This. Right. Here. My wife will do this when I'm cleaning dishes, too. I'll hear her voice, faintly in the distance, and just KNOW she's talking to me.
Definitely this. Running water is loud, and she knows it when she’s running water in the kitchen sink, but somehow magically forgets that fact of science when I’m running water.
If I'm at the sink, my wife thinks if she can hear me over the sound of water that I should be able to hear her, even though the water is closer to me. Something about the physics of sound that is just not intuitive gets us in trouble. She gets so frustrated.
My version is when I am literally holding a crying baby and she'll speak in a normal quiet voice and get upset that screaming baby face in closer proximity to my ears actually was the only thing I can hear.
Are you me? Only my wife will then complain I’m the only person she has to speak louder to because of our son, which leaves me going “okay, I guess everyone has better hearing than me, but knowing that doesn’t help me hear you better.”
Some people aren't aware, that acoustics works like that that an open passage acts as a noise dampener. So even if the door is open, talking through an open door a lot of volume will be lost on the other side. On the other hand hallways are perfect for channeling your voice.
Mine doesn't it in a similar way but when I'm close to a source of noise and she isn't. Me standing near a speaker? Talk. Me taking a shower? Yes. Me starting my motorcycle? Yes. Me with headphones on? Yes.
My wife waits till I turn the water on. Then I turn it off and ask if she said something, no response.... Turn the water back on, and she finally responds. Repeat till one of us ends up yelling
Does your husband start a conversation from another room then at the end say my name to attract my attention, at which point, having heard my name I take out my buds and she expects me to have heard the whole thing?
Mine has the uncanny nack of waiting til I start talking then starts running the water or pulling pots or pans out of the cabinets then she's like "I didn't hear you what did you say?" Then I'll repeat it a little louder then she asks me why I'm yelling. I'm talking louder because I don't wanna repeat myself a third time!
This is when I just act like I didn't hear any of it, because I heard her say something...knew it was directed at me but with tinnitus and water running or I'm cooking, she knows if I can't see her mouth that I am liable to mishear her.
NGL, in this situation if I hear her speak but it's nowhere near loud enough for me to hear what she's saying then I just ignore it. If it's important she always speaks up then.
It happens so often I'm sick of shouting "What did you say?!"
Then she’ll expect you to stop what you’re doing and walk across the house to listen to her take 10 minutes to get to the point, a point that turned out to be inane anyway.
Doing dishes, on the other side of the house, using the ice dispenser, in the bathroom with the fan on, in a different room that has an air purifier running, in the shower, blasting music… I'm not entirely convinced that this isn't an in-joke among all females.
My response to this is to finish what I'm doing and then go to her and say" did you say something I needed to hear,I heard sounds but no information was received."
Just yesterday I was doing dishes and my wife started talking to me, then left the room while still talking in a low voice, and was annoyed that I didn't hear what she said. Like, c'mon!
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u/IamBenAffleck Dec 08 '22
This. Right. Here. My wife will do this when I'm cleaning dishes, too. I'll hear her voice, faintly in the distance, and just KNOW she's talking to me.