The alternative to smashing their face in is to give them a thumbs up, get them excited about the notification, and then before they have the chance to see what it is, take the thumbs up off.
Trust me, it feels good.
I've put everyone on ignore so I can benefit from conversing with myself. Sometimes even I wind myself up and put myself on ignore, but most of the time I can have a fairly civil chat with myself and even learn some new and interesting stuff.