My hearing isn’t great. I’m not sure if I can actually say I have a hearing impairment, but a hearing test a few years ago showed I have the level of hearing “usually seen in elderly people” (thanks doc) and tinnitus added in to boot. This was probably about 10 years ago now, I’ve no idea whether it’s got [clinically] any worse since then. I’ve always struggled if there’s a lot of background noise; if I’m in a busy place with loads of people talking or it’s noisy then I either will have to be very close to you (like a friendly personal space invader), or I’ll just nod and smile while having no real idea about what’s going on, or be concentrating reaaallllly hard and might have a delay in responding to you while my brain puts it all together (sometimes I have to replay the conversation in my head to get the context and fill in any missing words).
What I have noticed, is that my hearing feels like it gets worse if I don’t have my glasses on. Sounds weird right? But what I mean by that is I’ve recently realised is that I lip read A LOT. If I don’t have my glasses on I can’t really see much, and so I can’t tell what people are saying as I can’t really hear it properly. But when I can see people’s faces, I can follow conversations much better. Much better than constantly saying “pardon”, or “what did you say?” which also happens a lot, sorry.
So please know I’m not ignoring you, it’s just that I probably didn’t hear you properly or you’re not facing me.
The Paps Life 