Thanks, Bilbo.
I need a better way to handle this because a lot of the first IMs people send me are about music or musicians. I am not comfortable deceiving people, so saying my audio isn't on is not right for me. Saying that I don't pay attention to the audio seems deceptive too. If someone asks whether I like a song or musician, I do say I don't know it. That's true, but it also feels deceptive, especially if the person then talks about how great it is, etc. I could say I don't listen to music IRL, but I know the next question people have is something like "Why? No music at all? You must like something" and we are at the same problem.
I have tried to be evasive, but the person thought I was being sly or sexually suggestive or something (we were not talking about music). I thought he knew I was deaf, and we just completely misunderstood each other through a long series of conversations. In the end, I realized he didn't know, told him - he felt bad and maybe deceived, I felt stupid.
Being deaf (or hard of hearing before) was not an issue in other games (yes,
SL is not a game
) - people did not ask music as you were shooting them in BF2. I read all the time that
SL is such a visual place, but IMO it is very audio-based, with live music, dance clubs, streaming audio things, etc. I need to find a way to handle this honestly when it comes up first with people so we can move on from this topic.