About Me

I’m Dominic, the owner of The Sideline View.

Growing up partially deaf (80% in my right ear) made me quite self-conscious in my childhood. I was a shy kid, couldn’t talk to people, and struggled with making friends. I didn’t feel like part of any community until I started playing sports. It was there on the soccer field, passing a ball to my teammate, I finally belonged.

Sports

I’m a huge sports guy. For me, sports is a universal language, understood by almost everyone. Although I’m not a professional athlete or anything, it gives me a thrill just to compete. What kind of sports do I like? Pretty much anything, to be perfectly honest. I follow a lot of different sports from around the world. From baseball to bowling, I’m always down for a jaunty competitive match.

Writing

Besides sports, I feel really comfortable when I’m writing. Maybe it’s because I’m hard of hearing, but writing is how I’m able to communicate with the rest of the world. I love words, and even get a little pedantic with my writing sometimes, but I’ll try to keep this intro brief!

Hearing Loss

I was born with a hearing defect in my right ear, which only got worse as I grew older. I have to wear a hearing aid to be able to listen to people’s voices clearly, or otherwise it’s just muffled noise – like somebody is mumbling from a distance, but you can’t really hear what they’re saying.

People always get a little…reserved when I first tell them about my deafness, not knowing that I’ve been used to this part of myself for my whole life. Yes, I’m partially deaf, but it’s not the one detail that defines me.

The Sideline View

I started The Sideline View initially to talk about sports, but now it’s just a mish-mash of various topics that I find interesting. I update this blog pretty irregularly, but I always get that itch to write every now and then.

That’s enough about me. Go read my writing, leave me a comment (had to turn off public comments because there was too much spam!), and let’s talk!