Can we be friends if we can't hear what he's saying?

Surely you’ve seen the Seinfeld episode with the Low Talker

Try not to get into the endless loop of talking louder thinking the other person will speak up. What usually happens is they speak softer hoping you will be quieter.
Speak quieter yourself and ask the other person to speak up.

And for gosh sakes, stay away from Puffy Shirts.

Never watched Seinfeld; don’t know what a Puffy Shirt is; but will ask him to speak up on those super rare occasions when I see him.

I had a boss that did this. It was so annoying. We all kept telling her to speak up, but she never did. We all learned to lip read as best as we could.

I used to know a guy like this. He was the husband of my wife’s best friend for a while. The four of us went to dinners, museums and concerts together. It really pissed me off at first because I thought it rude as hell that he didn’t seem to make the least effort to be heard after I had told him I was only getting half of what he was saying. So, stuck with the situation, I made no effort at all to listen to him. If he would notice my lack of response and question if I heard what he was saying, I would just answer, “I’m sorry, I can hear only half of what you are saying. You’ll have to speak up.” Of course he didn’t and I would ignore him some more. Maybe it was legit, I don’t know… and didn’t care. He had vocal chords and no breathing problems. Nobody ever offered an explanation. It was way too much of a pain in the ass and it broke the flow of some really fine conversations that he may or may not have been taking part in. His wife pandered to him. At home, my wife would ask me to try to be nicer to him. Fuck him, was my attitude.

Many people have problems with speech. Unfortunately many people can just go on and on and on when it comes to speaking, and they are easily understood, therefore they are quite ignorant on the topic of speech impediment. Keep that in mind, please. Maybe it annoys you, but try to imagine how much it must annoy the person who has this problem. Other people can’t hear them, maybe they are incapable of changing their speech, and therefore they must suffer from a lot of misunderstandings. Don’t be so harsh. One can quickly become annoyed with other people, but remember that many people have problems you have no idea about, so just take it easy and be gentle.

@tups Then the sonovabitch or his wife should have explained. They didn’t and I asked. So, fuck him. I chalk it up to a really pernicious form of passive aggression. It was this guy’s pissy little attempt at control. It worked on his wife, for sure.

@Espiritus_Corvus Of course I don’t know your situation, but I think you’re being a little harsh. Just because you have no problem speaking, it doesn’t mean it’s easy for everyone else. Some people also have a hard time talking about their personal issues. Can’t we just take it a little easy on each other once in a while?

This nice man had a very responsible, relatively high paying job. This is part of who he is. I had said his daughter is the same way. He is not mentally challenged or sick. He works out each day at a gym and keeps a perfectly groomed yard. He has been this way since I met him thirty years ago and I’m sure before that. Another thing he does that is quite unusual is he makes little jokes then does this quiet little laugh afterwards but we don’t laugh with him because we usually haven’t heard the remark. You know how wrestlers are obnoxiously loud? He’s the opposite. I guess the possible continuation of the former friendship is hopeless. He mentioned we could all go to Tunica for a weekend of gambling but no; I don’t think it would work.

@Aster Having a speech impediment and being mentally ill is not the same at all. The fact that you would even suggest that proves the ignorance that exists when it comes to this issue. Also, speech impediment can be related to genes, and therefore, it would make perfect sense if his daughter has the same problem. Now, if you can’t tolerate this and therefore not be friends with him, it’s up to you.

He does not have a speech impediment. He speaks too softly and even his wife can’t hear much of what he says. But what I do hear is spoken correctly with no lisp and no using “w” for “r”. As in , “she is wong.” Or, “let’s go for a wide.” He does not do that. I have never detected any trace of mental illness which, as most people know, is a whole other problem and not related to being soft spoken.

My husband does that sometimes (worse yet, I’ll ask him a y/n question and he’ll think yes or no, but not actually say it out loud, and when I ask again he’ll impatiently say “I SAID ‘Yes!!’ “No, you didn’t. You didn’t say anything.”) I’ve gotten to the point that if I can’t hear him I don’t even try to understand. If he asks me a question, but asks so softly that I can’t hear him, I’ll just ignore the question until he asks again so that I CAN hear him. Fortunately he doesn’t do it all the time. I think part of his problem is he is getting hard of hearing and perhaps can’t monitor his speaking level….or it could be a passive/aggressive thing.
To keep yourself from going nuts, just ignore him if you can’t hear him. Or even…maybe, talk over him if you have something to say. In order for him to change it has to be inconvenient for him as well and if everyone is making accommodations for him he isn’t inconvenienced.

I can’t do it. I might hurt his feelings and/or embarrass both of us if I ignored or talked over him. I would , however, be fine with, “what? I can’t hear you.”

@Aster Speech impediments not only about lisp or pronouncing letters incorrectly. It can also show as very low speaking. I know someone who spoke very low and she went to a speech therapist. This is a very personal thing and a sensitive subject so that might be the reason why he doesn’t talk about it. I don’t know how to explain this to you.

And also, your question is about whether or not you and you husband can be friends with this guy. Is friendship only about talking? If you like this guy, this shouldn’t be the deciding factor.

Of course we will always be friends. But he likes to talk quite a bit and my husband is hard of hearing. I guess you can’t see the awkwardness of it. Friends like to talk; it’s part of relationships and he can barely be heard. I apologize if I’ve offended you by your thinking he may have a speech impediment and I was criticizing him. I had simply never heard of soft speaking being any kind of illness.

What I am trying to say is, that while it may seem like he does this on purpose, it might not be voluntarily and maybe it’s a big deal to him that you know nothing about. But of course you know him better than me, I’m just trying to put another perspective on it.

It would never enter my mind he does it on purpose. He just happens to be one of millions of very soft spoken people. It isn’t like he has two heads.

It could be a passive aggressive thing too. He may not be doing it “on purpose,” but he IS doing it without a conscience reason.

He isn’t the angry , aggressive type. He is extremely laid back and pleasant.

Passive / aggressive. That’s when people do things passively to control others. For example, not answering a question or don’t do what they say they’re going to do. They stay quiet, or just ignore what needs to be done, which seems passive, but is really aggression in disguise.

It’s possible he’s manipulating people around him in that way.

@Dutchess_III This is the kind of solution I don’t like. Giving somebody some diagnose to satisfy yourself, instead of thinking a little bit more and maybe, maybe this person has problems you don’t know about, and maybe he is not doing this to control other people. I doubt it.

It was just a thought @tups.

I actually do know a passive=aggressive husband who not only puts on earphones to tune out his wife, he will often simply not answer her questions. You can hear him speak but he doesn’t like to converse on what he considers trivialities = even with someone he has just met. So he will sit there and listen to a person talking to him and actually have the gall to not respond. It embarrasses his wife to death. The man I am speaking about is never rude. He always answers questions and responds appropriately but often too softly. If we have loudmouths we certainly can have the opposite.