Woman so loud in restaurant today...

[MinnietheMoaner]

There was one woman in particular who was SO LOUD in a pub restaurant today - she talked loudly and she laughed loudly. We were at the next table and struggled to hear ourselves talk. I wish I had the courage to get up and say "excuse me but we can hardly hear ourselves talk because of you " but surely that would be a bit rude?
There wasn't the option to move to another table. We heard all about her and Alfie and the woman with all the dark skin around her ankles.
No chance of giving her the evils as she was in full entertainment mode for her table. People like this are such a PITA. Just a vent here!

As a deaf person, yes it is ableist! You don’t learn to do it, you are told by people to ‘be quieter’ because it’s impossible to know how loud you are speaking. You wouldn’t expect an autistic person to tone down their behaviour.

Of course - other people explaining things to you is how you learn lots of things. If you’re profoundly deaf then absolutely it will be difficult/impossible, but hard of hearing covers a range of hearing loss and I’m saying that it’s possible to learn in that case.

Of course, she might just have been someone who’s hearing is fine and she’s just never been told to quieten it down.

The party was 2 young women and 2 older women who to be fair looked pretty fed up. My H is actually quite deaf but doesn't shout loudly when out. I heard another table talk about it too - the table with the two dogs under their feet who were perfectly behaved and didn't utter one noise 😃

She's every right to be there as you have and she dosent have to change to suit you?
Nobody has to please you.

No, but people generally do think of their effect on others. It’s just consideration.

She wasn’t behaving with any consideration towards fellow diners. We could all shriek and cackle in a cafe, but most people don’t. Because they think of others.

My friend was telling me how she got glared at and loudly commented upon when she took her dog into the cafe with her recently. It’s dog friendly, obviously. Her dog lay quietly under her table while the other party’s children shrieked and yelled and the adults performance parented at the tops of their voices. Not only rude but staggeringly self unaware.

Yet another example of why modern life is so unpleasant. I wish thinking about others would come back into vogue.

She doesn't have the right to make other people miserable though.

We once went out to the pub for lunch
I know what the bloke was doing on the 29th of June that year as he kept repeating himself,loudly,followed by a 'hawhawhaw!'

I wanted to throttle him with my jacket

I had a similar experience throughout a guided walk to Striding Edge in the Lake District. A woman who could not stop talking extremely loudly. There was never, ever a pause. She, like me, was on her own in the group, not with friends, so she was latching on to any of us, usually the guide, to monolgue at full force.

It definitely wasn't deafness. She was just intensely socially disordered (I can't think of a better phrase) - though extremely competant in other dimensions. She just had absolutley zero idea about how she was behaving.

It truly ruined the entire walk. My head hurt! I had to hang back a hundred yards for relief, but that wasn't always practical.

I really did think (endlessly) of politely asking her to tone it down a bit, but I couldn't find confidence in the right words. Even kindly phrased words would have sounded harsh. My guess is that others in the group - and the guide - had the same problem

Yeah - the only solution is to laugh REALLY loud and start talking about how funny Alfie sounds really loudly!

I saw the title and had to check if it was my group!
Just back from an overnight work trip and was horrified to see I would be with LOUD WOMAN. She is infamous in our business. Big booming LOUD voice. Like twice the volume of everyone else as if she’s trying to reach someone the other side of an airport hangar or something.
I had two long car journeys and a dinner and breakfast with her. I was very aware of her at dinner and people near us were definitely looking in shock.
Luckily she is absolutely lovely so we just tolerate fondly.
(No Alfie or interesting ankles so it wasn’t us!) 😁

Yes similar experience recently, dh and I went for lunch at a small place, and in the middle of the restaurant was a group of 3 women having an afternoon tea. God they were loud! I heard far too much of their conversation, lots of which was pretty personal! It was quite distracting as I was trying to chat to dh but kept losing my train of thought. Annoying.

Your in a pub, what do you expect

I wonder if a man was talking this loudly if it would have jarred so much.. sometimes we can have internalized sexism

I always want to join in with the conversation when someone talks unnecessarily loudly in public.

Otherwise I might say "excuse me, you might not be aware but we can hear all of your conversation".

In fact I might say "We heard all about her and Alfie and the woman with all the dark skin around her ankles.We heard all about her and Alfie and the woman with all the dark skin around her ankles."

I am a very loud person, I'm not hard of hearing but I'm just naturally loud and have a really hard time judging the correct volume to speak and keeping to it. I don't do it to be rude and I feel embarrassed about it. But no matter how hard I try, I still struggle. My Dad and my son are the same too. Interestingly we are all neurodivergent. None of us are doing it on purpose or so everyone around us can hear our rivetting conversation, trust me that's the last thing we want. We simply have trouble with volume control and my son in particular finds it very stressful and upsetting that he has such trouble with it.

It's a pain in the ass for us and I would be mortified if someone made a post on MN about me over something like this.

I'd have found it much more helpful if the person had (politely) approached me and asked if I was aware how loud I was. I could then explain myself and try my hardest to adapt to my surroundings. As a sidenote, the louder an environment is, the louder I become, so places like pubs might be difficult for many people with volume control issues.

I hope you get the courage to approach someone (kindly) next time this happens.

Me, me, all me.

Oh ffs you were in a pub not a church!

Tell me you don't understand being hard of hearing without telling me....

You know how when people have headphones on, and then accidentally say something loudly because they can't hear themselves? It's the same thing.

We can't moderate our volume because we CAN'T HEAR IT.

I've spent my entire life being told to be quiet.
Do you understand how miserable that is?

Imagine, every day someone you love tells you to change something about yourself that is impossible to change?
How every conversation you ever have you're constantly having to pay attention to something you do because otherwise you'll irritate people?

I find groups of men the worst. Because of their deeper voices it "fills" sound space more.

I have hearing issues, so groups in general I struggle to be sat near. But groups of men, I'll specifically asked to not be sat near them. Because whilst I understand that they can't help their pitch, they cut off all other noise for me due to how my hearing loss works.

I may be unusual in that, going to ask DH and my friend what they think 😂

Say something, even just letting them know you can hear what should be private matters. From what you say, the others at the table might have welcomed someone saying something.

I’m hard of hearing - partially deaf due to meningitis as I said upthread. I understand it. The times when I can’t hear myself well is when there’s ambient noise - people who are loud make it harder for me to hear myself and to hear others.

You do understand that there are quite a few levels of speaking volume between whispering and shouting, right?
That even in a busy place it is possible to be highly obnoxious by bellowing so loudly everyone is forced to hear?