Top 10 Responses to "I'm Deaf" or "I'm HOH" from hearing people

-- contributed by Chris Littlewood (Please comment or add your own best responses)

So we have all been in a situation with one or more hearing person that we have just met where it becomes necessary to explain that we are deaf/hoh. Some of these responses will never cease to amaze me. I keep a sense of humor about it, but these are the top ten responses I think I have had to telling someone I am deaf or hoh:

1. “Me too! I know I hear less out of my right ear than my left.” Or sometimes just “Me too” (and then they go on and on and on, and you’re smiling and thinking where’s the exit?).
2. “Oh really, my brother’s, cousin’s, sister’s, best friend’s, roommate’s accountant is hard of hearing.”
3. “I’m sorry, what?” (Sometimes they are trying to be funny, sometimes they’re not and sometimes they are funny and sometimes they’re NOT.).
4. “Arghh, Nevermind!” (You are now invisible, the person that said this will talk to the people around you, near you, and sometimes through you, but may never again talk to you. Hey, it is that person’s loss.)
5. “SO CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME NOW !!?”
6. “Ha ha, no your not!” (This is not Seinfeld!)
7. “Well why don’t you wear (or turn up) your hearing aid?”
8. “Well just look at me and read my lips then!” (Said the guy with the bushy mustache and goatee)
9. “I’ll say it one more time!!”
10. “Oh, that’s O.K”…….(“Geee thanks!” Is what your thinking and you were not apologizing).