People with really loud voices, what causes it?

[basoon]

Is it upbringing? Some sort of biological thing with vocal cords? We all know the experience of being in a cafe or restaurant and one person's voice just dominates the whole space. I have a very loud friend. Sometimes I'm embarrassed to be with her. She is aware, to some extent, but seems unable to do anything about it. Is there anyone here who knows they have a loud voice but can't modulate it?

It's heavily correlated with:

Maleness (see also: performative sneezing)
Americanism (we can hear you coming a mile away)
Arrogance (see also - maleness)

I was in a restaurant last week and the family on a table across the room were really loud. The Mum was very loud, a DD was even louder and even their primary aged DD was loud. Everyone in the room was looking at them but they just seemed oblivious.

My husband is slightly deaf in one ear but he can follow conversations and does not have the TV on a loud setting. He does check with me that it is not too loud. Believe me he will be getting hearing aids if he needs them!

Also - the volume of the noise increases with alcohol.

I have misophonia and don't drink so I mostly avoid social occasions!

I'm with you, DH is being gently guided into getting it sorted. We have been together 7 years but only lived together for the past 6 months. Being around the noise so much has been driving me crazy.

Dd2 is like a foghorn. Worse at bedtime. Im constantly sushing!

i think its ND probably adhd but could be asd. It does seem genes though as shes always been loud.
dh does ridiculously loud sneezes.
his voice is also very loud.

They don't fix hearing, they just make bits louder and add their own electrical noise and random sounds that happen to have some frequencies that are shared with the area of loss into the mix

I wear mine every bloody day and the best bit of the day is taking the fucking thing out so I have the quiet of the HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

instead of the HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

and the SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSs

and the THUMP THUD tickkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk BANG of random things happening outside.

and the road noise.

and the other frequencies that are fractionally above and below the loss that don't really need amplifying but are.

and the PAIN of when some fuckers decide to clap their hands or clatter stuff around or sneeze or squeal with laughter. And the random way the AI decides that what you really want is for everything behind you to be amplified even more because there's some bugger making a racket when you just want to hear the mumbler on the phone who is holding it at arms length during a hurricane whilst eating Werther's Originals by the sounds of it.

And with all that, you have people who refuse to face you so you can see their faces move, get botox so you've got nothing to go on, have radios and TVs on all the time, turn away mid sentence, start rustling a bag of crisps, tap tap tap tapping, move around like their legs are made of strawberry boot laces, start talking whilst eating. Oh, and it randomly decides to start complaining at you in computer American - baddery. Baddery. Fucking baddery. And then you need to sort tubes and domes and cleaning filaments and fucking badderies.

Maybe a decent analogy to glasses would be that you get issued with a pair of huge magnifying glasses with flashlight attached - and then people switch off the lights or turn on a football pitch floodlight at the same time as a laser show is going on and somebody's deliberately bouncing light off a mirror into your face at random intervals. When you actually need glasses for a quarter of what you see at a distance of 8 foot and a light tint to reduce glare.

Women are as bad. Especially the middle class woman performance parenting. And the shrieking...

Do you have decent hearing aids?
My lovely MIL went deaf before I knew her. She said managing her hearing aids was easier for her because she learnt to do it at a younger age. Later she treated herself to some expensive ones and she said that they were a vast improvement on the NHS ones.

Hearing loss for me as well. My mother was deaf in one war you had to speak loudly to get her attention. Even in my 50s that "setting" is hard to erase.

This was a nearly perfect brilliant account of what it's like to have hearing loss

Hearing people seem to think it fixes your hearing and back to normal but it really doesn't

Also hearing people can be so incredibly rude and annoying Maybe they don't realize it Maybe they do and they don't care

Some people (not all of course) like this are the types that like the sound of their own voice. I'm talking about the ones with proper booming voices. I have two like this at the end of the garden I hear all summer. Their voices echo through the fence panels. I try to block it out mentally! I don't want to be that neighbour moaning about people enjoying their garden, we all enjoy our gardens in different ways

Edited to say I know it's not hearing loss, they are just very loud, narcissistic, performative types.

My mum is ridiculously loud. I have to open the car windows when I’m out with her as she makes my ears hurt.

My son (4) is also extremely loud without realising. I’ve considered taking him for his ears testing in case he has a hearing issue as he is so bloody loud all the time. My daughter is the opposite. I can’t hear a bloody word she mumbles.

I've been partially deaf all my life so have learned to speak at a volume that's not loud - I can hear my volume and know where it needs to be. If I can hear others from the other end of the aisle in the supermarket or across the restaurant then they really are loud! I don't understand how people can be so unaware of how loud they are - did no-one tell them and did they not keep it down when it was pointed out to them?

I do too. Unfortunately at work, I sit between one who loudly expresses her constant inner monologue and another who has an extreme foghorn and punctuates everything with a laugh at the end e.g. “I’m sorry to hear about Mr Smith - our condolences to you. <HAHAHA!>” which at best makes her sound like a simpleton and at worse can be highly insensitive in sensitive situations.

I think it’s attention seeking/habit. Foghorn is always e.g. bumping into doorframes and telling us all about it too.

I’ve bought loops and they help to calm my inner rage, but it can be taxing when I’m also trying to speak on the phone and hear what the caller is saying.

I can hear a neighbour who lives over the road when she's on the phone, she's that loud (terraced houses). She also visits my adjoining neighbour a lot, sometimes turning up at 10pm and staying until about 3am. They are downstairs, I'm upstairs in bed and I can hear every word she says. Nothing from my actual neighbour.

I wondered is she might be hard of hearing but apparently not!

My great aunt used to talk loudly but that was because she lived with her mother who was going deaf. So shouting at home was the norm!

My DP has quite a loud voice, probably due to being brought up by hard-of-hearing grandparents. He does remember his ‘inside voice’ sometimes, but occasionally has to be reminded that I am sitting two feet away and have very good hearing

@NeverDropYourMooncupthank you for the description, I'm worried about this for DH and not sure how he will manage as he also finds repetitive tip tapping, clapping, banging, eating noise etc infuriating.
I have warned him that I think hearing aids make everything loud not just what you want to listen too (based on feedback from relatives).

My husbands family are all very loud and overbearing. You can hear my OH from across a room of people. He’s an ex teacher and actor which doesn’t help.

ADHD

Just came off a short flight from UK to Ireland and was sat across from two men who didn't stop talking (about football) in a carrying voice from boarding to disembarking. Every word could be heard over the noise of the plane. I don't think it was performative, just no idea at all that it was unnecessarily annoying for everyone around them. I felt so sorry for the girl sat in the window seat. I just can't get my head around why people need to speak loudly to people sat literally one foot away from them, it has to be habit, but surely they are told to keep it down by friends and family?

Martin Lewis of Moneysavingexpert does this. He literally SHOUTS instead of speaking. Go watch a youtube clip of him, it's embarrasing.

ADHD in my case. As I get more and more overexcited I get louder and louder. And now my hearing is going too so I either get even LOUDER, particularly in crowded environments where there's a lot of background noise, or I shut up completely.

A special case (to me) was the very loud, imperious voice (the sort you can imagine ordering servants about) of an elderly woman in the same hospital ward as me.

From the opposite corner she uttered very loudly, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave! Because I didn’t invite you and I wasn’t expecting you!’

😂😂 - at least it livened up my day! Obviously she had some degree of dementia, was over 90 IIRC.