Things you hate that are not socially acceptable to hate

For me, it’s

My birthday
Christmas
The pressure to keep in touch with people
Exercise

Drivers stopping to let me cross the road after I already stopped or adjusted for their passing.

I feel like if I was allowed to hate birthdays a lot of resentment about other things would vanish. But last year I had to get a cake and everything because it would be “weird” to have Easter at our house and not acknowledge my birthday.

I honestly hate all holidays.

Except halloween

I don't know how old you are treesh, but I've found that post-40 it got a lot easier to ignore or minimize birthdays. I haven't been around my extended family on my birthday for a long time though

um what

It's so damn normal not to care about or to perform your indifference to your birthday, whereas I LOVE my birthday and love celebrating with friends.

I've found that after 40 I've said fuck it and embrace my birthday cuz it's awesome.

I am 36. My children and my spouse love birthdays and I am happy about celebrating other people on their birthdays. I just have an irrational hatred of my own, in part because I was born on Hitler’s 100th birthday. It feels cursed.

My best friend's birthday is also 4/20. You know what you can do? Spark up.

I hate generative A.I., which is socially acceptable in some places but not my corporate workplace. Senior leadership are fond of repeating the nonsensical mantra, "A.I. isn't going to take away people's jobs, but it is going away the jobs of people who don't know how to use A.I." I want to scream in their faces.

It has never been well received when I say I want to do nothing and receive nothing on my bday. I think it is seen as petulant.

Oh i really hate ai too. Good one.

I actually celebrated my birthday this year, for the first time in decades, because it happens to fall on Charlie Kirk Remembrance Day and I wanted to reclaim it

Marijuana makes me have panic attacks lol xp

Negronis?

Sober for 2 years after many years of daily drinking :-/

I’d love a negroni but shouldn’t

I like birthdays and most annual occasions but people think I'm crazy for suggesting the British should move their fireworks night to any part of the year that isn't cold and soggy, like pretty much every other country in the world

all good xpost

The Princess Bride (I don't even actively or publicly hate it, it only comes up when people keep pressing me about what i think about it when they notice I'm not joining in their quotefest)

the 4th of July. even when this country was less of a cesspool, it's a holiday full of obnoxious drunk people blowing things up and scaring dogs

theatre people (yes, yes, I know that makes me the worst kind of hypocrite)

Harry Potter fans (pre-JK Rowling heel turn)

most thinkpieces

95% of local opening bands

Waffles and pancakes
fireworks

Mashed potatoes. Least favorite food.

i'm into this thread. these days i try to minimize the things i hate, and i've definitely made progress. BUT there are some things that are just plain nopes for me and always will be. christmas is one of them. thankfully it doesn't upset me like it used to. i celebrate the solstice with a fire to welcome the coming light. and then spend xmas out of town with my partner if i can.

let's see, one thing i hate doing that i do feel a need to do, to a degree, is experience the mostly horrible health care system and racket in the u.s. my partner saw a mole on my back recently and insisted i get it checked out. yeah i'm just not going to do that. like, as a separate dr office visit. i might bring it up in a regular physical. overall i'm not spending money on health care unless i'm already sick. i know there are preventative things you should do. some of them seem more important, to me, than others. that's my decision. i know that can make people big mad (i've seen it on this board). but, like, we're all going to die. and how much a person is willing to spend in doctor's offices vs a health risk is a personal decision. so nyah. i'll do whatever the fuck i want when it comes to my own health, unless it puts others at risk.

i hate the feeling that, even though when you go to a gym you are ostensibly there to work out, you enter a social arena and are somewhat obligated to interact with and accept everyone and welcome everyone looking at you and etc. most people get the message that i just want to be left alone at the gym, but some people are paying attention to everyone and everything but their own workout, and they are usually the ones who gawk or talk etc. it's very much not acceptible to get irritated at gym talkers because "live and let live" is the overriding law at the gym, but i can't help but feel that the law should really be "focus on your own workout, your own body, and shut the fuck up" lol. also "gym walking" should be against the law. people who walk around the perimeter of the gym for what seems like hours to get their steps in. go outside you sod! there's probably something terrible that keeps them from going outside, i guess. but damn their constant lapping gets on my nerves.

birthdays, i have mixed feelings about. generally just want them to be over but i have discovered pleasure in people wishing me happy birthday. i don't respond to anyone though. it's my birthday so i can do what i want! not going to make it about other people and their feelings. but yeah kiss the ring. haha.

whistling

xp I've had a mole on my chest for years, probably decades at this point. Every time I went in for a physical I asked my doc "you sure this is nothing" and he was always like "it's nothing." And every time I took my shirt off at the pool or beach somebody would say "man, you really need to get that looked at, because I knew somebody who..." So finally my doc said "would it make you feel better to see a specialist?" And he referred me to a dermatologist at Mass General, who said "it's nothing" before I could even get my shirt all the way off. Now I want those well-intentioned friends of mine to reimburse me the co-pay.

Children

If i didn’t have kids I would never go to the doctor.

I especially hate how dentists tell me to get invisaline. Like i refused braces in middle school for a reason, I like my crooked teeth.

do you enjoy chewing

the stuff that dentists insist on as like things you have to do is .. much greater than the things you actually have to do ime. my partner got implants for teeth that were pulled and it's been a lot of time, money and etc that doesn't seem necessary or desirable to me. i had one pulled 7 years ago and it's fine. maybe it depends on which tooth / teeth. but again, i'm going to let him do him and just offer empathy.

brushing is bullshit

I luckily have not needed much dental work but am always fine with fillings when needed. I resent the invisaline comments because it is cosmetic and who are they to say how i should look.

Almost every eating establishment you can find on a British high street, but especially Greggs.

with skin and tooth stuff i just think there's a spectrum, it's personal, it's easy to cross over into nice-to-haves but not-strictly-necessaries. like, have you seen tibetan sherpas? i doubt they're seeing dermatologists. there is a lot of pressure with certain health care areas that seems largely derived from that sweet intersection between people's neuroses and an industry's profit motive.

I had an opthamalogist recommend surgery for a minor ptosis in my left eyelid. Was furious.

I am in a bad mood today which is part of the origin of this thread.

In general with my appearance I am mixed. I am really vain in some ways, but I never appreciate comments from others on how I could improve my looks. I feel like I should be allowed to grow old and ugly, to be ignored. Like I fear that but I also I wish I didn’t and god save anyone who recommends botox to me.

Greggs logo is confusing to me, it looks like an estate agents'

xxp but again, it's personal. some people really need the skin attention. others are blessed with thick skin so to speak. i resent people generalizing about what health practices you're supposed to do. it's my decision bitch.

I had braces for 8 years because my teeth looked like Lisa Simpson's in the computer model and I couldnt chew properly. I would never have qualified to be a Union soldier in the Civil War because you had to have two teeth that met so you could rip open cartridge boxes while holding a gun.

imagine that "bitch" as like a gay man saying "slay bitch". sorry not sorry. wow ok i've reached my daily sass quota.

If i had that i would have gotten braces. My teeth are slightly crooked on the bottom and my bite is perfect. I am fortunate to have had good dental health. My issue was with dentists and other doctors trying to convince me to looksmax.

Xp

If i was a woman I would probably go insane with all the cultural pressure to look thinner, younger, whatever. The little bit that I experience that it feels so invasive.

Almost every eating establishment you can find on a British high street, but especially Greggs.

British fetishisation of bad food is real. 95% of UK car journeys are under three hours' duration* yet our motorway service stations are legion and always filled with people buying overpriced, low quality food and beverages.

*made-up stat.

I would never have qualified to be a Union soldier in the Civil War because you had to have two teeth that met so you could rip open cartridge boxes while holding a gun.

TIL

i hate the incredibly generic and scripted kind of chit chat that strangers tend to engage in in places like airports. how bout them broncos etc. why i got big-ass headphones on at all times when traveling.

relatedly i hate airports. it's getting to the point where if it's not reachable by car i'd rather not go. my body clock is all messed up and i had to spend 8 hours in a closet, but i'm somewhere else for 5 days. great. i don't like the shellshock of traveling by plane. give me space and slow transitions over land please. my aversion to air travel has only appeared within the last 5 years or so.

i hate drinking culture. the faux excitement of it. i say this because i spent the weekend with someone who likes to drink, and we were going out to places for that reason. so boring.

It’s incredibly socially acceptable to hate airports and drinking culture dude

think airport hate is near universal (I love them but I am odd)

I feel like the weird person more and more lately because I still enjoy plane travel (not as much as train travel!) and having mah dranks

i hate airplanes and, this is the one i am most ashamed of, traveling in general...

if it was up to me i would never leave the nyc metro area for any reason.

i am not proud of that at all

Tom, you're cooked now.

Sorry to continue exercise discourse but: I kind of share that thing where abstracted intentional "exercise" can feel a tiny bit absurd, and you sort of wish you could be doing a real activity instead? Moving a bunch of heavy boxes would trigger some level of motivation/satisfaction stuff for me, there's a concrete task; lifting the same amount as an isolated exercise just makes me dwell on how I could, like, stop. This is the main point of all those gamified and networked exercise machines, right? They 100% work on me — I'll go all-out to win an imaginary race on a rower just because I hate the next guy's screen name.

Anyway it seems fair to look at the past 80 years or whatever and say, okay, some big changes are: (1) people do way less moving around for everyday-life non-exercise reasons, because we've mechanized loads of physical tasks and made sitting in one place infinitely less boring, (2) in many cases it's become harder to work physical stuff into your life even if you're trying to, and (3) at some point it became abundantly clear that a lot of the people dropping dead in their 50s didn't actually need to, and medical advances combined with pretty simple lifestyle changes could probably avoid a ton of that, so unless you have a real rough-life fatalism about dying when you die you should probably just work out like they recommend. So we keep developing more and more of this purpose-built category of abstracted "exercise" to fill in the stuff that's receding from everyday life (which in turn lets non-physical stuff like answering work emails crowd out even more hours). Almost every doctor quoted in every article about exercise says stuff about working it into your everyday life by taking the stairs or doing social sports with friends or whatever — there is a constant consensus recommendation about breaking down this division between purposeful exercise and the rest of existence! — but it is clearly not easy to do.

In other news I agree about hating when cars "politely" give up their right of way to let you go first; it just makes everything slower, more confusing, and less efficient. The other day I was backing out of a driveway and the only car on the street stopped to let me out. Just go past! There's nobody behind you! You are going out of your way to make this situation slightly worse for everyone involved! Same with cars lingering forever at a stop sign so you can get there and cross: if nobody's behind you, I'd rather use an empty crosswalk than pass two feet in front of your grille, keenly aware that your foot on the brake is the only thing between me and a real problem.

Oh I can't really get on a high horse when it comes to the violence, I don't mind it much in action or gangster films at all. Or martial arts films but there I do think there's a difference, it's closer to dancing than to a brutal beatdown.

I also dislike the modern blockbuster approach where millions die and it's nbd, but it doesn't give me any emotional charge - usually the movies where this happens already feel so disconnected from any kind of reality that it barely registers. On an intellectual level though I do think it's interesting that whenever shit like that happens in MCU movies and the like, the fallout is never about the many who have lost family and friends but about the trauma suffered by the hero, who is often responsible for what happened to some extent. Very fitting for a country whose wars now impact on it mostly via soldiers with PTSD coming home.

I would say some horror violence is horrific, but there is absolutely also an element of pleasure in a lot of it, slashers and giallo especially, people love discussing their favourite kills. Sometimes this also just ends up being about practical effects geeks enjoying the craft, which I have a lot of respect for. Just not for me.

xp yeah, I cannot stand when cars stop at an intersection (when they have a green light) to let you cross, and then get mad at you when you don't. Like, thanks for stopping pal, but do you think the cars coming the opposite way are gonna extend me the same courtesy? Or is that not your problem?

karaoke

I relate to horror, though I'm not sure I'd say I hate the genre (I avoid it but I don't feel loathing toward it) so much as how dominant it has become.

I have arrived on foot to intersections, seen the courtesy confusion thing about to happen and pulled out my phone and turned my back to the road to avoid having to deal with this.

xp yeah, I cannot stand when cars stop at an intersection (when they have a green light) to let you cross, and then get mad at you when you don't. Like, thanks for stopping pal, but do you think the cars coming the opposite way are gonna extend me the same courtesy? Or is that not your problem?

― henry s, Wednesday, 19 November 2025 19:13 (twenty minutes ago)

I've gotten very skilled at acting as if I'm not about to cross the street or at least not paying attention in general to dissuade them from that behavior.

I use the same tactics to avoid being stalked for my parking space because I hate feeling rushed or worse creating a situation that delays multiple cars behind the one stalking me.

Consists of body language meant to make it appear as if I'm just standing around obliviously / not actually going anywhere OR if that's too hard to sell then oh gosh gee wiz, something concerning just popped up on my phone and I am going to stand here and'll be busy dealing with it for who knows how long... better not wait on me!

the band Soundgarden

Jam rock.

xp when I'm returning to my car in a congested parking lot, I will walk down a different lane until the last second and then abruptly cut over to my car to avoid getting honked at by a lurker for taking my sweet time buckling up, checking my phone, getting a good station tuned in, etc. This was especially useful in the days when cars had CD players, and I was on my way out of the record store and needed time to open the CD, maybe read some of the liner notes before I placed it in.

I exercise because i need to build up bone density and because my natural state is sitting on my arse. but am I the only person who doesn't get "endorphins" from it? I count down the minutes till the end and yes I do feel happy that I accomplished it and I can go and do something else now but I don't think that's what people are talking about?

NB: The generic thread of hating stuff regardless of what society thinks would be We Love (To Hate) Everything

I agree with a lot in this thread: coffee, pancakes, whistling, puns like 'pawrents' and pets-as-children fawning, exercise (which I do anyway, grudgingly)

I don't hate mashed potatoes but they are probably my least favourite way to consume potatoes

I hate most biscuits (as in hard cookie-like entities) and I don't like English-style tea, so I'm a real joy to encounter during the office tea round

I also really don't like You Can Call Me Al

but am I the only person who doesn't get "endorphins" from it? I count down the minutes till the end and yes I do feel happy that I accomplished it and I can go and do something else now but I don't think that's what people are talking about?

You are not the only one, this is exactly how I feel

A shark walks down the street

A street in a strange world

it's why I'm soft in the middle

I also never get an endorphin rush from exercise. I have felt absolutely miserable after exercising before, but never notably good

Almost every doctor quoted in every article about exercise says stuff about working it into your everyday life by taking the stairs or doing social sports with friends or whatever — there is a constant consensus recommendation about breaking down this division between purposeful exercise and the rest of existence! — but it is clearly not easy to do.

nabisco your whole post has a lot to chew on, and it gets at something about exercise that has always weirded me out. on the one hand, it's very elemental - you are moving your body in challenging ways - what is more fundamental than that? we all have bodies whether we like it or not and sort of maxing out what they can do seems like a pretty standard issue activity. kids do this as they're developing and i think in some sense doing it when you're older can connect you to that feeling. but it's also a very abstracted thing, like you point out. a lot of the programming you'll encounter is based on measurements and statistics and, as others have noted, national health recommendations. there is probably even more programming out there based on aesthetics and what ideal bodies look like. that whole force behind exercise is rooted in some kind of libidinal dream that shifts and refracts depending on the year and the social moods and when looked at a certain way is kind of the ultimate self-indulgent activity with no "objective" outcome--no walls built, no ditches dug, no fields plowed, that sort of thing. the feeling of doing exercise, for me, can kind of emphasize the elemental nature of who i am - there's an earthiness and a beastliness to it. i think one of the things about exercise that can feel good to a lot of people is the active-ness of it, the assertiveness. it almost invites people to start imagining or maybe romanticizing a more elemental, physical existence. but the irony here is that the "fitness lifestyle" is only made possible by some of the most cutting edge elements of modern society, complicated systems of production that support all kinds of refinements - exercise equipment, specialized nutrition products, biotechnology, etc.

Ha ha seeing the words 'office tea round' made me realise I do hate that whole concept. And just being offered tea at work, which a few colleagues have done in different places over the years, and even tho I'd said no thanks a few days in a row they just kept offering day after day for quite a while after. What a nice thing for them to do. That I hate. It was never coffee maybe that's why.

It's true that adults on average probably move less during the day than 100 years ago. But also people 100 years ago weren't very healthy either. It's not like factory or farming jobs give you a well-rounded workout, they're more likely to give you repetitive stress injuries and ripped up joints. So I think fitness/exercise is not only replacing movement we have lost, it's also being much more aware of our bodies. We know a lot more about what happens as bodies grow and age, and how to take care of them along the way.

I liked hiking and playing tennis in my 20s but wasn't an avid exerciser per se, and had little time for it in my 30s for domestic reasons. The big breakthrough was starting to do some yoga in my 40s, which was great both in itself and also for the way it made me more aware of my whole body right at a time when it was good to pay attention to wear and tear. These days I've gotten very into both cardio and some strength work, from the perspective of appreciating that I still have a body that works pretty well and it feels good to take care of it. I don't know that I get endorphins per se, but I can certainly get into grooves that feel good. Music helps obviously.

My objection to the fitness industrial complex is a hatred of the verb work out and the noun workout because they contain the word WORK and imply some sort of puritanical or quasi xtian obsession with the redeeming qualities of work.
Exercise is fine, exercising is good and needed not bad and hated
But I hate workouts and working out.

i think gyms are gross but i could totally see myself getting addicted to lifting weights if they just appeared in my apartment one day.

It's true that adults on average probably move less during the day than 100 years ago. But also people 100 years ago weren't very healthy either.

like half of the people currently on this board will have been dead of old age in 1925

Like, this is years ago but I remember going to the movies with my son to watch guardians of the galaxy 2 and there is a scene in there where I guess what is supposed to be the good guys in that movie just go through a ship and kill every person on board while some 70s rock track was playing and it made me feel really uncomfortable and I was wondering why I was exposing my son to this kind of stuff.

― silverfish, Wednesday, November 19, 2025 12:40 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thank you, I had the exact same reaction. I vividly remembering hating that scene.

i think gyms are gross but i could totally see myself getting addicted to lifting weights if they just appeared in my apartment one day.

As someone who bought some dumbbells and a kettlebell and now opens the closet and looks at them every once in a while before going back to working on his laptop... not so much.

theres a really great scene in the first Austin Powers movie about that kind of violence but I think it was actually cut from the theatrical version

XP: I have some dumbbells I use every evening before bed (loaded to a modest 10kg or something at present) but I do admittedly have the not inconsiderable incentive of remembering what a frozen shoulder is like. (ie. nightmarish.) If I hadn't picked up the habit amidst legit 'rehab' I'm not sure I would tolerate seeing the wretched things every friggin' day.

I hate internet pile-ons because the first people to arrive are the ones acting in good faith, the other 97% that arrive later are usually there for the thrill of eviscerating someone.

Yeah and they think we don’t remember who they are — the sharks that circle when they smell blood in the water

ll - it suits me better to think of it as work I need to do rather than a "fun-out" or something!

The smell of weed. I think legalizing it was the right thing to do. But must it smell so strong? There are parts of downtown DC where the smell is almost visible.

I think most non weed smokers agree with you there, my wife breathed a sigh of relief when I switched to oils and edibles (which nonetheless still smell a bit!).

i've always been of the strong inclination that if something doesn't engage me, interest me, or i otherwise can't enjoy it, i'm just not going to do it. with things that i wouldn't do of my own accord, the trick for me is always - how can i do this in a way that i enjoy it? i feel like generally speaking that has involved sinking into the presence and flow of the act itself, the sensation of it, letting my thoughts about it evaporate. with doing the dishes, for instance, i used to approach them with the thought "i hate doing this and i want to get it over with as soon as possible" and i would rush through it and feel miserable. lately though i find myself just doing them and not really feeling any type of way about it, just noticing how it feels as i make each motion. i'm noticing bits of pleasure in the present experience of the actions themselves.

map, been thinking of this post and it is without a doubt a correct and admirable way to go through life but also reading your post I feel like the daughter in this story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5NAEC9GVko

argh that didn't work out. Start around 1:57.

That is excellent. Pete Holmes's daughter otm.

I tell you something else I don't like, and it is in fact one of the things that eventually persuaded me to see a psychologist and get a confirmation of neurodivergence: I absolutely hate surprises. Of any kind. Just don't. I realised that this might be a thing that runs in my family when a younger family member was presented with a surprise that would, by normal social standards, be considered awesome, and they had such a meltdown over it that they ended up not even being able to do the surprise because it was all so awful. So yeah, surprises are terrible. I particularly hate that trope in television programmes of people planning a surprise birthday party for someone and pretending they forgot the birthday completely, so that they spend all day being mean and offhand to the person, and then that person is expected to be delighted that there's a party happening that they never got the chance to anticipate and get excited about? Fuck that.

I realise people don't do that in real life, but surprise parties are the absolute worst. Do not attempt.

with things that i wouldn't do of my own accord, the trick for me is always - how can i do this in a way that i enjoy it? i feel like generally speaking that has involved sinking into the presence and flow of the act itself, the sensation of it, letting my thoughts about it evaporate. with doing the dishes, for instance, i used to approach them with the thought "i hate doing this and i want to get it over with as soon as possible" and i would rush through it and feel miserable. lately though i find myself just doing them and not really feeling any type of way about it, just noticing how it feels as i make each motion. i'm noticing bits of pleasure in the present experience of the actions themselves.

is it socially acceptable to hate pete holmes? cause i hate pete holmes

This is ilx, hating any and all comedians is always enthusiastically approved of on here in my experience.

I've been to a real surprise party, so they do happen, for me the problem is that I need to shift gears to different social situations and that would be like going from 1st straight to 5th

The gear shifting has gotten easier as I've aged though.

I particularly hate that trope in television programmes of people planning a surprise birthday party for someone and pretending they forgot the birthday completely, so that they spend all day being mean and offhand to the person, and then that person is expected to be delighted that there's a party happening that they never got the chance to anticipate and get excited about? Fuck that.

this actually happened to us - we didn't pretend to forget but acted like nothing special was happening, so they got the hump and went off alone - leaving their phone behind! - so when it came to go to the restaurant we'd booked we had no idea where they where. and y'know they were and you are otm.

xp it has got a lot easier now I'm on zoloft

I particularly hate that trope in television programmes of people planning a surprise birthday party for someone and pretending they forgot the birthday completely, so that they spend all day being mean and offhand to the person, and then that person is expected to be delighted that there's a party happening that they never got the chance to anticipate and get excited about?

yes!!! this!!! this is also why I hate April Fool's Day btw

I realise people don't do that in real life, but surprise parties are the absolute worst. Do not attempt.

― trishyb, Thursday, November 20, 2025 7:54 AM bookmarkflaglink

i've been a part of 2, but both of them were 20-30 years ago. tbh I'm such an independent minded person that if someone threw me one I'd feel annoyed that I'm now hostage to those plans for hours and that my night has been planned for me with zero input from me, and I probably already made other plans.

fuck, i hate surprises.

they always strike me as such a reversal of any occasion that is meant to consider the person surprised.

I'm fully allergic

Wnen i was 6 I waited for a kid to come out if the bathroom so I could scream at him and scare him. It worked.

Hope he's still alive

seconding weed smell. i'm not anti-weed (tho i don't partake frequently at all) but i find the smell of it in public kind of annoying, esp. on public transit.

i was the recipient of a surprise party once and it was...startling, but it also felt nice that so many people were thinking of me.

Wnen i was 6 I waited for a kid to come out if the bathroom so I could scream at him and scare him. It worked.

Hope he's still alive

― Edward Albee Sure (Neanderthal),

https://i.imgur.com/VPSuOw7.gif

football

Wnen i was 6 I waited for a kid to come out if the bathroom so I could scream at him and scare him. It worked.

I did this when I was 8 except that I didn't realise one of the teachers was also using the washroom so I jump-scared her instead of my classmate

She was not amused

I was mildly terrified of repercussions (there were none) but also delighted bc I really didn't like that teacher