Everybody jokes that kids have selective hearing – they only hear what they want to hear.
Ask them to clean up their room while you’re watching TV with them and there will be no response.
A few years ago my hubster thought that *I* was suffering from selective hearing loss – aimed solely at him. It lead to some tension in our relationship, as he felt that I no longer seemed interested in what he had to say!
But the truth was, unless I was looking directly at him, I really couldn’t distinguish what he was saying. If he had his back to me, or was in another room, or there was background noise such as the television, try as I might I just couldn’t catch what he was saying.
Aware of his hurt, I tried desperately to compensate. Whenever he spoke I would concentrate with all my might, to no avail. Sometimes I cheated and pretended that I heard – but more often than not, I was caught out when I gave a totally unrelated response!
He also quickly realised that my “mmm – hmmm” was an attempt to mask the fact that I had absolutely no idea what he was saying!
So I made an appointment to have my hearing checked. Keen to solve the mystery, hubster came along too.
Why I Had Unintentional Selective Hearing
“Well, the good news is your hearing is pretty much perfect!” announced the specialist, before continuing:
“The bad news is, there is one particular frequency where your hearing does drop out. It’s around this certain number of hertz. You can hear perfectly above this frequency, and just as well below it, but there is one particular pitch that you cannot hear.”
“What sort of noises have that hertz?” asked my husband (you can tell he used to be in the sound team at our church!)
“Oh, things like a truck motor idling … and men’s voices!”
We were flabbergasted! Because I was plagued with hay fever and sinus for years (until I underwent two years of allergy injections), over time the blockages had affected my hearing.
Once we were aware that it WAS actually a problem, and not just selective hearing, we learned to work around it. My hubster is much more patient with me now – although he still gets frustrated sometimes!
Can you imagine if my hubster HADN’T come to that appointment with me? There is NO WAY he would have believed me when I told him what the specialist said!
Have you ever been accused of selective hearing by your significant other? When was the last time you had your hearing checked?!
Why not book a free hearing check during Hearing Awareness Week (August 21-27, 2016)?
GSave