This evening I decided to get together with another signing friend of mine, Dominyck. We met up in center city, and headed to grab a milkshake from HipCityVeg. After our plan to sit in Rittenhouse and chat was destroyed by a very inconveniently timed passing shower, we went into Barnes and Nobel to catch up. Because this is one of the few times that I've really been able to openly communicate with another person face to face, we started signing right away. As we walked to the shop, I realized that we were passing by an outdoor cafe, and that literally every single person we walked by, stopped what they were doing for just a few seconds to look up and watch us signing. I thought about it, and I realized that while for me, after having been Deaf for a full work-week now, it was very normal for us to be conversing in ASL, that for the majority non-signing hearing population, seeing two people walking down the street signing would be very intriguing. Based on the reactions we got, anyway, that seems to be the case.
After I noticed the people at the cafe, I couldn't help but to notice every where we went people, even as they continued their activity (eating, playing with their dog, drinking coffee, etc) and their conversations, tended to look over and watch us. It was a little un-nerving at first, but then I just decided to ignore it, and enjoy chatting with Dom. We chatted for probably an hour or so, and it was a very nice time. It was just really interesting how everyone watched us have our conversation, most - if not all - having no idea what we were talking about. I have to wonder: is this the same for every foreign language, or just ASL? And, furthermore, do I also unintentionally do this to other people signing? It was an interesting experience, and one that I'm on the fence about whether it was good or bad.
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