[Alreadyobsolete]

It's worth mentioning that the noise levels of restaurants and public spaces can also be inaccessible to those who hearing impairments and those who may be sensitive to overstimulating audio input. I can personally attest to being in busy restaurants in which my grandmother simply cannot have a full conversation with me since there's so much surrounding noise.

[philpem]

I try to find the quieter places... I find it damn near impossible to pick out one voice in a room full of muffled, echoing ones. It completely throws me off the conversation I'm trying to have with the person I'm with.

[zimpenfish]

> I find it damn near impossible to pick out one voice in a room full of muffled, echoing ones.

I can't even reliably pick out one voice in a largely empty room if there's other sources of noise (ie music playing in a pub, etc.) It makes things like meetups impossible and working in an open plan office a nightmare.

[JohnBooty]

Yeah, my hearing's not the best and I really just cannot hear what people are saying half of the time. It's like... everybody's struggling to hear each other, but I really cannot hear. I just can't do those kinds of spaces, at least not if I want to have a conversation.

[tass]

Visit an audiologist for a test. I recently had a hearing test for the reason you described and was told there were no problems.

I started to ask people if they could actually hear or understand while with them at a loud place and many told me they couldn’t - they were mostly pretending to understand after eventually giving up.

[ajb]

I can't hear in such places without these: https://www.etymotic.com/consumer/hearing-protection/er20xs-... They don't improve the signal, obviously, but your ears just don't get tired in the same way, so you can make out what people are saying - just about.

[saiya-jin]

Test your hearing on higher frequencies, those are usually the first lost when hearing degrades. Normal headphones/loudspeakers can go way higher than people can hear, so you can do basic test yourself.

I have something similar - normal conversations are OK, but in loud environment it becomes very hard. Its not great to be the only one in group who doesn't understand what others are saying. I blew my hearing probably in front rows on metal concerts.

[JohnBooty]

(I realize that online hearing tests aren't reliable, but they would have false positives, not false negatives)

Frustratingly, I've done those online hearing tests which test your ability to hear human voices amidst background noise and they tell me I have no hearing loss.

However, my hearing cuts out around 9khz, which is low. Definitely not my listening equipment because my wife can hear >9khz just fine on the same gear.

[justinph]

Might be worth looking into hearing aids. I have the same thing and got hearing aids, which help an immense amount.

[JohnBooty]

Definitely in my future, I think! Perhaps my present, as well...

[ainiriand]

I can attest to that. I am deaf from my left ear and when I walk on the street I need to be on the left of any person walking with me, it is impossible to hear anything. In restaurants, pubs, bars, I have already given up and I know that I will miss most of the conversations.

[jlokier]

Same here. I'm not usually deaf, but from time to time one ear blocks for a few weeks.

When that happens, I totally know what you mean about being unable to hear conversations in restaurants, bars, etc.

Even when my talking partner is aware, localising their voice from the din with one ear is really difficult. (Btw, there's some really impressive research at using AI techniques to help with that, which will makes it way into hearing aids eventually.)

Its at times like that I find it's way too easy to maintain a conversation with nods and yes/nos without having a clue what it's about. I've even done it in languages where I don't understand a word. I feel it says something about the speaker, that they can talk for ages without any confirmation that it's understood and no meaningful talk the other way :)