The signing stranger

Because I am deaf, I usually don’t participate in social activities. Of course, I also decline these invitations because I have social anxiety. By nature, I’m a loner. I don’t like being in crowds. Being surrounded by people I don’t know. I prefer to be alone. So I don’t really socialize with people. Or communicate with people. When I am out and about, I say hello to familiar faces. I nod in recognition of others who reach out to me. But I am not attempting to be social with people. I don’t seek new friendships or to commiserate with people.

My son, however, is another story. He does like to talk to people. And while I tolerate communicating with people HE knows through his school, anybody else is pretty much off of my radar.

See, I have had years of experience of people tuning me out because of my deafness. With many, many people, they stop talking to me, or trying to communicate with me, once they learn I am deaf. They pretty much start talking to someone who is with me who can hear. And I am forgotten about.

For this reason, I don’t even TRY to talk to people anymore. I have shut people out. I am not a part of the hearing world and I probably never will be.

And after almost 12 years of living in Oregon, I have had enough exposure to people to know there are not many deaf or hard-of-hearing people in my area. And I know very few who can sign.

And it’s always a surprise when I meet someone who can sign. It’s very rare, but it happens.

It happened not too long ago when I met a Facebook friend IRL (she lives in the neighborhood). And it happened again today.

After Jesse’s gymnastics class was over, I took him to the nearby Dari Mart. I usually do this after his gymnastics class. It’s his weekly treat. Well, while we were there, I noticed Jesse getting into a conversation with someone. I figured this was a person who volunteers at his school, because we often run into such people there, so I didn’t really pay much mind to it. I did, however, keep Jesse close, and kept a watchful eye on him. Not so much on the person he was talking to.

But the person he was talking to was trying to get my attention. Finally, I looked at him, ready with the whole “I’m deaf” announcement and the typical response from him of ignoring me. But when I looked at him and nodded my hello, I was surprised to notice something: He was SIGNING!

What? Had my ignoring him tipped him off that I am deaf? Did it tell him that I had no clue what anybody was saying and therefore didn’t bother to try to keep up?

Whatever it was, he somehow knew I was deaf. I was really surprised that he knew how to sign. All of a sudden, I was interested in communicating with this person. In TALKING with this person. This person knew my language!

This person introduced himself as Erik and he said he knew how to sign because he has a daughter who is deaf. (Where IS this daughter?? How come I haven’t seen her??) Then he talked about his father, grandfather, his son and grandson. I was really intrigued. It was no nice to be able to communicate with someone who I could understand. He was a very nice person, very communicative and knowledgeable in ASL, and very friendly. And as he was leaving, he signed “I love you” to us and then he turned and was gone.

This whole experience made me smile. And it made me think: Maybe I shouldn’t shut out people so much. I always expect the worst. I always expect a person to not care, not want to communicate or anything. But this experience right here was a pleasant eye-opener. It made me realize that maybe I should give people a chance. Who knows? There might be someone out there who can sign – and who actually wants to communicate with me in a way that I can understand.

Clearing the air

Recently, a friend and I got to talking about a health-related issue that I was going through. I tried to make some dietary changes but ended up having dizzy spells and I suspected it was because of the dietary changes. (Unfortunately, the dizzy spells have happened many times before and usually when I tried to do this very thing. Sigh!) Somewhere along our conversation, though, I think she got confused about something, because she got something wrong about what I was saying. I don’t know where that came from or how that happened, but there it was.

After I realized she had made this mistake, I was trying to figure out how it had happened. I really couldn’t figure that out, but I realized, you know, this was just a misunderstanding. You know the saying, “What we have here is a failure to communicate”? I think that might have happened here. Maybe I was not communicating with her effectively.

In any event, I knew I had to clear the air with her and let her know that she had gotten something about our conversation wrong. She had misunderstood what I said, I think. Or maybe she later interpreted it wrong. Who knows! (Everybody’s perspective is different and there are SO MANY times people have taken things I have said the wrong way or taken mistakes I have made and twisted them around to make me look like I intentionally made that mistake or am an evil person. There was one time a friend and I had just one such misunderstanding and she really let me have it via text messaging. Later, after we had both cooled off, we both cleared the air, I was able to explain my side of the story and she explained her side of the story and we realized it was a misunderstanding and made up. We are still friends!)

So, yeah. I realized I had to clear the air with my friend. She IS my friend and I want to keep my friendship with her. And it was not a good idea to allow her to continue thinking that this wrong interpretation of our conversation was the RIGHT one. I had to let her know she’d made a mistake!

But….I didn’t want to. I knew if I said something, she might be embarrassed or feel stupid. She might take my pointing out the mistake the wrong way.

But it’s not like I was doing anything bad by pointing out the mistake! Like I said, it was a bad idea to allow her to continue thinking this particular thing when it was not the CORRECT particular thing! I had to let her know that was not true!

So, finally, at one point, I just did a mental about-face and told myself, “You have to SAY something!”

I had to let my friend know that there was a misunderstanding. I had to GENTLY let her know that what she thought I was saying was NOT what I was saying. That she had somehow misunderstood me. And that’s exactly what I said in my email to her this morning: “I think there has been a misunderstanding."

I did clear the air with her, but I didn’t do it in a way that was blatant or harsh. I gently let her know that what she thought I said was NOT what I had said. (And before we go into psychological debates, let me just say that I did not need to review my conversation with her to let her know that that was not what I had said – unlike that OTHER mistake that is going to be hanging over my head for the rest of my natural life!!!!!)

After I sent that email off, I actually felt better that I had cleared the air with my friend. I was relieved to have finally tackled this issue and get the truth out into the open. And if she really is my friend, she would understand. She would know that I was not trying to be condescending and I was not trying to make her look bad. We have never fought (though that COULD happen someday because that is the true test of friendship – if we forgive each other, we really ARE friends!) and we basically get along well. I love her, really. She’s an awesome friend and I hope to keep my friendship with her. And if the friendship is sound, this would not be a deal-breaker with her. (I have never known her to act all high and mighty about what she perceives or what she thinks, so I don’t think it will be.) But the bottom line is, I felt a huge weight lift off of me after I sent that email. A problem had come up between us and I finally took action with it. I was really nervous about doing so, but I couldn’t just let that SIT THERE! I had to clear the air with her, and I did.

And you know what? Getting THAT particular thing resolved and taken care of helped me to feel a little bit better about being able to tackle OTHER sticky issues with my friend, should any of that stuff come up.