During her first night, Abigail told Matt about her hearing loss and her close relationship with her sister, who is also deaf. “She kind of, like, paved the way,” Abigail told Matt on night one. “So, I just kind of, like, followed in her footsteps.”
On the podcast, Becca asked Abigail if she planned on bringing up her hearing loss that first night.
“I knew going into it that night that I wanted to talk about it just because, just going back to what my dating has been like, it’s something that I normally don’t say on a first date,” Abigail replied. “You know, it is a huge part of who I am. But just kind of being a hidden disability, and you can’t really see my cochlear implant when I wear my hair down, it is kind of a scary thing just to bring up to somebody on a first date ’cause you really don’t know how they’re going to take it.”
Abigail acknowledged she’d been in “uncomfortable situations before” and that she’s felt insecure in the past.
“When you’re trying to be attracted to a guy, you know, airing your insecurities is not always the first thing that you want to do,” she said. “But just going into this whole process, I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to go all out. I’m just going to lay it all out there and, you know, just see how he takes it: Is it something that he wants to learn more about? Is it something that he wants to see what a relationship with a deaf person would be like?'”
