I don’t know how many here at SDMB have ever utilitized TTY services before but they are the phone services for deaf people. It’s a speech-transcribed, third-party phone system which incorporates another party on the line which transcribes everything you say on your end into written text for the deaf person, and vice versa. So this third party is the person you hear saying what the deaf person has written. Now for business calls and standard, run of the mill conversation I can see this being no big deal. But when it comes to personal matters, such as a dating scenario, IMO, it’s WEIRD.
Several years ago I briefly dated a deaf girl. She was amazingly able to speak with only the slightest trance of deficiency, but that’s neither here nor there. One day after we had a long night out (and in) together, we were on a TTY phone call. The third party TTY operator was what seemed like a middle aged black woman. The girl started talking about the previous night and began bringing up, um, rather intimate details of our time together. But I didn’t hear THE GIRL, no I hear this disinterested, middle aged black woman. And she’s telling me things like “Did anyone tell you how pretty you eyes are?” (tamed down example for the board), in such a way that almost made me laugh. And I’d have to reply back to this woman in order to keep the dialogue going. It was unnerving. And the conversation kept going that way until I finally ended it. The whole time I’m picturing some woman on the other end flipping thru “Ebony” magazine and rolling her eyes while she tells me what a great kisser I am.
Hey, I’m telling you the images in my head. LOL, I know they sound a bit, um, stereotypical, but that’s my point. Just creating an image here, that’s all.
I’ve used TTY services and the interpreters can really vary. Some of them seem like they are going to acting school, some just read the message. I once had someone who was bored and throwing in little asides, which seemed very unprofessional.
I am hoping that video calling will help the situation. One acquaintance’s son uses Skype now because he can see the caller and try to read their lips. If he can’t understand, he IM’s them to repeat.
I dated a deaf girl during the early nineties, but you don’t see me repeating stuff she said about how nobody is in the same class with me when it comes to oral sex.
Ha! Oh, I see. I only used those generic “pretty eyes and good kisser” remarks as filler for any ole’ “intimate conversation” pieces that 2 dating people might have. The actual conversation was too embarrassing. :o
While working for AOL back in the day I had an irate TTY call. It was, um, rather odd.
The TTY operator sounded way hot. A totally sexy, sweet voice.
The caller was rather pissed. Actually extremely pissed. So we had a conversation like this:
TTY Operator (TO): I want my fucking money back now.
Me: Sorry but (blah blah blah) you used the service.
TO: You fucking bastard, I am gonna kick your ass.
Me: I am sorry but that type of language is not acceptable…
Of course, the TTY operator was saying this stuff in the sweetest voice. I was rolling about 2 minutes into the call and had to keep muting the call 'cause I was laughing so hard. After a while the original caller hung up. I talked to the TO for a bit after, we were both laughing insanely.
I had a number of friends who worked as TTY relay operators. As you might expect, they are required to relay verbatim whatever either party says, regardless of whether it’s sexy, illegal, whatever. They told me that sometimes kids would call with the obvious purpose of making the operator say stupid/embarrassing stuff just for giggles. Interesting job.
You have a number of friends who worked as TTY relay operators? Do you have any connection to the industry or to the deaf community? Otherwise I find this an odd statement.
I think one of them got a job and recruited her other friends, some of whom were also in my social circles. There’s a TTY relay service in town (Nordia, I think it’s called).
My wife recently had to go through a TTY operator in a job search situation, and found it to be extremely cumbersome. In her view, what should have been a 30 second telephone call instead took about 30 minutes.
I’ve spoken to deaf folks via TTY a few times, though never had anything particularly intimate to say. I’m a bit surprised that the service is still popular, given e-mail, text messaging, message boards and every other text option now available. I mean, I’m a hearing person, and I have earned a living from clients who I never had to talk to - as far as they were concerned, I could have been deaf. One of the best programmers I’ve ever known was deaf, and the only time we’ve ever talked was when we met up at a trade show. He read lips and talked very well, but when the conversation turned technical, we traded lines of text on a notebook computer.
My daughter had TTY job for a while. Ten bucks an hour to listen and type. She did relate the fact that there were conversations she would not dream of having a third party listen to, if she was one of the two parties “talking”.
