Speaking up: The difficulties of communicating while wearing a mask
The farmer and I order takeout from a locally-owned restaurant about once a week – our way of helping small businesses during the pandemic.
One of our favorites is a place that makes yummy Polish fare – haluski and kielbasa and sauerkraut and such.
It was during my visit there last week that I realized my sense of hearing may be slipping, something I hadn’t noticed until we all started wearing masks.
I put on my mask and walked in, looked up at the menu board, and turned to the woman behind the counter.
“Two number 11s,” I said.
She wrote that on a receipt and then looked up at me to ask a question. From behind her mask, it sounded like this:
“fmoo fmit fmooff fuffle foo?”
“Pardon me?” I said, pointing to my ear.
“foo ruffle moo fit fmooff?”
I still had no clue what she was asking. By reflex, I reached up to remove my mask, as if that would help me to hear her.
“I’m having a hard time understanding,” I said. “Would you repeat that?”
She slid her mask down just beyond her nose.
“Would you like any pierogis?”
I said, “no.” The number 11 already has noodles.
Driving home, I thought about how the masks are changing the way we communicate – muffling the words, and maybe even dulling our interactions with each other.
It is said eyes are the windows to the soul, but it turns out the soul needs the bottom half of the face in order to be understood.
My difficulty hearing the woman at the restaurant wasn’t just about the mask dampening her words. The mask was hiding her mouth and I couldn’t see her lips moving. The face covering was cutting me off from half of what I needed to understand her.
Are we all like this? Or do I read lips because my hearing isn’t so great?
Since that interaction, I’ve tested my theory. When watching a close-up of a person on the TV screen, do I look at the eyes or the mouth? Definitely mouth, because it’s the only part of the face that’s moving. Or maybe I shift my gaze away from the eyes because the lips offer me a bit of help in recognizing the words. As my ears do the work, my eyes follow along to fill in the gaps.
Then I tried something else.
I muted the volume on a local newscast and watched the anchor speaking. I got the gist of what he was saying just by watching him talk. Maybe all this reading of lips to supplement my hearing has made me something of a lip reader.
Of course, that ability only lasted for a few seconds of the newscast and then I lost track of what the anchor was saying. I tried it on a movie, a western with John Wayne. I was a failure. Those cowboys barely open their mouths when they talk.
I know the masks are important, and I always wear mine in public, but I find I’m less likely to interact with people now. Used to be, I’d chat with the bagger in the supermarket checkout line, but now I leave it at please and thank you. They probably feel the same way.
After my hapless spell at the pierogi place, I apologized to the woman.
“Sorry,” I said through my mask. “It’s hard for me to hear when I can’t see your face.”
She waved me off with a smile. At least I think it was a smile. Her eyes sort of crinkled up a bit. In these strange, masked days, crinkly eyes count as a smile.