Rendered Speechless
Losing your voice is a great way to make friends.
Consider this: was there something you said back in middle school that you still cringe to think about now, over ten years later? Have you ever told a story that flopped, so you had to listen to your friends laugh weakly before quickly moving the conversation along? Did you give a biology presentation where instead of talking about ‘organisms’, you, god forbid, accidentally said ‘orgasms’ in front of the entire class?
When you lose your voice, these sorts of instances cease to be. Verbal blunders? Vanished! Miscommunications? No more! Truly, there’s no better way to become the most agreeable, socially palatable person in the room than to be rendered unable to speak.
One of the most essential aspects of befriending others, especially in the early stages, is active listening. This can be a challenge for some people, but not you! Without your voice, you become a veritable professional. You find yourself in hour-long conversations where the other person quite literally does all of the talking, your only obligations being to nod emphatically and occasionally move to type a quick exclamatory response or follow-up question on your phone to show them as they sit beside you.
When you’re conversing on the go, however, just forget about attempting even those minimal replies. No one wants a phone being waved in their face as they move, so you find that walks to class and long drives are when you get your absolute best listening done, since you’re completely devoid of other conversational options. Not only do you learn immense amounts about your conversation partner inordinately fast, your partner appreciates the platform to share unhindered, to ramble without consequence, and to never, ever feel obligated to ask you how you’re doing.
Now make no mistake: you are not fully censored when your vocal folds refuse to come together. Modern technology makes it relatively simple to type out how you feel in a way that is quick and comprehensible. However, typing, even in person, is not quite as quick and comprehensible as speaking, which is what most people are used to when occupying the same space and therefore sets a rather high, immovable bar.
As a result, you find yourself picking and choosing exactly what is most important to say, so as to minimize occasions of having to interrupt and force others to endure momentary silence as you bust out your keyboard. No more extraneous quips, fun facts, or sidelong remarks for you! Each and every word you say is imbued with the utmost meaning, since taking the time to type it mandates that it be meaningful (and if it’s not deemed type-worthy, rest assured you are made aware of this by helpful signals such as restless fidgeting and impatient huffs on the part of your fellow conversationalists).
Of course, this means that you aren’t able to tell jokes when you have no voice. The time delay between conceiving a joke and typing it out is just long enough that, by the time you’ve dotted your i’s and are ready to share, the conversation will have well moved on. This is alright, though; you adapt to using physical humor as you gesticulate and mouth words in an attempt to remain engaged. People laugh at your exaggerated movements and expressive face, and you realize that in lieu of telling jokes, your presence itself has become the joke.
Your friends find it funny, so you lean into the humor you’ve been unintentionally providing. You turn your attempts to communicate simple things into a bit of a show, ham it up for the crowd. They laugh, and you laugh with them.
Or you don’t laugh, not exactly, because laughing would engage your vocal cords too much and cause them to swell and the bumps on them to remain stalwartly present. So instead you sort of wheeze, mimicking a hearty chuckle while clapping or slapping your leg in order to auditorily signal that yes, you find the byproducts of being unable to verbally express yourself hilarious, too.
Losing your voice is not all fun and humor, however. You occasionally become a bit upset by your lack of ability to produce sound. But fear not, for your friends are delighted to be there for you as you cry on their shoulders, and then promptly regret crying, because mucus build-up is bad for your injured vocal folds. They take a certain pleasure in being present, as you’re giving them an opportunity to demonstrate their good-personhood by providing you with a shirtsleeve they don’t mind getting covered with snot.
Some of your friends even opt to fill the vocal airtime themselves, providing you with verbal gems such as “wow, that sucks”, and “Yeah, sometimes my throat gets really sore and I hate it, so I totally understand”. You sense how good you’re making them feel — without saying a single word! — and it makes you feel glad for them in turn. It’s nice to make your friends feel fulfilled and able to support you; the fact that your injury and upset are the route to said fulfillment is purely secondary.
Amidst their own good feelings, your friends will occasionally bring up how good you must feel. You do feel good, right, in a sense? You’ve had this inability to speak suddenly and unceremoniously dropped into your life, and isn’t that how the best growth experiences begin? “Tell us how enlightening it’s been,” they ask. “Tell us how it’s changed you.”
This makes you afraid. You’re afraid of disappointing them, because truthfully this experience stopped being even remotely enlightening after the first month, when weeks of unintentional vocal misuse had accumulated to the point of seizing your cords and refusing to let go. Months two and three were characterized by such inordinate highs and lows based on how your voice was doing, how much pain you were in that day, that you couldn’t feel reliably like yourself.
Now, in month four, you just want out. Activities that typically bring you the most joy — talking with friends, singing in various groups, and theatrical performance — now cause you physical pain, as though your body is trying to decondition your love for these things and punish you for feeling happy. Unable to verbally express your feelings when your voice is at its worst, and equally unable to sing in order to blow off steam, you’ve been robbed of your most consistent coping mechanisms, left to suffocate on silence when you’re sad.
This is not enlightenment. Your voiceless body has become a prison, and the only one to blame for locking the door is yourself.
Sometimes, you may question if you’re being the best voiceless person you can be. You ultimately know your approach is working however, because you get positive feedback from your friends. They frequently tell you how cute you are, and how endearing they find your predicament. They smile, say that they like watching you this way, even though what they don’t understand is they’re implicitly saying they like to see you suffer. They like you this way, because you listen, and you smile, and the conversation, out of sheer necessity, becomes centered around whoever you’re talking with. They like this speechless you. And, after they leave and you’re left with yourself, you can’t help but wonder: will they still like you when you can speak again?
