Thursday 27 January 2011

Deafinitely Girly does dating

Recently, something has been doing my head in.

I’ve been consistently single for too long.

Rather than wallowing, I’ve been trying to be more proactive and talk to people in bars and stuff, but it’s always slightly disastrous and trying to hear over the thudding music gives me a rabbit caught in headlights look, which is not exactly a know flirting technique.

Looking back at my dating history, I’ve never been very good at flirting or indeed getting the guy.

One of the things I find when I am in bars, chatting to people is that my mind goes totally blank. London Aunt finds this too, so perhaps it’s not just a deaf thing; perhaps it’s a genetic thing. London Aunt for example once started talking to a guy about The Shipping News – not the book, not the movie, but the real life Shipping News that plays nightly on BBC World Service.

I can totally relate to this. If I can’t follow the conversation, I find myself nodding with a vacant look on my face before changing the subject to something I can follow – but in a panic this will be something insanely random such as fixing my leaking shower door.

But worse still, if I can follow the conversation, I will be so afraid of losing track of what’s going on that I will stare intently at the poor guy not daring to interrupt. Once I was talking to a guy who thought I was on drugs as I didn’t blink during the entire conversation as I was so worried I’d miss something.

And then of course there’s always the ‘I-need-to-lipread-you snog error’ which has happened to me more times that I’d like to recall. It goes like this: You meet a guy you like in a bar. It’s really noisy so he talks to your ear. You tell him a few times that he needs to look at your face so you can lipread him. He keeps forgetting. Eventually, tired of having someone screech down your ear, you move his face with your hands to face yours. He then reads this as an invitation to kiss you and moves in for the kill. On one particular night, I had three of these within half an hour of each other, all of whom where huffy with me for apparently moving on so fast!!!!!

I have NO idea what to do to get a date. I mean I’m not desperate to get married or anything, but a date would be nice. Where should I go to meet guys in an environment where I can hear and not blurt out my latest DIY disaster? Should I join a club? Take up a new hobby? Do a team sport?

Or…

…perhaps I should put someone else in charge of my love life for a while to see if they do any better?

So that’s it. I’m throwing open the vacancy of DG’s Dating Guru to all applications. Please email me your credentials and ideas to deafinitelygirly@gmail.com and I’ll let you know how I get on.

There must be a guy out there for me somewhere surely?

4 comments:

mervynjames224 said...

I'd avoid going to bars on your own, they are full of losers mostly.... and possibly dangerous for you.... tried online dating ? at least see what you are getting first lol Of course NEVER go alone to those dates either....

esther said...

This really made me smile. I am not deaf (my baby girl is) but I was / is exactly like you in these situations. I am married now (I was 32 when that happened) but spent my 20's talking similar nonsense to random men... I still do at work do's. I don't think it is just deaf people that struggle in these situations. I can never hear anything when I am out and spend a lot of time lip reading (which probably makes people think I am staring strangely at their mouths! Good luck - will be following your progress ;o)

Me said...

Thanks MM – I would NEVER go to a bar alone... even if I wasn't deaf :-) I gave internet dating a go but it wasn't that fun...

Esther, thanks for your lovely comment, it's good to hear some happy ever afters are out there. Hopefully I will have some entertaining progress soon... DG

Forgot my pseudonym...X said...

From what I recall, your internet dating experience wasn't all that bad!

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