Your impression of/experience with "low talkers"?

Wife and I attended a social event at a friends’ house. 20-ish people gathered, seated in living/dining rooms and foyer, to listen to a presentation and mingle/discuss before and after. Not many attendees knew many others. No background music or loud raucous conversation. Only very light snacks, most people seated rather than moving about.

Wife and I are seated in adjoining table chairs, another couple is in 2 table chairs at right angles to us - with one other guy at the point of the angle. Men on inside 2, women on outside 2. I could have easily touched the guy next to me or the guy of the couple - to give an idea how close we were. If I leaned forward a bit, I could have stayed in my seat and touched the woman.

Wife and I aren’t social butterflies, but we make an effort to speak with the other couple. (The guy in the point was pleasant, and talkative.) They seem pleasant enough, and actually potentially interesting, but when my wife asks the woman a follow-up about what she does, the response is “mumble, mumble.” Not a terse non-answer. A LOT of mumbles, accompanied with a pleasant smile, but absolutely unintelligible to either of us. My wife says something like, “I’m sorry, I’m having difficulty hearing you,” and the woman responds, “mumble, mumble.” Zero appreciative increase in volume. I was closer than my wife, but even with a HUGE effort, I couldn’t have followed everything she said

What do you think is going on in such a situation, and how do you respond (outwardly and inwardly)?

I work as a volunteer at a coffee bar and at least twice a week I run into this. It drives me nuts. After asking to please speak up a couple of times I just put them on ignore.

Be careful when you wear the puffy shirt, like the pirates used to wear.

I don’t think anything. I just smile and nod.

How loud was the background noise? Do you use earbuds to listen to your music regularly? When was the last time you had your hearing checked?

Loss of definition of specific voices in crowd background noise was a complaint my father had years ago after he’d reached ‘a certain age’. Once he got a hearing aid, he was much happier socially.

My experience is that it is a way for them to exercise control, especially during an ongoing conversation.

Control over you: You have to lean in close, and focus on them, and give them your undivided attention in order to just hear the words they are speaking.

Control over the conversation: It prevents anyone else from overhearing anything they say, and contradicting or elaborating on anything they say, or steering the conversation in any course but the one they set.

Whether it’s intentional or not, it’s infuriating. I try to break it by replying to them at a normal volume, and inviting others to join the conversation.

In my head, I sound really, really loud.

I do this. I don’t know why I can’t seem to calibrate how loud I’m talking. I think I’m speaking loudly enough, but apparently not. I end up feeling like I’m shouting (and worrying that I actually am shouting - which is also not ok). I also know that I tend to get softer the longer I speak and when I stop speaking for a while and have to find the right volume again. It’s very embarrassing.

Background noise was really low. Carpeted living room with maybe 20-25 people, with each closest group of 4-5 people having low conversation.

My wife knows she has difficulty with multiple simultaneous conversations - such as at a table, or conversation with loud background noise. So we are attentive to this sort of issue. There should have been no such issue in this situation.

Glad to hear others find this infuriating. We both thought extrememly negatively about this woman - who might really be pleasant, accomplished, and interesting in many respects. But not making an effort to speak audibly struck us as rude.

Oh yeah - maybe 5 people were under 30. The vast majority - including our corner, were probably between 45-65, and all (I presume) college educated. So this wasn’t some young person inexperienced with social interaction.

Years of listening to high-pitch music through earphones have left me with considerably bad hearing. Most of the time I can’t make out what people are saying to me, and if I think what’s being said is important enough, I ask them to repeat what they said.

I don’t get casual comments or stuff said across the room, and I need subtitles for every movie I watch.

So, when it happens that I don’t hear something, and that does happen a lot, I just smile and nod and try to come up with a balanced expression or reply that would suffice to shut the person up. Sometimes I get it wrong and I say “yeah, haha, been there” when I was being asked a question.

Drives me crazy. My hearing is not so great, I’m easily distracted by any background noise. Sometimes I mumble back to see if they get the point.

My 7 year old son does this to everyone. He talks so quiet it drives everyone insane. When I tell him to speak up be repeats himself in exactly the same level over and over. He does this to everyone. He also had trouble learning to talk so we’re not sure it’s not related to that. He’s been in speech therapy for 3 years. His speech has gotten much clearer, though he still mumbles sometimes. More just very quiet than unclear. He has also struggled with the alphabet, reading sight words and reading comprehension through school. He’s always above average in math, easily grasping principles and logical thinking. Just somehow has always had trouble with communication.

I don’t think it has anything to do with power or some underlying manipulation with quiet talkers. They just maybe don’t realize they’re doing it.

What makes me even more crazy is a loud talker. The ones who don’t shut up, interrupt others, and repeat themselves over and over. Just one loud talker can have the whole room yelling over each other in just 10 minutes.

I have a daughter, now 22, that’s horrible with this. It started in junior high and might have been a self-esteem thing where she could be unintelligible and therefore avoid conflict. As she got older I’m sure it’s a power and disrespect thing. In a tense situation one has to concentrate on simply hearing her versus having a conversation. And she has a job where I know she couldn’t function using the quiet voice she usually uses around us.

While hearing loss would be my first thought, if both you and your wife had trouble with both members of the couple, then that seems unlikely to be the explanation.

In at least some cases, they’re talking like that because they’re not actually saying anything to begin with. My grandson, about 10, does this when talking to adults (including his parents). When it’s quiet enough that you can hear him clearly, you realize it’s just sentence fragments and filler: “Well, um, I was wondering, um, like, if, well, I thought, um, you know, um, like, maybe if, well, um, that is why, you know, I, um, like…” His is the most exaggerated case I’ve seen, but I’ve observed it in adults as well.

There are medical conditions that cause this.

I know someone who is gradually losing their voice. They are just incapable of talking as loudly as they once could.

OTOH, they know about this and when someone doesn’t understand what they’re saying they just don’t merely repeat it at the same level. They try to move in closer or something. But knowing you have a condition that’s worsening and adapting to prevent these things from happening in the first place are different things.

So, some slack but not an infinite amount is warranted.

I run into these people regularly, as a restaurant server. It’s very common in married couples. To expedite getting their fucking order in, rather than politely asking them to repeat themselves (over… And over) I now immediately say ‘Excuse me?’ and put my ear very close to their mouth.
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It’s frustrating, but I usually assume they are not doing this intentionally, that something is preventing them from accurately assessing their voice volume and modifying it according to external cues. Few people like to repeat themselves and feel unheard or misunderstood, so I would not assume they are getting some kind of power trip out of it.

But I do find myself putting them on ignore, particularly if I’m not personally invested in what they might have to say. Sad but true.

It’s a constant issue at work. I work in an IT group, with a lot of contractors(surprise, surprise). I figure it’s a cultural, “be demure” kind of thing but the team has at least 5 chicks from India who are very hard to hear if you are not sitting right next to them in a meeting.

And phone meetings are worse, I have to work the volume button with the speed of a mongoose to understand a single word Suma is saying, without then getting my ear blown off by bellowy Eric.

For the people who think this is an intentional power play offense meant to attack, offend, dis-empower and disrespect them personally (the person you can’t hear not knowing how loud they are in Your head), how did you manage to deduce this…?

Were they making violent hand gestures and head movements that someone reading this and who wasn’t there wouldn’t be aware of? Were you on any medication at the time that you realized this?

I AM hard of hearing. I have $6000 hearing aids that work quite well as long as people don’t mumble. One woman that I work with was called the ‘mumbler’ by another co-worker. She admits to mumbling and often mumbles seated in her cube next to mine trying to talk to me. We are good friends, but it drives me a bit nuts.

The worst was when I was a part of the personnel board. About 25 of us. One person from each department around a BIG table. I think these folks had problems with public speaking. They would look down at their notes and mumble away. Wouldn’t look at anyone or try to project at ALL.