I love going out clubbing. Don't do it often enough (well, in my eyes anyway. I'm sure my degree would disagree and say I do it too much). Love dancing to the music and (when I'm sober) laugh at/with (delete as appropriate) my friends or (when I'm drunk) have embarrassing pictures taken of me. Although the embarrassing pictures tend to show up even when I haven't touched a drop of alcohol. Hmm...
But I digress. As I said, I love clubbing. There are a few issues though. I don't wear my hearing aids when I'm hitting the town. A) for fear of losing them and B) they're pretty much useless in a place with a lot of background noise, like a club. Which makes it impossible to hear anything anyone says. I literally only hear the music (which to me isn't that loud, but I have it on safe authority that it's much louder in clubs than it is playing on my laptop).
So lip-reading it is. And boy, am I glad I've started to go to lip-reading classes. It definitely comes in handy. Of course it's easy for my hearing friends to forget that I lip-read in clubs. It's a hearing person's instinct to shout in their hearing friends' ears in clubs. It's the only way to communicate. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work that way for me. There's absolutely no point in shouting in to my ears in a club - I'm deaf, all I hear is the music. At the start of the night they remember that I'm lip-reading, but after a few drinks they quickly forget and the next thing I know is their mouths next to my ear. But my friends, being the lovely people they are, don't mind when I ask them to move back and let me read their lips instead.
I make mistakes as well. It's easy for me to forget that my friends are hearing. Without my hearing aids, I have no idea how loud my voice is. So, not wanting to be screaming at the top of my lungs, my voice is often quite low in clubs. Not very useful to my friends that can't lip-read. It's one of those things - because I'm learning how to lip-read, it's easy for me to forget that not everyone else can.
Sometimes I also find myself starting to sign to some people. When I can't hear, I sign. My parents are slowly catching on and can usually grasp what I'm signing. Most of my friends though, cannot sign. Which I tend to forget. I found myself signing 'Hey! Good day?' to a friend I hadn't seen in a while. I was met with a very blank look. I was thinking 'what on earth is wrong, did I say something wrong?' Then it hit me. I didn't say it I signed it. Whoops.
But for the most part it's not really a problem. After all, the point of clubbing is to dance & drink, not talk. Still love it. (Although I am finding myself going home earlier and earlier - oh dear, please tell me my age isn't starting to show!)
Then there's walking home after a night out. I'm always wary and tend to drive in to town and park my car close to the clubs/pubs. Firstly, because I don't much fancy walking back home alone in the dark. I live in quite a safe-ish area, but it never hurts to be vigilant. Of course - it's difficult for me to be vigilant as I can't hear. Unless I keep looking behind me every 10 seconds, I have no idea if there's someone walking behind me or not. I can't hear if there's someone behind me, coming out of an alley to my side or running towards me.
It's quite difficult to be aware of your surroundings when you can't hear a thing. I can see people falling about drunk and laughing with each other, I just can't hear them. If I can't hear loud-mouthed louts, I can't hear anyone sneaking up on me. So I tend to be over-cautious and always prepared. (Read - keys inbetween my knuckles ready to punch someone should they jump out at me.) And always have my car parked close on a main road. I figure it's better to be safe than sorry.
(In case you hadn't guessed, I've just come back from a class night out).
Until next time,
Deaf Girl
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