Stuttering

This weekend I had to simulate as if I had a stutter in a public situation. Now I love doing social experiments. I find it so interesting how people react to different situations or uncommon ones. It kind of shocked me what happened, how people reacted and how I reacted to this assignment.

This weekend I was going to Salt Lake City to visit family and I planned to do this assignment in SLC not in Rexburg. This was interesting because I am not normally afraid what people think of me but for some reason I felt really embarrassed if I were to do this on campus or around campus afraid someone who hear me and judge me because they thought I actually had a stutter. So I decided to do this in SLC.

I went to Best Buy to look at laptop cases. When I got there I thought I would just have to talk to one sales associate and the clerk and I would fulfill the assignments requirements. However, I asked one associate and he had to get another and that one had to get someone else. So in the end I talked to 4 store associates and one clerk. The whole time I acted as if I had a stutter. The first couple of associates looked at me and seemed a bit impatient and didn't really care to help me they just did their job and passed me off to someone else. There was one associate who helped me a lot and was kind the whole time. Not taking notice of my stutter. I asked him to help me find the case I found online and to price check three other cases I was interested in. The clerk was also very nice and patient with me. I asked him about the return policy and asked him a few questions about the coupon I used.

Throughout the whole time in the store I varied what type of stuttering I would do by repeating certain words and pausing and repeating sounds of words. Here is an example:
Associate: "Did you see the other name brand cases in the front?"
Me: "Yeah they were up-up-up-up-up there and it wasssn't there."

It was interesting to see how having a stutter affected me and my confidence. I found myself wanting to respond with one word so I wouldn't have to stutter as much and I found that as I walked around the store I avoided asking the attractive employees questions because I was embarrassed. Also I realized as I walked around I kept my head down and I could feel my confidence was lacking. As I kept talking to other store associates I forgot about the embarrassing feelings and was able to feel more confident near the end of the store visit.

It was interesting to me to study beforehand what people with stutters sound like. I haven't been around many people who have a stutter or recognized they had a stutter. As I watched videos of people who stuttered I realized that there are so many different severity's of a stutter. Some have had lots of help with speech therapy and speak normally except a few stutters in a paragraph. I also realized that I stutter a lot and have never been diagnosed with a speech impediment. This is just because I get nervous or my brain in working faster than my mouth. It gave me a greater appreciation for those who live with a stutter 24/7 and the fears they have to overcome daily.