Thank you at least for an honest reply, but:
1. If the girl thinks that by me asking if she needs help, I'm implying that she's stupid then she has self-confidence/social issues. I don't think anyone ever means that when they offer help.
2. I had no idea she was deaf and if I did, that CERTAINLY wouldn't be the reason I offer help.
3. My intent was honest and genuine... I wanted to help her if she needed it. If we started chatting and hit it off then so be it, but that was secondary.
In life, you have to realize a few things.
One: That you have your honest intent, whatever that might be.
Two: That people generally will find a way not to interpret things the way you want them to.
Three: Thus inevitably, there will be misunderstandings.
The way you *want* the world and other people to be will not line up with what reality is. The reality is that people generally won't be the way you want them to be. Even your closest friends that you get along with really well won't view reality in exactly the same way you want them to.
You may not have intended to insult the woman, and you are shocked she interpreted you that way.
But people are people. What you said could be insulting to one person and not to another. She may have been feeling cruddy and not wanted to talk to anyone, or not. She might have just dealt with a break up, or not.
You have no idea. You are also making your own interpretation of what she was doing when she said that to you. Your interpretation might not match up with reality, either.
I suggest that you consider this a learning experience. If you want to talk to someone, try starting a regular conversation instead of asking right off the bat if they want help with something. Like, 'Oh, a psychology book! How do you like that class? Good teacher? Freud was kinda crazy, wasn't he?" ;-)
That's basically conversational skills. Just learning what tends to get you in the door more often than not.
But you can never control a person's reaction, or really understand the reality of why they reacted a certain way. Everything, her view of you, and your view of her, is an
interpretation of reality viewed through a lens. It isn't reality itself.
Or to put it another way, she might have had a "Map of Reality" where it says that if a hearie approaches her and asks if she needs help, that hearie is assuming that she is "dumb" because she's deaf, and that hearie needs to go away ASAP. (It doesn't matter whether that was your intent or not.)
And you had a "Map of Reality" were it says that if you ask someone if they need help and they refuse a bit impolitely (by your standards, anyway), that means that they are socially and emotionally insecure. (It doesn't matter whether that was really true about her or not, that's what your map says.)
Not only are Maps often wrong in many details (because of a misprint or lazy cartographer ;-) ), but they are merely representations, not reality itself.
Make an adjustment to your map and move on. That's the best advice I can give you. You are going to be dealing with other people's Maps of Reality for as long as you live. Get used to it and develop the skills to deal with it.
welcome to AllDeaf! I know very well of that feeling of being denied access to my community and I remember that feeling of finally belonging when I first came across this forum. It was like nothing I have felt before. Don't worry about the long post, I've been known to put up a few as well. I think it is because we finally feel that we have a place where 1) we can tell our stories about what we had and still have to deal with and 2) not have to worry about someone thinking it is a personal attack on them as a hearing person, so it all comes pouring out.
:roll:
While I do think the girl could have responded better towards your offering of help, I am not very surprised. From what you said, it seems from her response answering that she was 1) deaf and 2) not wanting help from your "ears", it sounds like (first assumption) 'she thought you were offering help "from your ears" since she was deaf' or (simpler assumption) 'she must need help since she is deaf' or (simplest assumption) 'she must be stupid since she is deaf'. It doesn't take much to go from the first to the last assumption. When deaf/hh people meet hearing people, enough times the hearing equate our hearing loss with our intelligence. After the number of experiences, a person's natural developed reaction will be to get on the defensive rather than risk being hurt. It may seem like a simple thing offering help, but for the other person it takes more risk to wait and see what the true intentions are. Like you, I took psychology (did very well if I might say so), so I am more conscious about what I do and think (or at least I try to be). So I try, when I can remember, to give people the benefit of the doubt.
). Not saying that you should put up with people abusing you, but I hope you will not write off the deaf/hh community due to this defensiveness as there are still people within the community that want to welcome and embrace people from the hearing community when they show interest and kindness.
Deaf people have every right to choose between voicing English and signing ASL and, no matter what, are every bit as equal as hearing. That "deaf brother" is clearly not Deaf, but audist/Hearing (signed at the forehead) and they disgust me. :rl: Sorry you had to deal with that at your workplace. 
:roll: I show my terp, who has 2 deaf kids herself, and she gets mad too... then when I tell them that it is insulting... they say... but isn't ASL english? ggrrrrrrrrrrrr no... its not... its very different... I don't know if I would have been able to show a lot of restraint, due to wanting to chew off their heads (figuratively)
Damn.