Why you should always ask if you don’t hear

This text is from an old old article on Gizmondo:

I was in a hallway with two young ladies once. We smiled and chatted and stuff as we walked. In front of their apartment, one of them asked me something that I didn’t understand. It sounded like “Wannakwam mwin”. I said “Sorry?” “Mwahnnakwam mwin?” Not wanting to look like a tard, I just smiled and said “Yeah…”

Then, after a brief silence, “Ok, well, bye now!” They looked at each other funny, and said bye akwardly. As I was walking to my place, it hit me like a ton of bricks: they had said “Wanna come in?” And like an idiot, I said yes… and then walked off! Shame like this has no name.

Now, I’m not deaf or anything, but whenever the Goldfish hearing aid comes to market, I will be the first one to buy it. Part of the recent -->“Hearwear – The Future of Hearing” exhibition, it’s an in-ear device that replays the last ten seconds of conversation for you, in case you missed it. It’s inspired by the Goldfish’s reputedly very short, short-memory span, though if you ask me, it should have been named The David… after me.

The thing that really struck me about this is that the poster wrote that he “didn’t want to look like a tard…” – he didn’t want to look stupid so he just smiled and said “yeah”. And the result? He ended up looking far more stupid than if he’d just asked them to repeat it again.

I know that it can be difficult to ask someone to repeat themselves – I’ve written about this before – but at least it would have saved him from saying something stupid when he tried to bluff it.