Deafies: your opinions, please!

What do you folks think of deaf people who pretend to be hearing?
 
I think I know what dreama saying because when I was younger, I personally did this.

It's when someone is talking to you and then for some reason you don't want them to feel fussed or "think you are stupid" with you not catching what they said, so you just pretend that you heard what they said to let them continue their talking.

It's like say, cooking up an example:
A physics professor in class talking about, how drag applies to air friction and resistance during flight. He explains the equation through a hypothetical example, like say bird at top flight speed displaces 34ft/sec. During his process of explaining this, you missed something the prof said or didn't get it. He asks "did any of you get that?" but without waiting for an answer, he continues the course teaching (thus it was a rhetorical question). Some people at this point want to be courteous and don't want to bother the rest of the class since they didn't get it or hear it.

Personally when this happens I just ask them at the end of the course to clarify about something I missed.

You get what I mean?
 
i don't know. i wouldn't call pretending to hear something pretending to be hearing. i call it denial.
 
i don't know. i wouldn't call pretending to hear something pretending to be hearing. i call it denial.

Yeah if this is what dreama is referring to I don't know what the terminology for it would be called. It would be a personality trait because I would imagine this varies from culture to culture. In Asian cultures, you generally aren't supposed to "speak up" to an elder even if it is in a respectable form, you just keep it to yourself. See, this would also apply to non deaf or HOH because even hearing people are guilty of doing this as well.

For an American, it may be different because seeing how I am a twinkie from both sides, I observe that caucasians are more prone to step up when they have a question or missed something.
 
what? <confused>

Meaning it might be a sign that is only used in Gallaudet area or something. Actually it might only be used in Indiana because I picked it up from someone who picked up ASL in Indiana before moving to D.C.
 
I meant a deaf or HOH who goes about without telling anyone they are deaf. Similar to what Naisho said. Only they would want to fit into the hearing world so much that they would literally disasociate from being deaf. I mean they would not say if they couldn't hear something. They would just guess.

This isn't too common with deafness as it's quite an invisible disability although I have read about it. I've also heard about low vision people pretending they could see better then they could.

So what do you all think about those sort of people? I'd be curious to know.
 
I'm sorry for coming in this thread at a much later time...

Society's Child --

While I can understand your reason behind this action in order to pretend to be deaf for a day to get a fresh perspective, so and on -- You may be surprised at what you are able to get but if you feel that you're not comfortable at this time to do it, then don't do it until you are completely comfortable doing it.

Honestly, I wouldn't be offended if someone wants to pretend to be deaf for a day to LEARN about what we go through on a daily basis with communication barriers, frustrations, so and on but however, if there was someone who wants to pretend to be deaf on a constant basis or to do it as a joke; That's where the line is crossed. That's like asking for something else and that also lose the purpose of the reason behind this.

In time, I hope you'll be able to experiment this within reason, of course. :)
 
Meaning it might be a sign that is only used in Gallaudet area or something. Actually it might only be used in Indiana because I picked it up from someone who picked up ASL in Indiana before moving to D.C.

i'm lost. what sign? i can't keep track of this thread. <confused>
 
I meant a deaf or HOH who goes about without telling anyone they are deaf. Similar to what Naisho said. Only they would want to fit into the hearing world so much that they would literally disasociate from being deaf. I mean they would not say if they couldn't hear something. They would just guess.

This isn't too common with deafness as it's quite an invisible disability although I have read about it. I've also heard about low vision people pretending they could see better then they could.

So what do you all think about those sort of people? I'd be curious to know.

i think the people you've described are in denial of their respective disabilities.
 
I don't know how to judge that, it's kind of a situational question in regards to the type of person dreama is explaining.

I think I'm somewhat moderate-severe HoH in classification. I tend to rely on lip reading if the speaker's voice isn't loud enough.

When I'm talking to a person and it's about random gabber that isn't really important, like for example someone trying to sell me this nice book of the Bodhisatvi and Buddism. I may purposely pretend that I heard them but I wasn't really listening and just nodding in agreement, even if I purposely did not hear what they said.

If it's something important that I know I missed, I'll often tell the speaker to repeat themselves.

But if it's in an environment where your disability doesn't pertain to the rest of the environment, I'll be courteous and keep an arm's length of how much I deserve of the "spotlight" for my needs. Like the question I referred to previously, nowadays I don't just ignore it and guess what he meant later, I ask him to repeat himself when either the time is good, or when he's free of being in charge of other individual's times.

I don't go around telling everyone I meet at first glance that "Hi, my name is so and so and I'm HH" the first instant.. because I personally do not feel the need to do so. Only when the situation requires that I think they are entitled to know of my disability, then I will explain it. Even at my last job, they didn't know I was HH and I never mentioned it to them - yet I got by without any issues for 1.5 years. There wasn't much other need to do so either, since everything was done IT related through messaging and computers. I got my schedules and itinerary on a PDA and text messaging, completion of the task was written down in the same manner.

I don't think I'm living in denial though.. I mean I accept the fact that I'm HH but I don't go around letting everyone know that I am. I'd rather keep it to myself until something occurrs to where the person I'm acquainted with needs to know that I'm HH you know?
 
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