12 Phrases Annoying People Use In Everyday Conversation
It's hard to make friends when you make people feel devalued, unheard and misunderstood.
Face Stock | Shutterstock.com Feeling heard and understood in our conversations has been identified as the foundation of healthy connections. While being a safe space for others may seem like a massive undertaking, using small tactics like verbal cues, welcoming body language, and simple phrases can be profoundly impactful for harnessing productive, warm, and healthy relationships of all kinds.
On the other hand, there are certain phrases annoying people use in everyday conversation which tend to do the opposite — closing off opportunities for true connection and making other people feel uncomfortable, unheard, and under-appreciated. By acknowledging these common phrases and any tendencies to use them, you can ensure that you get closer to people rather than pushing them away.
Here are 12 phrases annoying people use in everyday conversation
1. ‘It’s just the truth’
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Dismissive language is often disguised in condescending phrases like this one, giving annoying and slightly narcissistic people the opportunity to manipulate their conversations to avoid taking accountability for their hurtful words.
Intended to be self-preserving, but truly targeted at others to make them feel less heard and appreciated, as experts from Sunshine City Counseling explain, phrases like this sabotage great connections and the foundations needed for longer healthy relationships.
2. ‘That’s impossible’
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Many people reveal their incompetence in conversations with phrases like this one, demonstrating their lack of complex thinking skills, problem solving abilities, and open-mindedness. Even if it’s completing a simple task or doing something entirely out of their comfort zone, truly annoying people turn down challenging, spontaneous, and exciting opportunities by using their insecurities as excuses.
For loved ones and friends in their lives, these phrases can become more than annoying, as they’re forced to comfort and coddle their uncomfortable and often unaddressed emotions rooted in insecurity and anxiety.
3. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but...’
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Anyone who has to preface their hurtful comments with a phrase like this isn’t just annoying, but generally dismissive and arrogant to the people in their lives. Of course, this intentional condescension has the ability to sabotage all kinds of relationships with mistrust, from workplace peer connections to inanimate partnerships.
According to communication leadership trainer Lee K. Broekman, pushing other people away in conversation, making them feel less intelligent or worthy of being heard, and asserting yourself as a beacon of misguided superiority only sparks resentment between people that’s detrimental to true connection and healthy interaction.
4. ‘Things were much worse in my day’
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Typically used between an adult and their older co-worker, parent, or peer, a phrase like this can work to effectively dismiss and invalidate a person’s struggle by failing to acknowledge their vulnerability or emotional expression. Instead of lending a listening ear or leading with compassion about their situation, they assert themselves as the focus of attention — arguing they’ve worked harder, gone through worse, and persevered better through more difficult fights.
Of course, there’s a sense of generational entitlement and resentment that often influence these conversations, where both sides of the aisle feel pressured to assert their unique identity and combat societal stereotypes. Sometimes, this manifests into phrases annoying people use in everyday conversation, while other times it’s a self-preserving ritual.
5. ‘We’re like family here’
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Branding a workplace as a family is generally toxic and misguided, experts from the Harvard Business Review explain, not just because it encourages leadership to overstep employee boundaries, but also because teams generally harbor a sense of pressure and guilt to overwork themselves in the name of “family” bonds.
Annoying people, prone to overstepping boundaries in their relationships and making other people’s needs go consistently unmet, might also use a phrase like this to ensure they maintain control over a situation. For example, a toxic friend might equate their platonic relationship to a “sibling bond” or “sisterhood” only to ask overstep boundaries with hurtful comments and extreme favors.
6. ‘Why don’t you just stop?’
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Annoying people also tend to struggle with the nuances of complicated struggles like emotional turmoil, grief, addiction, and other personal grievances. For example, a peer might listen to your unique struggles with anxiety, only to reply with a dismissive phrase like this one.
The people we choose to let into our lives and interact with play a profound role in our general emotional wellbeing and happiness, experts from UW Health state, so if you’re noticing more comments like this being used in conversation, consider it a warning to weed out unproductive and toxic peers.
7. ‘No offense’
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Individuals with a misguided superiority complex often claim they’re brutally honest or blunt to avoid taking true accountability for their hurtful actions and comments towards others. It’s not just annoying to listen to a phrase like this, especially after already bearing the emotional burden and offense from their comments, it’s toxic.
Professor Louay Safi argued in “Leading with Compassion,” that the healthy people in our lives prioritize empathy and compassion in every conversation they have, even amid conflict. They’re not using phrases like this to seek attention or to shift blame, they’re working to make the people around them feel heard, comfortable, and appreciated.
8. ‘Sorry, not sorry’
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It’s annoying to be in a relationship with someone who continuously struggles to take accountability, even if it’s in passing conversations at work or with a close friend. By utilizing false apologies with phrases like this, they shift blame onto others, making it emotionally taxing and frustrating to even be in a relationship with them.
Phrases like this also indirectly work as gaslighting techniques, sparking feelings of “craziness,” frustration, and chaos in their peers, as a study from the American Sociological Review suggests. By hurting and demeaning others, they reassert their superiority and control, making it easier to take advantage of others for their own gain.
9. ‘I’m just blunt’
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Dismissive, degrading, and simply put: annoying. Phrases like this, that rely on invalidating another person’s emotions to shift blame, are almost always malicious, as the person saying them is usually hoping to make someone else feel less comfortable expressing their opinions and emotions in conversation.
If you need the reminder, your “best friend” or toxic boss who constantly relies on their perceived bluntness to make hurtful remarks isn’t really acting in your best interest.
10. ‘You need to calm down’
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If it’s not a Taylor Swift lyric at full volume, a phrase like this can feel massively annoying and invalidating in passive conversations. Not only does it fail to acknowledge the reasoning behind someone’s intense and uncomfortable emotions, it dismisses them as a fundamental overreaction.
As a general rule of thumb, validating someone’s emotions doesn’t have to revolve around verbal communication. Don’t give unsolicited advice, don’t suggest they process their emotions differently, just listen to them with a welcoming demeanor and wait for them to ask you for specific support.
As therapist Tuuli Vahtra explains, reflection, shared experience, and open-mindedness are the keys to true validation, not one of the passive phrases annoying people use in everyday conversation.
11. ‘Must be nice’
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Another quick way to invalidate someone’s excitement or take away from their success is to refocus the attention on yourself, especially in a negative manner. If you need the reminder, your friends can be excited for your achievement without pointing out their own shortcomings. They don’t have to suggest you’re lucky for getting a new job when they’re all unemployed.
True friends and healthy partners support each other, from a genuine place of empathy and compassion, rather than trying to annoyingly overshadow praise with condescending remarks.
12. ‘Because I said so’
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Even in a parent-child relationship or manager-employee partnership, relying on a misguided power dynamic to regulate your conversations isn’t healthy for anyone. Every deserves to have their opinions, criticisms, and boundaries respected in conversation, even if they’re younger or in a less prestigious role at work.
Not only is it generally perceived as annoying when someone relies on rigid stereotypes and controlling behaviors to support their superiority, it’s toxic to healthy relationships and productive conversations.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.