BOOM! CLANG! SMASH!

No, it's not a Batman episode.

Loud, continuous noise has always been an irritation to me. Ear-deafening music feels like torture. Banging pots and pans...I shudder to think of them. Noise seems to especially bother me most while I'm driving. If I have a passenger in the car with me who wants to make conservation, or I'm driving somewhere unfamiliar, I keep the radio low. I never thought twice about this until my friends started pointing it out; "Hey Granny, turn up the music!"

I never correlated my noise aversion to my introversion. I always assumed it was due to being an "old soul" as most of my family and friends have always labeled me. The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear. Just as someone yapping away at me is exhausting, loud noise drains me. It's a complete interruption of whatever I am focusing on or thinking about. If I don't know where I am driving to, loud music is a huge distraction for me. If my passenger wants to talk, I need to place all my energy into chatting.

Yet I find if I'm the one making the noise, I'm perfectly okay with it. That's also in line with the introverted personality though, since in that case the noise is part of the task I'm focused on.

Loud noises aren't going to disappear, nor can i selfishly expect people to not engage in creating them. I only point out my pet peeve because it's funny how my little quirks that people have always poked fun at are often explained by my introverted personality. These are attributes that I've often felt self-conscious about, but now I'm comforted understanding where they stem from!