doesn't smile and look me in the eye

[_JoetheClerk]

I have heard this one from many when complaing about a number of different people in leadership and other callings or offices, church and business both.

I am one of those who doesn't smile a lot and seldom looks you in the eye when talking with you.
I have to concentrate hard to try and understand what you are saying. With some voices it is a lot more difficult than with others. With various background noises it can range from difficult to impossible.

I have to concentrate as I watch lips move when people talk. This keeps me from looking you 'in the eye' as we converse. I have a major hearing loss and it is difficult most of the time to hear many people. In crowds it is impossible to pick one out nearly all the time. Specific voices carry and that helps. Soft voices, low pitched and quite high pitched all give me major problems. Background fans and motors in restaurants blend right in with many voices and though I can hear the sounds it is comparable to trying to watch a movie through moving fan blades. A real exercise in frustration.

As a result I am concentrating much of the time in trying to understand what is being said. As a result I am not usually smiling but look more serious, even angry as I too often get it wrong or miss a lot while I know you believe I am hearing all you say. This gets worse with people who turn away, people who insist on chewing food while talking, mumblers and those who won't get rid of toothpicks and other pacifiers when they talk.

Maybe some who don't smile and don't look you in the eye while talking have the same problems?

[_Scottie]

My ex wife suffers from the same thing, although not quite as severe as what yours sounds like. She is 85% deaf in one ear and 30% in the other.

Often times she comes across as stuck up or snobbish because she ignores people or doesn't participate in conversations. But it is simply that she cannot hear, especially with a lot of background noise.

[_Bryan Inks]

My ex wife suffers from the same thing, although not quite as severe as what yours sounds like. She is 85% deaf in one ear and 30% in the other.

Often times she comes across as stuck up or snobbish because she ignores people or doesn't participate in conversations. But it is simply that she cannot hear, especially with a lot of background noise.

I'm 80% deaf in one ear and 50% in the other. . . and I get that a lot as well. Thank god my work moved me to taking chats. . . I come across as pretty retarded over the phones, especially when trying to understand someone with a very heavy accent. . . over a crappy connection.

[_Amaterasu]

I meant to reply to this when you first posted and was distracted by other things. I think we can attempt to tell some things from body language, yet, it's not the best way to do so. A young man was killed by my local police department because he wouldn't look at them and stop when they were yelling at him. He had autism! He was tazzered and had a heart attack. :(

A woman that works at a convenience store I frequent always scowled and wouldn't look at me or other customers. I always smiled at her and thought I'd done something to maybe create some of her mannerisms. One day I just timidly asked her if there was something wrong or if I'd done something to upset her. She turned her face directly to me, stared at me in the eyes, a crooked smile and informed me, "I had a stroke a few years back and I don't mean to look angry, because I'm not." Whew. I laughed nervously and she said she was thankful I asked. Now we always smile at each other and chitchat.

Sometimes we just need to give people the benefit of the doubt and understand that those we assume things about may be struggling with issues we know not of. Thankfully no one attempted to get convenience store woman fired because she wouldn't look at them in the eye or smile. :)

Great thread!

[_solomarineris]

I have heard this one from many when complaing about a number of different people in leadership and other callings or offices, church and business both.

I am one of those who doesn't smile a lot and seldom looks you in the eye when talking with you.
I have to concentrate hard to try and understand what you are saying. With some voices it is a lot more difficult than with others. With various background noises it can range from difficult to impossible.

I have to concentrate as I watch lips move when people talk. This keeps me from looking you 'in the eye' as we converse. I have a major hearing loss and it is difficult most of the time to hear many people. In crowds it is impossible to pick one out nearly all the time. Specific voices carry and that helps. Soft voices, low pitched and quite high pitched all give me major problems. Background fans and motors in restaurants blend right in with many voices and though I can hear the sounds it is comparable to trying to watch a movie through moving fan blades. A real exercise in frustration.

As a result I am concentrating much of the time in trying to understand what is being said. As a result I am not usually smiling but look more serious, even angry as I too often get it wrong or miss a lot while I know you believe I am hearing all you say. This gets worse with people who turn away, people who insist on chewing food while talking, mumblers and those who won't get rid of toothpicks and other pacifiers when they talk.

Maybe some who don't smile and don't look you in the eye while talking have the same problems?

Thanks for this much appreciated post. I'm usually an impatient person
No doubt I will use tip. You have my empathy.

[_bcspace]

I smile and look people in the eye. I do have to constantly remind myself that others don't return the favor for reasons other than being snobbish. Either that or I'm terrible to look at.......

[_JoetheClerk]

A real problem that comes with the loss of hearing is meetings, movies, enclosed spaces, machinery noise, background noise, music playing when someone is talking and things like cartoons.

Picking voices out of noise is difficult. Reverberating noises like those in a chapel, a movie theatre or a gymnasium make it hard to understand people talking. Cartoons are lousy to try and watch as the sound and the lips of the characters have no relation to each other. You can't read lips on cartoon characters.

I don't go to movies because of the noise reverberation and talking people. I rent DVD's because I can replay the parts that are unclear. Some I can understand, others I can't. Sylvester Stallone is a difficult one with his slurred speech patterns. Fast talkers are also difficult. Music on while someone is talking makes it almost impossible to pick their voice out from the background noise. Machinery such as in many fast food restaurants make it nearly impossible to understand the order takers. Forget the speaker drive up windows for ordering.

A lot of times it is easier to avoid going places rather than suffer through misunderstandings and miscommunication. A lot easier to do appellate research as I don't talk with people but am living in the land of the written opinion. I can go back over it without interference or worrying about voice inflection carrying meaning I can't hear.

On the other hand not understanding what is said can be a funny experience. Like coming home and asking my wife why the Sunday School teacher was talking about Orgasms. Misunderstanding words is common and at times funny.(to me) I've long since gotten over being embarassed by the misunderstanding of words not spoken(or understood) clearly.

[_Amaterasu]

Well, sometimes miscommunications are funny. Other times not so much.

[_JonasS]

I am sorry to hear that, I hope you can build up confidence to smile and look people in the eye even if you can't hear them. At first I thought maybe Autism, but I would be foolish in making such a judgement. Have you thought of trying therapy or smacking people who don't try to understand?

:P