I definitely hate the sound of people eating, but I also can't stand people idley whistling or humming. And I can not stand the muffled sound of a conversation, especially if it's someone I know, somewhat similarly to how one gets annoyed if they can't hear the other side of a conversation. As such, working from home has been more challenging than I expected. And it's terrible, I hate these noises, and I'm fine with that, but not hating the people is really hard. This is a problem that only really should affect me, but it's very hard to not get upset.

Same. Also the heavy breathing that the article mentions. When I was a kid and around a noisy eater, I would also start eating noisily. I rationalized the behavior as a mechanism to cover up the sounds of their eating, but the explanation in the article makes a lot of sense. I would try to synchronize my eating somewhat with theirs to cover the sound up better.

Me too. I always thought it was because throughout childhood my seat at the table was next to my noisily eating stepfather. Actually, that would have desensitized me, I guess. I don't even like hearing myself eat... there must always be tv or music playing.

Restaurants are different though. For one, many of them understand how to maintain low level ambient noise; plus, in a restaurant there's usually a din of conversation, and in that setting I'm there to socialize as much as eat.