5 Daily Struggles Of Using Headphones

1. You can’t gauge how loud you are. Am I breathing like Louie Anderson after he walks up a flight of stairs? In public, this is a legitimate concern to have – even at a noisy gym, because cardio doesn’t exactly lead to sexy breathing, so much as gasps for air with a hint of torture moans. God forbid you ever have to speak with ear buds in for some reason, then you’ll have to wonder if you said it or screamed it. Using an indoor voice when jams are blaring into your earholes is no simple task.

2. Earphones serve as a repellent for conversations around anyone with common decency, but that benefit is often negated by the folks who see them as a perfect reason to talk to you. There are no stupid questions, except for bothering to asking a person with earphones in “What are you listening to?” You know what they’re listening to, pest – they’re listening to the smooth sounds of you interrupting their jam session, thanks a lot. This is the same as if you were eating a bowl of food and I walked over, swiped it off the table and, as it crashes to the floor, asked – Hey, what’cha eatin’? You’d be like, nothing now, b-tch!

3. Jogging outdoors with earphones in is kind of a high risk and I find it uncomfortable. This one is a legitimate concern to have, especially if you’re doing your cardio at night. I just wouldn’t want someone to run up on me unknowingly, as I live in my own happy little world, matching my running pace with the tempo of Pump It by The Black Eyed Peas. Getting mugged (or worse) to a soundtrack? No thanks!

4. Wondering if people nearby can hear what you’re listening to. All of us have some deep, dark, secret guilty pleasure songs in our music collections, and we’d prefer that they not be blatantly exposed. Seriously, some of our music is meant to remain private and when you think others may be able to hear too, it can give you a little anxiety. Imagine having a laptop that blurted out the address of every website you visit. That would suck. I mean, even those with the most well behaved web habits visit a website or two that they’d prefer to keep secret.

5. When headphones die on you, they do it slowly and obnoxiously. The left one starts acting funky one day, and a week later you’ve got to hold the cord a certain way for it to work at all. Then, eventually you’re left with just the right side functioning, and that ruins some songs. Have you ever heard Bohemian Rhapsody with a one-side-working set of headphones? It leaves out so many brilliant little eargasms and leads to you buying a new pair of headphones, which will inevitably fail you within a few months. 

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