I’ve been hard of hearing all my life. I wear hearing aids, but they by no means bring my hearing up to “normal.” I don’t know ASL- I’m from a hard of hearing family, and the attitude was to hide it when we could, and downplay it when we couldn’t hide it. Now, I guess my rationale for not learning sign is that I don’t have enough face-to-face contact with signers to make it a priority… but if I knew ASL, I’d seek out Deaf organizations and events. That’s what’s called “circular logic,” I think.
I spent my 20s playing bass guitar in bands and hanging out in rock clubs. Punk rock culture is the great hearing equalizer, I’ve found. In the loud punk clubs, my (hearing) friends and I made sure we had each other’s attention before we spoke, and that we could see each others’ faces. We expected to repeat everything we said. We rearranged bar stools when the flow of conversation changed. We knew how far our voices could be heard (not far at ALL) and supplemented our conversation with gestures. I didn’t need to remind people of the accommodations I needed, because they needed the same accommodations. It’s the only time in my life I felt I fit seamlessly into the hearing world.
I was glad to see several people mention how tiring it is to try to follow a conversation that is just out of one’s hearing range. I experience that too, but I think I end up coming off as bored or rude (I’m the one in a group who starts playing a game on my cell phone when I need a hearing break, because it’s just as tiring to ACT like I’m listening). I get impatient with certain styles of communication, like stories that have no discernible point, and long-winded people who want an "audience" and not a "dialogue". I feel if I'm making the extra effort to understand, they should make the extra effort to be interesting...but I know the world doesn't actually work this way...lol.
I usually have no problems one-on-one, or even when talking to two people…but once I start having to turn my head to the next speaker in a group, I start missing stuff. And in a spirited group discussion, forget it. The interruptions and one-liners are finished before I can visually locate the speaker. So imagine my surprise when I discovered chat rooms 20 years ago on AOL, and found I could follow half a dozen simultaneous conversations with ease. It’s why I’m often found in the chat room on this site, because it’s the only place I can understand 15 people talking at once. And just as in a face-to-face group conversation, a lot of the chatter isn’t worth paying attention to…but at least it doesn’t tire me out when I choose to do so.
