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“I'm deaf and communicate in sign language. I can lip read but cant speak. I've dated a girl for 2 months and we chat through me lip reading and, a text to speech app and gestures. I've offered to teach her sign language many times, but she always has an excuse or says i should learn to speak. I wrote her a letter and she said that i was just being pathetic. I really like her but i cant have a normal conversation! Should i leave her?”
- Question submitted by Anonymous
Dannielle Says:
I mean, you absolutely should not stay with someone you can’t hold a conversation with. Can you really imagine yourself metaphorically walking down the aisle with someone you can’t even have a simple convo about 30 ROCK with??
It’s like, I can name a million (thats too many it would take too long) girls who would have already started to learn sign language from the internet. I mean, has she not see Seasons 4-6 (aka the ‘forgettable years’) of the L Word? BETTE WAS ALL OVER THAT SHIT. I know for a FACTTTTTTT I would be, too. Sit her down and have a serious heart to heart. She needs to know that you don’t see your relaysh going very far without a little compromise.
YOU GUYS… Relationships are all about open&honest communication, this includes everything from “can you pass me that vitamin water” to “you hurt my feelings when you said my calves were fat” to “there’s a booger in your nose” to “i used to date someone who treated me like shit and sometimes i get weird, i’m sorry”
It is impossible to have a healthy relationship if you don’t communicate. ImpossibOHOHOHle impossibOHOHOHle impossibOHOHOHle impossible. (via shontelle)
Kristin Says:
Wait wait wait wait WAIT. You wrote her a letter and she said you were ‘just being pathetic’?! Fuck that bitch. No, seriously. FUCK. THAT. BITCH.
The fact that she told you to ‘learn how to speak,’ and has not taken any sort of proactive role in ensuring that you will be able to communicate is, in my book, near-to-unforgiveable. I say ‘near-to-unforgiveable’ because I just want to make sure that you have had an open and honest dialogue with her where you have expressed how important it is to you that she begin to learn sign language. It sounds like you have already done that, and it sounds like she is too wrapped up in her own bullshit to hear what you are saying.
Your inability to hear shouldn’t stop anyone, including Bette Porter*, from boning you all over while signing to you that you have the hottest body this side of {insert landmark near you}.
Her inability to listen, however, is a fucking deal breaker.
*I just had to make the L word reference, even though Dannielle already did…so, please forgive me.
