"You're TOO LOUD"

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All my life I've had this problem: apparently everybody thinks my voice is too loud. It's not exactly low pitched either; my parents and even a guy with only 30% hearing says my voice can go right through their heads and cause their ears to hurt. I've also been told that I laugh too loud. One of my grandmothers told me about someone whose laugh was 'ideal' to them and then tried to imitate it. She said that to her this other person's laugh sounded like a bell (which made NO sense to me and the comparison rather irritated me) and I informed grandma that I could only laugh the way I laugh. I can't help it.

Or if I'm talking, sometimes my dad will tell me to stop screaming, even though my voice is /nowhere near/ a scream, either in tone or effort.

Anybody else have this problem?

I'm the opposite - my voice is very quiet, and I'm often told to speak up. It's impossible for me to be heard in a crowd.

I don't consider it a "problem" anymore; reason being I no longer care if others think I'm loud or not, for one very simple reason:

Seems people have this strange situation where they don't care to pay attention to a damn thing I have to say. Basically, they're more concerned about the pitch of my voice changing than the words that are being emitted from that pitch. Yes, it changes when I get excited and into what I'm saying.

So, I took that to the next level, and decided to from now on use my voice as a test; my former boss referred to my voice as a "sonic boom" voice. Considering that, my response to people now is this:

"you can hear me perfectly fine, don't even pretend you can't. Bin Laden can hear me in his cave in Iran. If my girlfriend--who might I add is half deaf in one ear--can hear me with no problems, so can you"

Might I add as of late most of the times people say they can't hear me is when I'm working in my Dippin' Dots booth in a busy indoor waterpark...and even there my girlfriend can hear me just fine( and no, she's not in the booth with me).

What they're really saying to you is they don't care what you have to say...they're just being nice.

Did people tell Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr to lower their voices during major energized speeches? Did anyone tell Adolph Hitler he "might want to take it down a few notches?" No, they didn't...because what these people said actually meant something to people.

That's the difference.

yuppers...especially on the phone...my sister says im too loud and so do a few others.I do talk loudly on the phone....although i never got any complaints from roomates, but that is because I take the phone outside and talk on the deck.

[quote="TheDoctor82]
Seems people have this strange situation where they don't care to pay attention to a damn thing I have to say. Basically, they're more concerned about the pitch of my voice changing than the words that are being emitted from that pitch. Yes, it changes when I get excited and into what I'm saying.

So, I took that to the next level, and decided to from now on use my voice as a test; my former boss referred to my voice as a "sonic boom" voice. Considering that, my response to people now is this:

"you can hear me perfectly fine, don't even pretend you can't. Bin Laden can hear me in his cave in Iran. If my girlfriend--who might I add is half deaf in one ear--can hear me with no problems, so can you"

Might I add as of late most of the times people say they can't hear me is when I'm working in my Dippin' Dots booth in a busy indoor waterpark...and even there my girlfriend can hear me just fine( and no, she's not in the booth with me).

What they're really saying to you is they don't care what you have to say...they're just being nice.

Did people tell Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr to lower their voices during major energized speeches? Did anyone tell Adolph Hitler he "might want to take it down a few notches?" No, they didn't...because what these people said actually meant something to people.

That's the difference.[/quote]


Could be they can't concentrate on the words because the volume/ pitch is painfull. Some people's voices are just excruciating to me - I can't concentrate on what they're saying no matter what it is.

So then how did Dr. King, Malcolm X, and Hitler get off with them scot-free?

@TheDoctor82: Iran != Afghanistan If I missed out on the news that Bin Laden moved there, tell me, but it sounds kinda unlikely to me.

I get to hear that as well far too often. Mostly when there is lots of ambient noise. I cannot filter that out and so I need to be loud enough to hear my own voice. Ma thought that I was becoming deaf when I told her that I couldn't hear her over the traffic noise, but the last time I had my hearing checked it was okay.

Who says they did?
People just turned off/ down their radios , or didn't turn up to the rallies if they didn't like them. Where is it written their views or voices were universally accepted?

My point is the folks were more focused on what they were saying than the volume/pitch of their voice, while they were saying it.

You know that ain't the case with us.

Well, people will finally listen....when I'm worth millions, and pretty much run the world's economies.

In time....

I was trying to make a point with the Bin Laden reference. If he were in Afghanistan, they'd have found him already. Regardless....

The funny thing about the water park I work at is half the people who claim they can't hear me barely speak up themselves.

Now granted, I have very sensitive hearing, but when you're talking so low that the atmosphere in the water park completely filters you out, ya gotta speak up.

My voice can wake the dead, but they can't hear me. Not buying it.

And if they can't understand me, they could just say "I can't understand you". Ok, fair enough.

Saying "I can't hear" is utter BS.

The most unfortunate part is...you'd think they would want to hear me since...y'know...I'm the one selling them the ice cream..

The 'gotta invade Iran' undertones have been noted. On what basis can you claim that just because he hasn't been found, he's not there? And how do you deduce that he's moved to Iran?

Bin Laden's wherever we want him to be.

Thank you, I was beginning to believe my initial point was getting lost to this

I get told I'm too loud, or that I mumble. those, along with being told I'm too literal and have no imagination, have made me want to give up on talking to people until I realized they aren't perfect either and they feel stupid when I ask them if they ever get loud when they get excited about something, or what exactly is "too" literal or "too" figurative so we can have some solid ground rules to conversation.

You sound like me.

Goes either way for me.. people will complain and complain that they can't hear me and I don't speak loudly enough, and then when I finally try to be louder, it's too loud!

On the Bin Laden thing, he's dead, he's been dead. I would have to see him, up close, and personally test his DNA in order to change my mind on that.
Legato is on with the "He's wherever we want him to be" thing. He hasn't existed as anything but an excuse for quite some time.