1) Lip-reading is hard. In a group conversation, how many of the people speaking are actually looking at you? How do you follow a back-and-forth? What if someon

1) Lip-reading is hard. In a group conversation, how many of the people speaking are actually looking at you? How do you follow a back-and-forth? What if someone interrupts? Who is it? People vary in lip-reading skill. I'm on the lower end. If someone says "Lipreading sucks," and you get 50% of it, you get either "Lipread" or "ing sucks," neither of which tell you anything. In longer sentences, you can sometimes guess, but I seem to be terrible at it? 2) My speech has never been a problem as my work understands me quite well. I perceived I had bigger things to deal with, like working on understanding what people say and getting up-to-date on stuff happening at work. 3) I have many Deaf friends back in college who I try to hang out with. I'm still learning sign language from them, and they've all been very helpful and supportive. Until I become proficient enough to actually participate in signed conversations, though, I still don't feel as if I belong. By the way, me being more proactive is something I'm also working hard on :-) It's all a process.