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People Should be More Like Radios A friend stopped by recently to listen, with me, to a radio program we both like a great deal. A few minutes before the program was to begin, I turned on the radio and adjusted the volume to what I thought was a suitable level. As I walked across the room to my favorite chair, my friend said, somewhat absent-mindedly, "It sure would be nice if people were more like radios." "I'm not sure what you mean," I said, arranging the pillow behind my head. "I've always thought it would be nice," he continued, "if everybody had a volume control. That way, if they were talking too loudly, you could simply reach over and turn down their left ear, or their nose, or whatever part of their anatomy was marked VOLUME." "I wish I could have done that yesterday," I said. "Exactly!" he replied. "It was our lunch with my friend Karl that made me think of it. The restaurant was very small. It was very quiet, because very few other customers were around. It could have been a very pleasant setting, except that everything Karl said was about three times too loud." "You know," I said, turning down the volume on the real radio, "you may not have such a bad idea after all. If there's one thing I dislike, it's having somebody speak right through me." "I think I know what you mean," he said. "Some people," he continued, "never look at me when they talk with me. Either they seem to be looking right through me to someone sitting behind me, or their eyes are gazing off into space, as if they've found someone else out there to talk to. And, of course, they have to speak loud enough for that person to hear what they are saying." "Well," I said, turning the radio off completely, "I think we often use our voices unconsciously to disclose our hidden feelings about other people. I thought perhaps your friend was talking loudly just because I was there." "But why should he," he asked with some surprise, "you hear perfectly well, and because you are blind, your sense of hearing may be even more acute." "But that's just the problem," I said. "People often talk louder to me because I am blind. They sometimes feel uncertain about how they should act when they're around me, and I've discovered that when people feel uncertain, they often speak somewhat louder than normal." "Yes," my friend said thoughtfully, "you might have hit on something, but I don't think it quite tells the whole story. For you see, my friend talks just as loudly when I'm alone with him, as he did yesterday at lunch. Yet when I hear him talk with other people, he seems to use a quieter voice. I have lately begun wondering if he is reacting to my age. He knows that I'm seventy-five years old, and maybe he assumes that by the time you reach my age, you're probably hard of hearing." "But your hearing seems to be quite normal." "Yes, it is. I recently had it tested and even the doctor was surprised to find that I hear as well as I do. But you know what I just remembered?" my friend said with some amazement. "The doctor took great pains to point out how very lucky I was to have such good hearing, and I would be willing to bet that everyone in the clinic heard him say it."