How did I get like this?

The man opposite me is coughing and spluttering, wheezing and growling in a seemingly deliberate attempt to annoy me. He snorts and inhales deeply - an act that emits a high-pitched prolonged whine as if the air itself is in pain, protesting about having to pass through the nostrils of anyone who wears beige patterned knitwear. "This is a library," I think indignantly to myself "not a GP's waiting room. If I came in here and broke wind constantly for five minutes people would rightly treat me with disgust. I may even be banished like a leper from this place, forced to wear a bell and cry 'Unclean!'. Yes! How is a flatulence problem any different from a cold? One can help neither - both are medical conditions. In fact, farts aren't contagious so really it is much less opprobrious to fart than to sneeze or cough." I internally shake a purely abstract head, as if I've made some kind of grave and profound judgement on the double standards of society. The man now appears to be leafing through some note on what looks like logic. He is rustling them rather loudly. I decide the best course of action is to go and get a coffee and cool off.

That is how my days in the library pass away. How did I become like this? So intolerant of other people? People irritate me so easily. I am irritated by Oxford posh girls who all look identical wearing their tea-cosy-esque hats on the way to the Taylorian. I am irritated by people in front of you in a queue who don't have their money ready when they get to the till. I am irritated by couples who walk towards you on narrow pavements holding hands so you have to actually perform a tactical perambulatory detour into the gutter to avoid a collision with them.

"Why are you single?" my friend asked me last night. "People are so much effort," I replied.