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Eye contact

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idontunderstand:

--- Quote from: Elysiana on 07 Sep 2012, 06:30 ---
--- Quote from: idontunderstand on 07 Sep 2012, 03:07 ---Because of my hearing problem I read lips a lot, mostly subconsciously. This creates a problem when it comes to eye contact, since I both tend to stare at people when they talk, but not quite into their eyes. The effect is somewhere between Woody Allen and Hannibal Lecter. Sometimes I notice I make someone uncomfortable and I look away and try to hear what they say without looking at them, with varying results.. people can get annoyed when someone both won't look into their face and also don't reply/reply in a weird way to what they're saying, since it makes me seem nonchalant. So it's a difficult balancing there..

--- End quote ---
You just got me thinking, and I realized I do this too. I have some minor hearing issues and I always do better if I either read their lips, or completely focus on something different and turn my head to hear the person. What this sometimes ends up meaning is that I look down at someone's chest as I process what they're saying >_<

--- End quote ---

These things are really difficult to explain so I'm glad I somehow got through! Most people are pretty cool about me staring at them once I've explained why I do it, so.. I need to get better at telling people beforehand.

Carl-E:
It's usually easiest to just state it right up front.  My sister in law lost almost all her hearing in her left ear a few years ago, and whenever someone sits on that side she just says, "I'm not going to hear a thing you say if you sit there!" 


Of course, my brother (her husband) usually sits on that side...

idontunderstand:
It's not very easy though. But that's another thread..

pwhodges:
My wife tells people she's deaf* straight off now.  But only since I persuaded her of the benefits of that, and also that modern - in the 1990s - hearing aids were better than relying on lip-reading.  She does regret, though, that her lip-reading skills have atrophied as a result.


* Not completely, but major loss.  At school, her reports said things like "it's as if she doesn't hear what's said to her", and then discussed the possibility that she was ESN rather than testing her hearing!  Fortuitously, she managed to avoid "special school" (they had a Jewish quota, and her father refused to send her there as a result), and eventually got to university, where a fellow student was the first person ever to recognise her deafness; they are still friends.

nekowafer:
I have pretty terrible hearing, and generally announce that. But I can't really read lips at all, and I'm one of those people that notices every tiny detail when I do look at someone. So if I'm actually looking at my boss's face while speaking to her, I am distracted by the dry skin on her nose and the wrinkles and dyed hair and so on. If I'm looking at my feet or the chair next to me, I'm less distracted.

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