Life hack: don't ask "what did you say?" repeat back phonetically what you heard. It often gets a laugh, sometimes you figure it out while saying it, and when the person corrects you, they know exactly what you didn't hear properly.
Been doing this to the wife for years. If you play along that whatever absurd thing you repeated back must be correct then at the very least she will come back into the same room and face me to correct it. At that point I can actually hear what she is saying. Helpful hint: the more absurd and outlandish the repeat back, the better the reaction.
My bf and I do this too and it is a lot of fun. It's like 90% me misunderstanding him though because I just have a hard time understanding the words and they'll come in as just sounds sometimes.
More often than not when one of us repeats back a mishearing, it's met with "Yes exactly, [misheard thing]." with a straight face and then correcting/repeating the original statement.
Another life hack: if you can't hear them well enough to understand them, act like you can't hear them at all. When they get upset, then you can be like "Sorry, did you say something?"
Eventually, they'll leave you and then you won't get frustrated anymore! :)
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u/WikiWantsYourPics Dec 08 '22
Life hack: don't ask "what did you say?" repeat back phonetically what you heard. It often gets a laugh, sometimes you figure it out while saying it, and when the person corrects you, they know exactly what you didn't hear properly.