Last week, I was reading a post on Instagram about the quietest room in the world, a place so quiet you can hear your blood and bones moving. It sounds absolutely horrifying, no one has lasted more than 55 minutes in the space, and based on our cultural insistence on terror-as-entertainment I expect some Bear Grylls-level reality show to be filmed there within the year.
As I scrolled through the comments, I was struck by someone who asked whether or not this room would have the same effect on someone who could not hear. A deaf person answered the comment, and gave a thoughtful response about their thoughts echoing louder than any noise. Then, immediately below that comment, someone responded “Not deaf but same.”
Not deaf but same.
Are you…what…are you fucking kidding me?
These experiences are categorically not the same. Not at all. The deaf commenter responded based on their personal experience as someone living with a disability, having to navigate life—their entire life—from a different standpoint, and was able to succinctly dial in on a facet of their non-hearing life that they live with every day. And the responder, having experienced none of this, had the very nerve to reply “same”.
There’s a social pattern that’s becoming a cultural problem (for me), and it’s this passive reduction of experience in order to find a point of connection. In the example above, it’s fairly clear—the responder is not deaf, so their experiences are absolutely not “the same”. They could have said something about how their own thoughts drown them out, how that feels, how it manifests in their life, etc. It could have been a conversation, or at least a chance to learn about someone with a life decidedly different from yours. Instead, it’s shut down instantly by the inanity of replying “same” as a hearing person to a non-hearing person.
I experience this personally from time to time when people try to equate a few months of not dating with my 12 years of intentional celibacy.
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