Bête noire

Toby Flenderson: Actually he is kind of annoying!

BÊTE NOIRE

Foreign. Noun phrase. Plural bêtes noires (pronounced same). Mid-19th century.

[French 'black beast'.]

The bane of someone's life; an insufferable person or thing; an object of aversion.

If ever a co-worker sends you a rock as a gift with a note saying 'Suck on this!', then congratulations -  you can properly consider yourself someone's bête noire. This is also true if they take the time to egg your house, suggest that you're an animal rapist, say that you're the worst human ever or that they'd shoot you (twice) over Hitler and Bin Laden. With any one of these, you're firmly in bête noire territory.

Toby Flenderson of The Office suffered all of these indignities and more at the hands of Michael Scott, the Scranton branch manager of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Michael hates the fact that Toby, as the corporate HR representative, is not really under his authority, that Toby is often the first one other staff approach with their problems and that it's his job to object to and curtail Michael's frequently unethical, offensive, illegal and downright dangerous actions. Remarkably, Toby never reciprocates Michael's aggression or contempt, but rather remains ever calm and almost frustratingly mild.

Many memorably flawed characters have their bêtes noires - Homer Simpson has Ned Flanders, for example, and Frasier Crane has Cam Winston. What's interesting about all of them is that, in different ways, they all serve to expose in even greater contrast the failings of their haters. One can't help but think that this is probably a common theme in real life too. Those people out there that really irk us, that really get under our skin and make us want to egg their house or send them a rock as a present - there's probably something about them that shows up something in ourselves that we don't like or, perhaps far worse, something about us that others don't like.

Have you ever had (or do you have) a bête noire? Do you think you are a bête noire? If so, do please tell us all about it!