Sound judgement
For my trashy TV sins, the premiere of the new reality dating show The Golden Bachelor landed on my DVR this week. It’s not exactly a reinvention of the “know someone for six weeks in a totally unrealistic environment and propose to them at the end” genre. While the 72-year-old bachelor up for grabs only has to cope with 22 women vying for his affection—the regular Bachelor/Bachelorette often has 30-plus—the contestant archetypes seem the same, as does the level of horniness. The only difference is everyone is older than 60.
Well, not the only difference.
Right off the bat, bachelor Gerry Turner is shown getting ready for his first night on the show and he reaches for a pair of hearing aids. The producers probably figured this was an easy way to establish the ground rules with viewers: “Guys, this is about old people.” And I could be churlish and overly sensitive and agree it perpetuates that stereotype. But I’m grateful they showed it, even with that slight misgiving, because the show at least just acknowledged hearing loss as matter-of-fact and moved on.
Why do I care? I wear hearing aids. And, yes, I’m vain and they’re small ones that sit in my ear canal and no one I meet casually would know. But I know I can’t function in the world without them, because I tried for a long time—and it was a slow-rolling disaster that began to affect every part of my life, personal and professional.
To set the scene: no expert is quite sure of the exact reason for my hearing loss. I’ve had tinnitus my whole life—I literally have never experienced silence, although I know the continual cicada chirping in my ears isn’t as severe as some endure. My grandfather had significant hearing loss, as does an uncle. So, it definitely runs in the family on the male side of the ledger.
There may also be some environmental factors, although that’s harder to pin down. I didn’t play in a rock band as a teenager, or blast music through headphones. But I did spend a year as a copy boy at The Courier-Mail, in the days when the printing presses were still at the newspaper’s Bowen Hills headquarters. And one of the thrills of that job was heading to the presses multiple times every night, grabbing copies of each edition as they rolled off, stacking them on my cart, and taking them back to the newsroom for the editors and sub-editors to read (and correct), fresh ink staining everything in sight. I didn’t wear hearing protection and those presses were L-O-U-D in a thrilling, All the President’s Men way.
Cha-clanka-clunk, cha-clanka-clunk, cha-clanka-clunk.
Maybe it’s a combination of factors. But it was in my 30s that I began to realize I was starting to miss serious things: alarms would beep unnoticed; sweet nothings were reduced to just nothings. My employer at the time offered free evaluations and New York City audiologists confirmed instead of a nice horizontal line indicating my hearing across the audio spectrum, both ears looked like the Mariana Trench. I was missing a lot, but I was still in denial. Hearing aids? No way.
It only got worse. I would missing critical comments in meetings (for once, I was grateful few meetings reveal anything important), struggling to interpret any conversation involving more than one other person. I became really good at reading lips. But if I went anywhere loud or flew on a plane, I was a goner: the next three or so days would be so muffled as to be a write off.
What tipped the balance for me to finally take action? Ultimately, marriage and kids—people yelling at you will have that effect. But a close second was a growing feeling of stupidity. I began to fail at basic stuff: I’d emerge from conversations frantically trying to piece together what was discussed, emailing and messaging everyone with somewhat lame “remind me what this means” missives. And my brain truly seemed to deteriorate in line with my hearing. I not only felt stupid not being able to follow conversations, but being unable to clearly hear made me tune out entirely, and I was increasingly avoiding situations involving groups (it’s also well known that hearing loss accelerates cognitive decline).
So, my hearing aids have been a lifeline. I put them in the minute I wake, and I don’t remove them until I roll over to sleep at night. There are tradeoffs for my vanity: nearly invisible hearing aids are solid for my moderately severe hearing loss, but lack the horsepower and bells and whistles of larger, over-ear models (such as bluetooth connectivity and the ability to adjust frequencies based on the environment). I know I’ll likely one day switch to a less discreet model, unless technological and regulatory advances help the industry make strides (and lower prices: my in-ear models come in at around $6,000 a pair).
But here’s why I’m grateful the Golden Bachelor showed Gerry’s hearing aids: anything that helps normalize wearing them is to be applauded. While hearing loss accelerates with age, millions of people in their 20s suffer from it, and that number jumps exponentially for people in their 30s. Yet so few people that age do anything about it—me among them. So, if Gerry can rock the hearing aids and play tonsil hockey with a couple of dozen women, more power to him. That’s definitely a better kind of lip reading.