Door at my old apartment always “slammed shut”. It was heavy and probably the pressure change factored in.

I was bothered by it so I bought some rubber bumper things (sold for cabinets) to help. It did help.

But I never intentionally slammed that door.

It was just heavy and some pressure difference would pull it fast.

Some are assholes. Others have zero self-awareness. I stress about every little offense I might have possibly made, while astoundingly many others run around unaware that they are being jerks all day. I suspect the unnecessary playing of audio out loud in public stems from a very similar cause.

Confronting those who lack self-awareness is hard for those of us with excessive awareness, but it often gets the job done. Also a quick litmus test for who’s just unaware and who’s really an asshole.

Have you noticed this phenomenon increasingly often, or has it been much the same throughout your years?

My wife’s family was like that when I met them. Stomping around, chewing loudly, and TV super loud. When we moved in together, we got our hearing checked and it turned out she had a genetic issue that fused her stapen (hammer bone in the ear) into a fixed position which meant severe hearing impairment. Luckily a surgeon can replace the stapen with a titanium micro prosthesis that solves the problem.

Just after the procedure she called me downstairs because she said she was hearing weird noises and it turned out to be the refrigerator compressor she had never heard before. After both ears were completed, a lot of the loud behavior stopped.

I really think that some subset of these people just have hearing loss.

I’ll just offer one particular situation. I have a door to my kitchen that is metal and glass like a sliding door but swings on a hinge. More mass than a typical wooden door and it swings on the hinge very freely, no resistance to slow it down. So it swings with pretty much the velocity you give it, and it requires a decent amount to make it latch.

Commonly I go in or out with stuff in my hands so I can rarely close it slowly and carefully. I end up giving it a little shove, often with my foot. If you get the force just right, it will latch with out being loud, but it has to be just right. Any less and it doesn’t latch. Any more and it slams pretty loudly. It’s really hard to get right, an not slam it more loudly than you intend. And I’m sensitive to noise so it’s not like I don’t care. But with this particular door it’s hard to avoid.

Probably the building forces an air pressure difference between the corridors and the units to keep air circulating, their door closer doesn’t arrest the door properly, and the air pressure causes it to slam if they don’t carefully close it gently.

It’s wholly possible these people are not bothered by loud noises. I have neighbors and especially their kids seem to have no clue what an inside voice is, how far bass travels or how to walk down stairs.

They shout, they blast music, they fall down stairs.

If I did that as a kid, my dad would tell me to cut it out. And I think that’s the key difference. You’re either raised to be considerate of others, or you’re not. And if you’re the considerate type, most likely you’ll go out of your way because you don’t want them to be bothered by you while they might not even register if you happen to fall down the stairs or fire a cannon indoors.

I used to be really careful with watching tv at certain hours, or announcing to my neighbors of I was going to have people over. It took me a while but I now don’t even really care if they hear me anymore. Because even if they do, it’s unlikely they’ll be bothered as much as I am when their preteen kids shout that they don’t want to go to bed at 10:30 PM when I’m trying to sleep.

If my hands are full I’ll close door behind me with foot putting enough momentum to ensure closure. Or their job sucks.

Nepo babies

Deaf/hard of hearing.