Relative Something

Why is the sound of another person chewing, so discomforting to hear sometimes? It doesn’t always come across as extremely irritating, but when it does happen –and I’m guessing it is when an ambient quiet allows it to become particularly noticeable– it is torture to endure. Personally, I find it very difficult to complain to the offending ‘person’ (who else other than my spouse do I find myself with, in a quiet situation where only one of us is eating?), because it could just as often be me masticating while my partner suffers the onslaught of offensive sounds. Quite frankly, she has been much too forgiving about pointing it out to me when I am the one doing the chewing.

I don’t know what it is about the crunching and smacking sounds resonating from within someone else’s head, that seems to strike such a nerve within me. One aspect that confuses me is why it can sound so amplified at times. It’s as if it is being artificially enhanced somehow. It doesn’t really matter what the food ends up being when the situation arises. I’ve noticed it to occur whether it is soft food or something more obviously crunchy. It is just plain unappealing to listen to food getting processed inside the mouth. It seems like all of a sudden I’m hearing fingers scratching a blackboard.

I wonder why I never get that feeling when I am the one eating. Obviously, everything sounds different from inside our own heads. But I would think that the munching sounds would be that much louder and thus more reason to be annoying inside our own head. Whatever it is that makes it such an irritant, I can see a silver lining nestled within the whole phenomenon. It provides a wonderful opportunity for me to practice the kind of diplomacy that maintaining a long-term relationship truly requires.