of water: reducing muscle tension and joint stress, and keeping skin moisturized, hair shiny, etc. (Fix)

When was the last time you thought about—really thought about—water? (Not counting hurricane Ian, of course.) How many times a day do you unthinkingly turn on a faucet? Water is so prevalent it’s easy to forget that life depends on it. People deprived of food and water will die of dehydration first. 

Water makes up 75% of the human brain. People who consume too much alcohol often wake so parched that their tongues stick to the roof of their mouths and their lips stick together. Imagine what has happened to your watery brain. (For the handful of you out there who have never had such an experience, think cotton balls and glue.)

The Wonder of Water and the History of the Body

The Nile, as seen from space
Even in modern times, human settlements cluster around rivers and seashores.

Much of our nutrition comes from seafood. Waterways have long been a means of transportation and an avenue of trade. But the wonder of water goes way beyond its utility.

Once upon a time, our ancestors slithered out of the sea. People still want to live and stay by water. Water property values are consistently higher than others. Of course, which water, and whether there is access to it, etc., count for a lot, but still… 

For suggestions about how to bring more water benefits into your life, see Blue Mind: The Health Benefits of Being by the Water.

BOTTOM LINE: There’s nothing more wondrous than water.

GIVING: BETTER KNOW YOUR CHARACTER (OR YOURSELF)

Overall, Americans are giving people. According to one study, in 2009-2018, the United States was #1 among the world’s most charitable countries (#2 was Myanmar). But this is another area where one-size doesn’t fit all. Giving people vary on all sorts of dimension, especially reasons for giving and patterns of giving.

Giving Reasons

According to 16 Personalities,Some research suggests that people may be hardwired toward generosity, and life and other influences teach them selfishness. But generosity, like most human behaviors, is likely influenced by personality types and traits.”

Giving Just Because It Feels Good 
Society in general (as well as various religions) encourage giving. Most people have probably inculcated at least some of that into their personalities, and feel good about themselves accordingly. Some research (see above) suggests that just thinking about being generous can lift a person’s mood, regardless of whether one is thinking big or small. 

Giving Because It’s the Right Thing to Do 
Some people give because they feel it is the right thing to do, either practically or because of tradition. 

Paying Back
This is someone who has been the recipient of others’ giving and wants to reciprocate. For example, getting help when down and out might well lead someone to give labor and/or money to that organization in the future. 

Guilty Giving
This would be a person who feels so blessed/fortunate/lucky that NOT giving feels too selfish to tolerate.  Sentinels are practical people who are unlikely to overthink an issue like generosity. They give because they feel it is the right thing to do, either practically or because of tradition. Their reasons are usually uncomplicated.

Sir Terry Pratchett
Jingo

Making the World a Better Place 
Here we tend to think of BIG money givers, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But this reason for giving comes in all sizes and shapes. To paraphrase: give a person a fish, you give food for a day; teach a person to fish, you give food for a lifetime.

Patterns Of Giving

Membership Giving (Whether One Takes Advantage of Member Benefits or Not)

  • Botanical garden
  • Fine arts museum
  • Historical society
  • Symphony orchestra or other musical groups 
  • Public broadcasting

Regimented Giving

“Tithe Pig Group”
Derby Porcelain c 1770
  • Tithing to a religious organization
    • Tithe” comes from the Old English word for “tenth” and originally meant to give one-tenth of one’s possessions to support the clergy
    • Almsgiving (zakat) is the third of the Five Pillars of Islam
  • Yearly gifts, particularly at holidays or birthdays
  • Monthly commitments
    • (For example, to Shriner’s, St. Jude’s, animal rescue, etc.)

Periodic but Repeated Giving

  • Favored causes (Save the Bay, Native American education, food drive/pantry)
  • Campaign donations at election time
  • Gifts to one’s college/university/library/etc.

Impulsive/Unplanned Giving

Busking
  • Street performers
  • Christmas bell-ringers
  • Panhandlers—or not
  • “Rounding up” on a purchase 

Geographic Giving

  • Local giving only
  • Giving within one’s own country
  • Giving for international causes/disasters

Giving by Cause

Waterway clean-up
  • Animal rescue
  • Environmental issues
  • Political parties/candidates
  • Hunger eradication
  • Medical research
  • Recycling

Strategic Giving

  • Tax-deductible giving
  • Estate planning
  • Donations as part of a company’s PR campaign
  • Participation in online fundraising trends

Socially Elicited Giving

  • Friends’ birthday fund raisers
  • Supporting one’s friends/family charities
  • Team participation in fundraising events
  • Giving to someone who’s given to you, a charity that has benefited you
    • (Such as a cancer survivor donating to a cancer support fund)

Non-Monetary Giving

Volunteering at a medical clinic
  • Volunteering labor
    • Cleaning up lakes/oceans/rivers/bays
    • Big Brother/Big Sister
    • Poll worker -soup kitchen
    • Building Habitat houses
    • Working in a COVID vaccine clinic 
    • Community theater usher
    • Cleaning up after environmental disasters
  • Gifts of needed items
    • School supplies
    • Clothing
    • Furniture
    • Food drives
    • Blood drives

Overall

Reasons and patterns of giving are not mutually exclusive, nor are they immutable over time. 
Also, we tend to think of giving as coming from the heart, but sometimes the act is highly cerebral. 

“Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task, but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right manner, and at the right time.”

Aristotle

Bottom line: Consider — what’s your (character’s) style of giving? Is this too little? Too much? Or just right? How does your (character’s) personality type influence all of this?

WHY?

You and I are perfect, of course—but the people we live with? They drive us nuts all around the house, in ways too numerous to count! And some rooms are more irritating than others. Some say such minor annoyances are the signs of imploding domestic happiness. Others claim habits like these are simply what happens when people become comfortable with each other, possibly even a sign of healthy relationships. Consider the ways irritability might be bad for you. And think about ways these little things can add tension to writing scenes.

Kitchen

~Putting the peanut butter on top of the jelly or the jelly on top of the peanut butter
  • Leaving scraps in the sink, even the side that has the garbage disposal
  • Leaving empty or near-empty cups, mugs, and glasses all around the house instead of taking them to the kitchen
  • Leaving cuttings/crumbs on the counter
  • Using twice as many utensils as necessary
  • Not turning off the stove burners/oven
  • Starting a dish cooking, leaving the room, and letting the food burn
  • Never adding salt and pepper while cooking (or adding far too much)
  • Leaving herbs, spices, and other seasonings on the counter
  • Not wiping up spills
  • Not checking the vegetable drawer for partials before cutting a new pepper, onion, or cuke
  • Leaving partially eaten food out (pizza, sandwich, fruit)

Bathrooms

~Washing dishes in what is clearly the dolls’ bathtub
  • Soaking the bathmat
  • Leaving dirty clothes on the floor
  • Sprinkling the counters with grooming products
  • Not flushing
  • Not replacing a spent toilet paper roll
  • Putting new TP roll on so new sheets come from the back, when everyone knows the new sheets should come over the top. (Or vice versa!)
  • Leaving hair in the washbasin
  • Using your washcloth or towel
  • Running out the hot water
  • Leaving the cap off toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoo, whatever

Bedroom

~Kicking while dreaming of chasing squirrels
  • Restless sleeping or kicking
  • Snoring
  • Using a C-Pap machine
  • Taking too much closet and dresser space
  • Leaving clothes around
  • Hogging the covers
  • Insisting on a night light—or total darkness
  • Needing a noise masking machine
  • Eating in bed
  • Reading in bed
  • Allowing pet on the bed

Living Room/Family Room

~Taking up the whole sofa, even if they’re actually the smallest member of the household
  • Toys/games sprinkled about
  • Putting feet on furniture
  • Cluttering end tables, coffee tables, ottomans…
  • Not using coasters
  • Spilling food and drink on upholstery, carpets, curtains, etc.

Dining Room

~Eating your fingers when you’re just trying to eat your mush
  • Chewing with mouth open
  • Wolfing food or eating absurdly slowly
  • Talking with mouth full
  • Not using a napkin
  • Reaching for things that should be passed
  • Making a mess around the plate/bowl

All Around the House

~Forgetting to pay the gravity bill, leaving everyone to float upside-down
  • Squeezing tubes from the middle (toothpaste, anchovy paste, etc.)
  • Playing TV/radio/etc. too loudly
  • Controlling the TV remote/program
  • Flipping channels on TV or radio
  • Not picking up after her/himself
  • Singing, humming, whistling out of tune
  • Dominating the conversation
  • Interrupting
  • Not saying please or thank you
  • Leaving doors open/unlocked
  • Leaving lights and fans on when leaving a room
  • Not setting the alarm
  • Not watering houseplants 
  • Leaving bird feeders empty
  • Paying bills late
  • Leaving the newspaper a mess

Bottom line: These are just a very few examples of domestic minor annoyances. There are always more, especially when you’re looking for them. Is the irritating behavior really worth the irritation? Or could you make use of it?