Yes, the other day, we were enjoying a nice treat we bought at a roadside store when guy hollers to a friend—“hey you Fxxxer, how’ve you been?”. Apparently that’s an acceptable way to greet a friend?!?! It was odd to me and the guy idled his car in the middle of the street (where there was lots of space to pull to the curb or at least get out of intersection) and the other guy walked up to his car and they had a conversation at full volume for a while and then the car drove off. Very odd and entitled/oblivious.
7 Likes
Not true in NC either about cars being supposed to go into the bike lane to make a right turn. That sounds like a terrible law. We have a lot of bike lanes in my town and when I am turning right on a street that has a bike lane (which is a frequent occurrence) I come to a stop (there is not a stop sign for the road I’m on) and turn and look behind me and make sure there are no bikes or e-scooters coming up in the bike lane before I complete my turn. Someone was killed really near where this intersection is a few years ago because he was doored. He was riding an e-bike in the bike lane and someone opened their car door into the bike lane right in front of him, he hit it, and went flying over the handlebars and died of a head injury.
1 Like
Apparently, it is a Hawaiian way of greeting friends, according to Reddit. 
“Sup, f@kkas!” Shaking my head.
That was the 1st time I had seen or heard anyone greet a friend in that manner. I was taken aback!
In California, car drivers are supposed to merge into the bike lane before turning across it, which is the safer (but not always followed) practice.
When I ride bicycles, I prefer car drivers to do the California way rather than the Oregon way. Passing on the left of a right turning car is a lot safer than passing on the right through that driver’s blind spots.
In HI, cars are supposed to go into bike lane (yielding to bikes) when making a right turn. I believe (& checked online to confirm) bikes are supposed to obey ALL traffic laws. In reality, I see some bikes running lights, at their peril.
Bike lanes in the door range of legally parked cars are poor designs for exactly this reason. You would think that civil engineering courses would mention this.
Bike lanes in our state are being added mostly as afterthoughts, long after the buildings and streets have been built so they are often not very well-protected from traffic. Some are right beside very busy multi-lane highways while others they did try a bit to protect, so they put them closes to the curb and put street parking next to them and then the very busy streets. It’s not ideal, but they also mark in green where the cars & bikes cross paths supposedly to alert the drivers & bikers to be extra alert.
When I went to school in Eugene, OR, (late 1970s) we had some bike paths only in parks where vehicles were not allowed. It was wonderful and you could bike to the mall or just around the park. I really enjoyed biking there. Also, there weren’t as many cars and they didn’t seem to drive as fast.
1 Like
Have you ever experienced a hearing loss? Do you have ANY idea of how anyone with a significant loss has to work almost all the time to make sense of the world in myriad nuanced ways you can’t begin to imagine? Do you know what it’s like when you are using the most powerful hearing aids possible for your diagnosis and you still have difficulty using the phone or following fast conversations or understanding people who are more than six feet away or have their heads half turned, or people with soft enunciation (regardless of volume) or if there is any background noise at all ? Do you have any idea how many normally-hearing people who have the physical ability to enunciate a little clearer and are reminded of a person’s hearing loss but continue to mumble or slur over consonants or turn their heads away and shrug and say “oh well, that’s’ just how I talk (like it’s too much trouble) while you, on all four cylinders are straining to understand but cannot (even with the hearing aids turned on full volume and clarity?) Did you know Medicare doesn’t cover hearing aids, and the supplemental plans that do cover it are so exhorbitant you might as well just pay for the durned things. (Next time I need a pair I’ll have to pay about $11,000 out of pocket for my type). Lots of people just can’t afford hearing aids, or effective ones.
Having said all of this, I don’t think I’ve ever used speaker phones in public where there are people around though it’s the only way I talk on the phone, even with my daughter, who enunciates well (as I’ve had a hearing loss all of her life). If I get a call I must take I will immediately tell the person I’ll call back when I can find a place where I can talk or ask them to text. But there may be emergency situations in the future in which I’ll have to use it in the grocery store or an airport and I hope people will have patience and a little compassion.
For those who are just a little clueless, please consider that this older person in the public place may not be able to afford decent hearing aids, or that maybe they are getting a rare call from somebody they care about and the background noise is impossible to overcome. I hear so much joking and grumbling about hearing impaired people. We’re a cliche. You maybe wish we would go away or behave. But you have the luxury of being able to socialize and understand what is going on around you every day without exhausting yourself or becoming close to a social oddity, or just that kind-of quiet, boring person (with little to say , who doesn’t offer witty banter)on the fringes of any group ; someone who has given up, because is assumed they have no social skills or interest, but instead, it is simply that they can’t participate in quick repartee. Once the brain has interpreted the patterns of sound from the fog via context (did they say box or fox?) the conversation has moved on. Did you know that hearing loss is considered the most socially isolating disability? Did you know that social isolation in and of itself is a big risk factor for dementia, as is hearing loss in and of itself (because the brain is not being adequately stimulated by sound or receiving meaning?)
Maybe think about the fact that your annoyance by that old or annoying younger person (whose abilities you may not know ) on the speaker phone is rather short-lived…you’ll be in another aisle of the grocery store in a minute or two. At most, you’ll have to cope with it for ten minutes waiting in line. The person with the hearing loss has no break from the annoyance of trying to understand, ever, except for when they are conversing one on one or with a small group, without a lot of background noice with friends who are willing to speak fairly clearly, or when they can can go home and be alone and watch Netflix with captions.
When we talk about rudeness and annoyances, maybe we should walk in somebody else’s shoes in some cases. Should we warehouse the old and the disabled or only allow certain people in public when they can make YOUR life pleasant at every moment?
Rant over. If any of you reading are not insulted by what I had to say, and have some curiosity about what this might feel like…https://www.starkey.com/hearing-loss-simulator
9 Likes
BTW, I’ve dealt with this most of my adult life. My auditory nerves were damaged when I took an accidental overdose of the medicine chloroquine when I had chloroquine-resistant malaria in Africa and was trying to save my own life. If am the rude one here, well, I have had a lifetime of feeling embarrassed that am a bother to well-hearing people when, in fact, I am just trying to be an active participant in society like you. I am already doing 98% of the accommodating and effort to feel that I belong. It’s not fun to know you’re the burden because of something you can’t control. These days, believe me, I mostly keep to myself, or interact in small groups in quiet places, or enjoy big crowds where I am anonymous, or with a few people willing to go that extra 2%
3 Likes
@inthegarden I’ve talked about it in the parents helping parents, here and there over the years.
My fil is profoundly hearing impaired. So much so about 10-15 years ago he got cochlear implants. They don’t help that much. My husband is hard of hearing, he got hearing aids in his 50’s but his hearing loss is not as profound as his dad’s.
I have a loud voice, I enunciate. As I tell people, after being told that I talk too loudly all my life, I’ve found my tribe, the hard of hearing 
It drives me crazy that my mil will not work on talking to her husband. She gets mad that he can’t hear her. She talks to him from the other room, turns her head. Doesn’t enunciate. I get that her voice isn’t as strong as it used to be but she doesn’t try. Just gets annoyed.
This is going off topic but I so know what you are talking about, even though my hearing is good.
I’m your girl, I’ll be looking at you, talking in my loud voice and being clear!
3 Likes
Yeah I don’t get that people just assume that an auditory nerve can repair itself magically just because they do not want to move the muscles around their lungs, mouth, lip and jaw that are unexercised but DO work. If, on the other hand, they simply don’t value me enough I’m over it. I get it, they have easier people in their life tney can replace me with. I will run to a person from another room, from the far corner of the room to make it easier. I will position myself to see their face if they want to turn the other way. I will focus all my energy on the things they have to say, but if they speak in such a way that it’s like listening underwater for me there is only so much I can do, adios. That’s life. But I’d hope they wouldn’t turn me into a joke.
let’s move on….I think this isn’t strictly OT, because we’re talking about rudeness and anger, and public perception and trying to take other perspectives. But I don’t want to dominate the conversation here, when there’s so much more variety of the bigger topic that people can discuss. I need to go buy cat and dog food anyway! They are crying for supper 
1 Like
FWIW I think it’s a good reminder that we might want to lead with compassion and empathy and not assume the worst.
That said my H is not hard of hearing and is a super loud talker and I’m constantly shushing him when he takes a call in public. He has no idea how loud he is. We have a middle age neighbor with no hearing loss who is the same when he takes 7 am work calls from his front porch. He has the sense to not want to wake up his family but to hell with the neighbors (our houses are close together).
6 Likes
The main reason people use speaker on their phones is not hearing loss. They are using FaceTime or whatever app instead of simply calling the person they want to talk to. Can’t put the phone to the ear… If it was hearing loss, then 75% of those who walk on our trail while chatting with someone on their phone are hearing impaired.
6 Likes
I was in the (fairly expensive to belong to) gym several years ago and there were some people, probably in their late 20s, early 30s, throwing the F-bomb around, and I admit to saying something like “what would your mother think?” to them. They apologized. Once where I play indoor pickleball someone had a t-shirt that literally had the f-word on it. I felt like that was not appropriate.
7 Likes
Big packs of bicyclists who hog up the road and won’t bike single file in the bike lane. Huge problem on Saturday and Sunday mornings where we used to live. Those biker road hogs were buttheads.
5 Likes
I think the specific mention was made of speaker phones/FaceTime at the grocery store. I frequently encounter this and it is usually an older man consulting with his partner. I have far more tolerance for this than those doing so on the trail.
2 Likes
This is assuming a lot.
1 Like
OK, I will apologize here, sincerely. I suppose I am a perfect example for this thread of someone who let my initial reaction take over too quickly without checking the assumption.
To explain, I live in a place where, for whatever reason, I do not notice people face-timing on their phones (I do see constant texting) or being expecially loud on phones (ironically, I do hear volume pretty well; it’s that I have profound high-frequency loss which shows up in lost consonant sounds, so everything might be somewhat loud but like a blur (imagine a colorful, yet fuzzy impressionist painting as a visual parellel). When I put on speaker phone I still put it up to my ear to get the best chance of hearing those consonants and distinguishing syllables when it mostly sounds like vowels. I never face-time so I forget that people do, and so I imagined the only reason a person would use speaker would be to ramp up the sound (unless they were wanting to talk in the phone while doing housework or some other work with the phone set down). I guess I am feeling especially sensitive about the hearing issue right now in particular because I am thinking of quitting a couple of large-group things I belong to that are important to me but I just can’t consistently understand the presentations (even with microphone when people mumble) or social get-together talk or participate fully in meetings . I’m exhausted of trying. I do enjoy spontaneous conversations with neighbors and the occasional get-togethers with a few friends but this is a quiet community of tight-knit groups of locals and not much social mobility. I guess it’s getting to me a little. The frustrating thing for me is that I do understand well enough to be an almost “normal” conversationalist when people speak in a normal but clear way in a not too noisy setting (and I’m not talking about the super-exaggerated enunciating or shouting you do for extremely elderly people). However, I know that people don’t easily change their speech patterns. We prize independence and self-sufficiency in our culture but hearing loss really does make one’s participation in life depend so much on what others are, or not willing to “extra” for you and it can be humiliating and maddening to constantly feel you must ask for favors about an issue that otherwise has no fix except to BE alone. This is not meant to be a public pity party but an acknowledgement that I goofed …and what was behind it.
Maybe the larger story is that we just have a lot of disconnection and lonliness in our culture (even when appearances lead us to believe that people have plenty of connections in their lives. Maybe a lot of the rudeness we see is really the leaking of the frustrations worry, fear,grief, lack of trust and genuine isolation many of us are feeling even with lots of activity and people around us. People have always had difficulties of all kinds but maybe they at least had more feeling of belonging within small groups of people in the same situation.
13 Likes
Don’t be sorry about anything.
you’ve been very honest in how it is to be hard of hearing. As we all age, this is an issue that many if not most are going to experience
If now one of us gets how exhausting it is to be always trying to hear, then you’ve done a great service.
With my husband, I’m always trying to figure out how to help him so he can understand. Going out to dinner is always challenging. Dining with others is stressful for him. Because he can’t hear, making conversation is difficult.
That’s only one thing.
10 Likes