When people talk about hearing loss, they usually take it to have a negative meaning. Hearing impairment is definitely terrible to live with and prevents people from experiencing life to its full extent, but there are also a few unique benefits to hearing loss. Here are a few cool advantages to having hearing loss (from someone who can give you an inside scoop).

1. Not Listening To *Certain* People

In all seriousness, this is one of the best things about being hearing impaired. Since hearing impaired people often need to focus more to "listen," we can "tune out" (in varying degrees depending on the severity of hearing impairment) and ignore people we don't particularly like. In my experience, turning down a hearing aid does wonders around those *special* people in our lives.

2. Less Noisy Fire Alarms

This is a huge blessing. I'm certainly glad I don't have to experience the grating, awful noise described by my friends when someone burned their popcorn (Evan). This is especially true in college when people don't quite know how to 'adult" yet, so many mistakes are made on many, many different levels. Thankfully, we hearing impaired have a little extra protection.

3. Pretending Not To Overhear Tea (and not the Lipton kind)

This one depends on a few things -- namely, if your friends actually know you have hearing loss as well as the level of hearing impairment. What you hear could be awkward, but I like to think I usually just hear good tea. I've personally overheard quite a few juicy conversations this way, and no one is the wiser.

4. Seeming Like Good Listeners

To be fair, we usually are good listeners. For us to communicate with anyone -- hearing impaired or not -- requires extra effort. When we decide to communicate with someone, it's because we've deemed them worth our attention. When you have your attention, you can be sure to keep it (also, you'll definitely know when you have it).

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