Am I Type A or just really, really annoying?

I think I may be driving my friends crazy.

I’m sitting in a cafe, waiting for my friend to arrive for our 10am brunch date. It’s 9:55am. I’ve been at the table for about seven minutes. Breathe. She’s on her way. She’s not even late yet. Technically.

10:04am – I start to get goosebumps. I’m a little bit sweaty now. It’s fine, it’s not even five minutes yet. Calm down.

10:16am – “Oh, hey! How are you?”

Friend gives me a hug and a kiss and sits at the table. I spend the next hour and a half chatting, while gritting my teeth and biting my tongue about how NOT OKAY it is that she was so late. I don’t have fun. I can’t. Because of the lateness. And actually, it wasn’t an hour and a half, it was an hour and 14 minutes. Due to her 16 minutes of lateness. I had only allotted a two hour window. This is your time you’re wasting.

In case you haven’t picked up on this already, I am a Type A personality. If you trust the internet, that means I am competitive and work-orientated. I become impatient quickly with time wasting (YOU DON’T SAY). I like things to be a certain way and may become hostile if my order is disrupted. It is not a new development for me. My need for order has been with me for a long time. And I’m pretty sure it has annoyed those around me for a long time as well.

Here are just a few example of the Type A-isms I am pretty sure are driving everyone around me crazy.

My diary is my life.

I have a hard backed diary in which I write down every engagement I have. Start time and anticipated end time. These dates are then colour coded according to level of importance, so if push comes to shove, I know what I can get rid of. If it’s not in the diary, it’s not happening.

I eat in a specific order.

If it’s meat and three vegetables for dinner I CANNOT eat a bit-of-this and a bit-of-that. It is carrots first, followed by green veg, and then peas and corn. Then I move onto the meat, leaving the spud/pasta for last. If you tell me, “Hey Steph, I think it’s all meant to go together,” I will tell you, you are wrong.

I arrive at least two hours early for domestic departures.

Four is ideal for international.

Public transport is an ordeal for me.

I will catch a train that gets me to my destination 40 minutes early, rather than one that gets me there one minute late.

You make plans, you stick to them.

If we are going to have coffee, we need to plan it three days in advance. I will check back approximately 24 hours in advance to confirm specifics.

Be ready.

My A-ness has manifested itself in varying ways throughout my life.

For example: My most prestigious and important possession as a child was my extensive Bratz Doll collection. I had 17 of them. But make no mistake. They were not to be played with.

I stored them, naked, with their little plastic feet snapped off. Boys and girls were separated, and displayed in order of hair colour. Each individual outfit was stored in a plastic snap-lock bag, labelled with who they belonged to, and the appropriate occasion to wear them. Every time I disappeared upstairs to ‘play dollies,’  I unpacked them, dressed them and set them up in various cars/salons/camper vans, before breathing a sigh of relief and packing them all up again. My friends would come over and lose their minds at the size of my collection. They couldn’t wait to get their hands on them. And then it would hit. The disappointment as I informed them, “No, no. Those are not for playing. Look. But you may not touch.”

I would also like to take this moment to personally apologise to all the little girls I refused the pleasure of brushing Rapunzel Barbie’s hair.

So am I Type A, or just really friggen annoying?

For more posts like this one, be sure to check out these:

This is why the world needs more Type As.

13 simple questions to tell if you are Type A or Type B personality.

Storage porn for Type As of the world.