Can you type too loudly? Yes, according to the aggressive man looming over me

Misophonia – the fear of certain sounds – can affect people severely, as Christine Manby discovers when a stranger on a train jabs his finger in her face

Illustration by Tom Ford

The person who came up with the concept of the “quiet carriage” deserves some sort of medal. Even if there’s always one person who thinks the quiet carriage is the perfect place to take a loud phone call, it does at least offer the hope of a tranquil journey and the chance to get some work done. So I was disappointed to discover that I was unable to book into the quiet carriage for a three-hour train ride, during which I planned to skim-read a Second World War history book and perhaps make some notes for a novel.

But as I boarded the train, it seemed the gods were with me. I found a seat right at the end of a carriage, close to the doors. I settled in next to the window and was delighted to find as the doors closed for departure, that the seat next to me remained unoccupied. The carriage was largely empty. However, just as the whistle sounded, a man in his fifties came huffing in. He sat across the aisle from me, also in a window seat, so that there were two vacant spots between us. At least eight feet of clear space.

Like a rabbit, I clocked him in my peripheral vision in the manner of every lone woman who ever travelled on public transport. He seemed to be in a state of agitation. He swore loudly as he took his coat off. He swore as he wrestled his suitcase under the table. He swore as he looked for his phone. He swore on and off for the next hour as he checked emails, listened to voicemails, and glared out of the window at the offensive (I assume) muted greens and browns of the English countryside in winter.

Our carriage was next to the canteen and so, though it was largely empty, there was plenty of traffic along the aisle as the journey progressed. A small child went squealing by like a fighter plane ahead of his panicking father. A couple bounced from side to side, leaning heavily on the backs of seats as they made their unsteady way. “We got engaged,” the man said, waving a brown paper bag from which poked the open top of a bottle of champagne, clearly already half-finished.

“Ferfucksake,” the man across the aisle muttered in the wake of the cheerful fiance. I kept my face oriented towards the book in my lap but my rabbit vision was fully engaged as FFS-Man slammed his laptop shut, jabbed at his phone, and shifted heavily in his seat, rending the air with sighs as he did so. A man in his twenties stopped in the aisle to answer a call and didn’t move into the space between the carriages to take it. I willed him to keep moving, sensing a tightening of the atmosphere. FFS-Man upped his muttering.

Then the aisle between us was empty again. Having finished my reading, I got out my laptop to note down some thoughts. I had typed one, maybe two sentences, then suddenly FFS-Man was out of his seat and looming over me, jabbing his finger towards my face.

Like a rabbit, I reacted with speed. I snapped my laptop closed, gathered my things and scampered to the restaurant car, where the lovely manager made me a free cup of tea

“Will you stop typing so loudly?” he roared. “The noise is intolerable!”

Like a rabbit, I reacted with speed. I snapped my laptop closed, gathered my things and scampered to the restaurant car, where the lovely manager made me a free cup of tea.

“It was that man with the grey coat, wasn’t it?” the manager said. Like me, he’d clocked him as soon as he got on. “Typing too loudly? Ferfuckssake! What’s his problem?”

The manager found me a new seat. I drank my tea. I stared out of the window. I didn’t get my laptop back out. When I told some friends that evening, they were as incredulous as the guy in the train’s buffet car. “How can you type too loudly?” A fellow novelist (male) was outraged on my behalf. “You can’t change the volume of typing.”

Believe me, I had investigated the possibility. During the afternoon, I’d run several tests. In a silent room, I tapped away. “I should not type so loudly”. I looked up “is it possible to turn off the typing sound on a laptop”. No, it isn’t. Because, as I discovered by typing with my laptop turned off, it’s the noise of the plastic keys being depressed that we hear not a sound effect added by Apple. I knew that. Why didn’t I trust it?

I even experimented by typing on my partner’s laptop, without switching it on, to see if my laptops keys were unusually clacky. Nope. I got exactly the same sound from his keys as I did from mine. I keep my nails short so that wasn’t the problem. I couldn’t make the sounds any quieter by typing more slowly either. Still eager to know what exactly had gone wrong, I looked up “Phobia of typing”.

It turns out there is such a thing. It comes under misophonia. In The Washington Post, Meeri N Kim writes: “People with misophonia hate certain noises – termed “trigger sounds” – and respond with stress, anger, irritation and, in extreme cases, violent rage. Common triggers include eating noises, lip-smacking, pen clicking, tapping and typing... sufferers say it is like being sucker-punched in the gut or repeatedly stung by bees.”

The condition was first described in 2000 and is also known as Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome. While research into the condition is still in its infancy, there’s a theory that it arises in the central auditory system of the brain, rather than in the ears. It has an emotional component. The origin of the sound is important. Misophonia sufferers are more likely to be triggered by sounds made by their loved ones.

The previous targets of his ire were his own stuff and male strangers. He directed his long-simmering anger at me because he thought he could

Misophonia usually arises in childhood. On the website of the Misophonia Institute, Tom Dozier describes how one client came to develop a misophonic reaction to the sound of eating, “She was sensitive to her father’s feelings, and her brother smacked when he ate. At the dinner table, her father would reprimand her brother for smacking (which would distress her). After a few minutes, the boy would be smacking again. Hearing that sound was distressing to her because she knew her father didn’t like it. So, at a later time, when she was calm (like breakfast) and father was not there, she heard the smacking sound and the misophonic reflex created the distress condition of the dinner table.”

Misophonia is a miserable condition and I wouldn’t wish the sensation of being repeatedly stung by bees on anyone. There are no tried and tested treatments but some sufferers do find relief by wearing noise-cancelling headphones in places where people are legally allowed to type, talk, eat and breathe, rather than by yelling at fellow travellers. I wondered if Mr FFS had experienced a horrendous typing-related incident in his childhood but ultimately, I don’t think that moment on the train was about typing at all.

Mr FFS began his “ferfuckssaking” long before I began my typing – he was swearing even as he found his seat – but the previous targets of his ire were his own stuff and male strangers: the man failing to control his yelling child, the drunk man with the open bottle of champagne, the oblivious man who took the phone call in the aisle. They were all adult men. All over six feet tall. All much bigger than Mr FFS. He directed his long-simmering anger at me because he thought he could. Because – I’m going to say it – I am a woman. And I let him get away with it.

I was shouted at by a stranger, who got into my physical space and made me feel unsafe. And now I’m angry with myself for having wasted time wondering if I type too loudly. I type like everyone else types. Like my male writer friend, I should have shrugged FFS-Man’s fury off but I couldn’t, because I was smaller than he was and he was angry and I carry the weight of a lifetime of being told that a woman should be delicate, quiet and appeasing. So here I find myself again, shouting through my fingers and wishing I had simply said: “Perhaps you would like to move to the quiet carriage”.