“Mobile phone behaviour is the modern frontier of irritation where basic social norms quietly give up. Someone checks a notification mid-conversation and suddenly you’re competing for their attention,” bemoans PAUL DORIN. 

Humans are irrationally irritated by each other. It starts small. A trolley left in the middle of a car park. 

Not just metal and wheels drifting aimlessly, but a quiet announcement: I have interacted with society and chosen not to complete the final step in the social trolley laws.

The same logic applies everywhere: the way someone loads a dishwasher, plates facing the wrong direction, forks placed with optimism rather than logic.

Eating loudly is not eating, but performing; a full surround-sound experience no one asked for. Or the way someone cuts a carrot like they’re defusing a bomb… or worse, like they’re not

Then there’s the small domestic crime: the one who leaves the toilet seat up, or who doesn’t flush. Actions that eventually unsettle the entire household. Somehow, irritations feel like character references.

Then there are the rituals we’ve collectively decided matter more than they should. Tea, for instance where civilisation collapses if it’s not water first, milk last. There is a sequence. Everyone knows it. And yet someone, somewhere, is pouring milk first like it’s an independent decision rather than a rule-bound event. I’m just saying I notice.

I notice these things more than I should. Which is unfortunate, because I also contribute to the problem. I slice tomatoes in a way that makes onlookers stare in fear, questioning my safety and my life insurance policy.

People watch me like it’s a live demonstration of poor decision-making. I understand their concern. It is, admittedly, a dangerous way to slice a tomato.

Modern life has only increased the opportunities for judgment. We arrive at mobile phone behaviour, the modern frontier of irritation where basic social norms quietly give up. Someone checks a notification mid-conversation and suddenly you’re competing for their attention. Public phone calls in bathrooms create an accidental shared experience no one consented to.

Food photography: suddenly you’re part of a documentary shoot for a plate of pasta. Yes, I’m guilty of this. It’s annoying when people are waiting to eat while you angle your plate like it’s applying for a magazine cover [And your problem is? – Ed].

Then there are the small textual irritations. Spelling mistakes, clumsy phrasing that break the flow of a sentence. I call them cognitive speed bumps. I say this as someone who isn’t the strongest speller, which creates a strange mix of professional pride and mild paranoia, especially when I’m doing cartoons with captions. Naturally, this makes me hyper-aware of everyone else’s little mistakes.

It’s not judgment. It’s… vigilance.

No laws are broken by someone who butters only the middle of the toast like they’ve given up halfway through, or floods an entire plate with tomato sauce as if restraint were a personal failing. And yet it feels like there should be a law.

And of course, the irony is that everyone is both observer and offender. I’m just as guilty of the behaviours I notice in others, only arranged in a different pattern. 

Our quirks are harmless, unless you’re cutting a tomato like me. In theory, we accept everyone’s differences. In practice, we quietly catalogue them and move on.

And for the sake of what’s left of civilisation… return the trolley!

Paul Dorin is the CityNews cartoonist. We let him graze on the keyboard from time to time.