Great questions with many shades of grey! Sometimes love happens in HOW you communicate, not just whether you choose to communicate an annoyance. Do you express your desire for him to stop pounding (or whatever the irritation is) with love, humility, and kindness so that you don't simply shut him down and compel him to comply? Or does your tone convey irritation, frustration and disapproval to him. Maybe it's helpful to reframe love in this way before acting.

Is irritation some form of anger? What's the bible verse, don't let the sun go down on your anger? Perhaps we could stretch that sentiment to say we can't be reconciled to our neighbor who irritates us unless we speak up. To not call him out on it would be to hold it against him and to not love him in brotherly love. Maybe?
But do we even consider the people in coffee shops as brothers or sisters? Or even as neighbors? Would you want to be disrupted and told you're annoying somebody? Lastly, my feelings on certain coffee shops are not: it is not a place where "we are one big family happily working together and sipping caffeine"; but, rather, a place where " groups of one man islands can be part of an archipelago." (Sometimes, on the other hand, they are great places for a meeting of minds.)

Cary Tennis—Salon’s advice columnist—posted an article a few days ago on how he is affected by his readers’ feedback, and part of that article addresses the subject of this post. The two sections I’ve posted below follow a (really) long list of things that Tennis personally dislikes. Here he discusses his reaction to his knowledge of those dislikes, directly addressing the subject of irritability.
“I would like to pierce the veil of reality and see how fruitless and misguided are my multifarious episodes of automatic disapproval and scorn. I wonder frequently at my own vast and cruel arsenal of put-down. I marvel at my ability to seize on the tiniest aspect of a person as representative of their worth. I am appalled at my own irritability. I see myself hurrying by a crowd standing in a corridor and I hear my own voice asking why they don't move aside more quickly for me; someone brushes against me and I think why is he so clumsy and thoughtless; I see young people in a group and I ... on and on and on.”
In the context of Glenn’s post, what I thought was most interesting about the article was the following section,—which appears directly above the chunk of text I quoted above—where Tennis discusses his view of the worth of his dislikes and irritations:
“while I dislike so many thousands of things with great and vivid intensity, I do not consider my dislike of these things to be a source of wisdom, or a cause of action, or a premise for public expression, or evidence of critical acumen, or a guide to living, or an emotion I wish to impart to you so you can share in it, or an admirable fact about which people will say, at my funeral, ‘He disliked a great many things, and for this we will remember him always.’ ”
The rest of the article is worth the read.
John
the link: http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2008/01/11/midlife_depression/

Thanks once again, Glenn, for a thought-provoking post on what it means to deal with life as a Christian. I need my thoughts provoked about how to live and what to do "in the grey". I wish it were easier for me to withdraw energy from interacting with irritations and put the energy where it's needed. I also think it's really important for me to keep thinking about what to do with irritation and other emotions which can easily ease down a slippery slope into resentment and bitterness which can be toxic to a Christian or to anyone else for that matter.

Chris,
Good thoughts and questions.
It's **possible** that a graciously phrased notice to your roommate would help him. When I think about such matters I try, fallibly, to put myself in the other's position. For example, on many a church and parachurch retreat I have said to roommates/cabinmates, "If I snore, please hit me, wake me, something. I think it's wrong if I make noise that keeps you fellows awake."
From what I'm told, I rarely snore, but I give them freedom to deal with my snoring because I would not want to interfere with them.
If I became aware that I was smacking as I ate cereal, and that smacking disturbed someone else, I would try to cease that smacking immediately. Part of this is the manners with which my parents reared me; much of etiquette, manners and polite society is acting in a way so as not to encroach on others in an untoward way. Thus, I do want to be notified if I'm doing something that is irritating to another.
Back in college days, in the dorms, I thought the principle of "My freedom ends where yours begins" made a lot of sense and it worked well. Students on my hall and I were free to listen to music, but not so loudly as to encroach on others. We were free to be messy in our own rooms or sections of a room, but not messy in the public areas.
Logically, I can't see that as a one way street. Theologically, even if others I'm around don't think theologically or think in different religious traditions, I think that the image of God concept is a two way street. We exist in relation to one another, with obligations to "the Other."

Appreciate the honest question.
What bothers us might tell us something about ourselves. Have you ever gone through a terribly difficult trial only to find out that what bothered you beforehand no longer does? What changed? Robinson Crusoe was really bugged with everything about the Island of Despair he was trapped on. But then, after almost being swept away to sea when testing his new dugout canoe, he was elated to be back on the island and loved everything about it. Laying on the beach exhausted, he wrote, "I fell on my knees and gave God thanks for my deliverance, resolving to lay aside all thoughts of my deliverance [from the Island] and refreshing myself with such things as I had."
Don't get me wrong - I am irritated by a lot. But it seems that growth in Christ will somehow, eventually, yield an increasing delighting in hardships and enduring much. Somehow, Paul was able to write, "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, whether being forced to sit next to a thunker, or next to a saint." - Ph 4:12, loose edition
On the other hand, I confess I am one of the thunkers. Sorry 'bout that, Glenn. I flip pens, tap pencils and all that annoying stuff. Scripture has a challenge for us thunkers, too: "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Rom 12:8. I guess if I am going to be able to do that, you're going to have to let me know if I am disturbing the peace!