STOP SNIFFING!! !

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I hate colds...they suck and offend people apparently. I mean sure I have found sniffing annoying, but I think I find actually being the one with the cold and/or runny nose to be much more annoying.

There is a fable about a man who started a long journey and had no shoes. At first he was crossing meadows and walking on dirt roads and the going was easy, but then his path took him across a desert of sharp stones. The points and knife edges on the stony path cut his feet and it was impossible to go on.

"If only I had some sort of protection for my feet, something comfortable like a layer of leather" he thought to himself, and so he began to plan a way to obtain a million cow hides, so he could make a leather path across the desert...

Why didn't he just wrap his feet in leather? Take the solution with him? A pair of shoes is the practical solution, but not the one people think of first.

Men in the middle east are bothered by their sexual attraction to women and propose to conceal all women in formless bags with tiny slits for their eyes.

The point is that if you have a sensory problem, it is impractical, potentially rude and conflict-generating to try to remove the offending stimulus from the world. Noises bothering you in the library? Find another place to study. It's your problem and it won't work to try to make it the world's problem.

When I say it won't work I mean telling people not to chew or sniff or swallow or breathe noisily or whatever it is that is intolerable to you--that is probably not going to be effective.

Returning to the fable of the shoeless traveller, it's better to make a pair of shoes than cover the road with leather from end to end. In a similar way, it's better to find a place without the distracting stimulus than require others to alter their behavior to create a stimulus free environment.

When I was a student at NYU, I found the main study areas of the library distracting, but I found some carels in the stacks that were very peaceful and so I went there. There was also a room with some tables and chairs and a lovely view of Washington Square Park that few people used. I could always sit at least 20 feet from anyone. It was on an upper floor and most of the students used similar rooms on lower floors. There was also a specialty library for East Asian studies that had some utterly quiet study spaces. When things were too busy at the main library and I just needed space to study, I would head over to the East Asian library...

I don't think you will find any happiness in blaming sniffing asians for your distress. If you want to not have this be a problem, better to find solutions that you can control with modifications of your behavior rather than asking others to modify their behavior for your convenience.

Constant sniffing your bother me too. I also have Misophonia. Are you able to find a private place to study? In college I loved studying in the school art gallery because it was very rare that anyone else was ever there. I also spent a lot of time in the private practice rooms in the music school basement. Since I was a music major I needed to be there anyway but it was nice because they were as soundproof as they could be an no one would bother you there. I also loved studying in the library stacks. It was like being in a little cave. And some of the libraries had comfy chairs in the stacks as well just for that reason.

Ebola.

You could play music on some headphones to block it out. That's what I've always done anyway, it's easier than asking people to be quiet.

I can't f*****g stand it some days. It irritates the s**t out of me and I can't concentrate for s**t. Worst of all though I do it myself sometimes and that makes me even madder.