My [F20] boyfriend [M23] makes a lot of 'sound effects'. How should I let him know how much it bothers me?

Hi, this is a bit of a strange question/problem. Basically I just want help with this issue because it's gotten worse over the past few months and I'm honestly not sure the best way to go about this.

So, my boyfriend of one year (let's call him M) makes a lot of noises out loud. I've nicknamed them 'sound effects'. We get along great in many aspects of our relationship, so I feel silly letting this bother me so much. M will make random sounds while eating, watching a movie, doing a project, just goofing around. This is not something he has done for the entire year we've been a couple, just the past 6 months. He will poke me and say 'boop!' 5-10 times during a movie. He will eat something hot and go "Hot! Hot!" or "nomm". He will sigh randomly and make a 'blubbering' noise. Sometimes he leans in my face and just makes a random noise.

The first time he started this behavior I thought it was cute and it made me laugh. However, being poked and 'booped at' repeatedly while just watching a movie gets a bit overwhelming after a few months.

Now, I was hesitant to bring this up initially. I know everyone does annoying stuff now and then, and I often worry about how I might be annoying him. However, I've mentioned to him how I don't like certain noises because they stress or gross me out. M has a really BAD nail biting habit and when we are together I try to ask him politely not to do it. I don't think it's an unreasonable request? It's a fairly childish habit, it's quite gross, and it's wrecking his fingers. However, he still often does it.

Since he's started the sound effects as well as this, I get so annoyed sometimes I get borderline anxious. My emotions have never been really stable because of anxiety issues, and I need to try very hard to appear 'normal' a lot.

I didn't want to outright say how much his behavior annoys me, because I did find it 'cute' at one point so I realize I probably encouraged some of it. So, my plan was to just stop reacting to his behavior. Just not laugh, or smile and maybe change the topic. Sometimes this works sometimes it doesn't. He might keep making a noise until I react or laugh, or eventually drop it. However, it doesn't stop all the noise he makes while just doing stuff like eating or working.

Now I'm left with either telling him outright how much his behavior annoys me, or just learning to live with it. M gets upset very easily and is prone to depressive episodes, so if I bring this up I need to do it really carefully, and not when I am already annoyed. I'm not even sure why he's developed all these sound effects in the first place. I'm aware it could be how he just relaxes naturally, or how he releases emotion? But I do know when we first started dating he did not make all of these noises, all the time.

Anyway, yeah. Advice?

TL;DR

My boyfriend makes a lot of sound effects while eating, doing activities, goofing around. I'm nervous to bring it up because he will get upset, so I've tried not reacting to or encouraging the noises but that hasn't helped. He didn't make these noises early on when we were dating, just over the past few months.

Edit: I just want to say thank you for the advice I've received so far. I didn't expect my post to get any attention honestly. It's made me think about things I need to work on, and how to talk to my boyfriend better.

Submitted November 04, 2018 at 10:51AM by TheFoxTeaparty https://ift.tt/2PctwFr