I mean, what’s something you can do that people are like, “really? You know how to do that?”

  • lime!@feddit.nu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    i can perfectly imitate the “adult voice” from Peanuts with just my mouth.

  • loomy@lemy.lol
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    predicting the future.

    it’s not like the movies, it’s more like being tied to the train tracks in the direction the train is coming in, and people hate it when you talk about it.

  • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    People are surprised that I’m really good with horses. I’m a very short, timid person, but I can handle the huge animals with ease.

  • datavoid@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    I am always amazed by my inability to fall on ice. I can lose my balance, but always catch myself at the last second.

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    I’m a father living in Japan, so any competent display of childcare is still met with shock and confusion.

  • Broadfern@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    As I found out recently, drawing.

    I took some classes in high school and only recently got back into it, and I’d consider myself…averageish? I know where I need improvements and I see the quirks and wonks, so to speak.

    The people in my adult life who have seen my sketchbook make (positive) comments, which surprised me. Still, it’s nice.

    • toomanypancakes@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Drawing has always been super impressive to me. I pretty much gave it up in high school, but my husband is an incredible artist and I just always appreciate seeing what other people do. It seems like it’s hella zen when you get into it. Awesome skill :)

    • Rossi199@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      I’m learning this about young folk (17 - 40) - that they don’t cook at all, just order delivery food. That is so unbelievably expensive! And unhealthy! I know cooking is a pain in the ass, but it’s like cleaning and paying your bills - just something you gotta do.

      • It infuriates me. People dropping half my weekly food budget on 1 meal just so some underpaid bastard can deliver it to ur door. Then they complain about cost of living. I would spend about a quarter as much as what most people I know do on food per week and I’m eating like a fucking king prime cuts of steek 3 times a week, fresh fruit and veg, the fancy bread, etc. And I’m still winning economically. And we haven’t even got to the health benefits of not eating fake shit full of sugar 7days a week.

      • RBWells@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        Woah. I have some thoughts .

        All my kids can cook, and all their significant others can cook. I never thought of it as a pain though, more a creative outlet, and whoever cooks gets to eat what they want, right? I make what I want, everyone else eats that.

        One of my brothers went to school in New Orleans and told me he just ate out every meal there. And my mom only followed written recipes or made spaghetti, she didn’t like to cook.

        Oh and when I was dating my now husband, one of his kids asked for “mashed potatoes made from potatoes” for his birthday. But he can cook now, his girlfriend has an Italian dad and his standards are high, lol. So both he & the girlfriend are good cooks now.

        My ex, he was the worst cook I have ever known, but learned at work and became a very good cook as an adult. Like exceptionally good, could take the produce that was going to be thrown out and make it into something customers would pay a lot for.

  • Have an intelligent discussion about theology.

    I may look like your average idiot who is also atheist; but it’s because I have a weird interest in theology and have read so many religious texts and interpretations of most major and some minor religions from around the globe. Some of them have some kick ass stories. Hell, some of them read like straight up sci-fi!

  • TotallyNotSpez@startrek.website
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    After loosing some of my hearing and not being able to compose electronic music anymore, I basically retired from being a musician. Picked up drumming about 9 months ago and I’m surprisingly good at it.

      • TotallyNotSpez@startrek.website
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        Cheers. It’s really great and lots of fun. Already recording an album for a German band in the studio thanks to some amazing teachers out there.

  • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    Pretty much anything DIY. Plumbing, electrical, carpentry, etc. I’m not an expert at any of those things but I can actually do a pretty decent job. I’m not afraid to research a project and take a crack at it myself. I’ve completed some really nasty projects that turned out well.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    I’m a tall burly cisman so people are always surprised that I know how to sew. I mostly hand-mend my clothes but I made my own pants in high school when I had access to a sewing machine.

    • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      30 days ago

      Sewing seems like a good hobby for anybody who likes to work with their hands. In my 20s my housemate let me borrow her sewing machine to put together a thinsulate jacket from a Frostline kit. It was a blast, but that was the last sewing I ever did.

    • Rossi199@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Hand-sewing is my “something to occupy my hands while watching tv” hobby. I usually take shirts that I buy at a thrift store and customize them (side panels to make them fit better, add lacy pieces, etc.).

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Sewing fellas unite!

      I usually make hats and tool wraps, but I mend dresses or alter clothes for friends too.

    • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      sewing is mine also. I don’t think I’ve talked to a single person in the 15 years I’ve been sewing that hasn’t reacted with shock to some degree or another upon finding out.

      i like repairing clothes and making backpacks.

        • Hadriscus@jlai.lu
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 month ago

          I think that would be antithetical, or paradoxical. Redundant means superfluous (=more than is necessary)

          • spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 month ago

            See the common conception of boat owners is that they’re rich. And they certainly might start out that way. But a boat is a hole in the ocean into which money is thrown, and thus boat owners quickly become not rich

  • Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    Juggle. I’m by no means a master, but I know my way around quite a few different juggling things. Balls, sticks, hoops, the two sticks you hold with the longer one you juggle in the middle, diabolos/Chinese yo-yos.

  • davidgro@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    Roller skating. I’m super unathletic, but skating (including teaching to others) was listed in the profile of a girl who contacted me on a dating site, so after chatting for a bit I suggested that as our first date. She was super patient with me, I had never put on skates before that day, and was in my 30s.

    We’re married now, and I now also teach skating where she does on weekends, sometimes to people who have never tried it before.

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    Depends on unexpected for who. Most native english speakers seem surprised when they realise I understand “big words” (read: any word with a Latin root) without needing to look up a definition. To me it’s pretty obvious. My native tongue is Spanish. Having an accent doesn’t mean I don’t know anything.

    • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      30 days ago

      English speaker here, it’s especially true of technical words because science draws on Latin so much for terminology. Also, after 2 years of Latin in high school and then studying Spanish in college, I found a lot of Spanish words easy to guess.

      • Mothra@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        30 days ago

        I remember this teacher in particular who was explaining something and said “dissipate”. He paused and picked me out of the group, for no apparent reason, and asked if I knew what dissipate meant. I said yes. So he asked me to explain, which I did, and he looked surprised and said something like “you’re on fire” or similar and carried on.

        That particular example stuck with me because of his condescending tone and for pointing the spotlight to me gratuitously, but I’ve had many, less memorable ones. It’s not the words that I remember after a while, but that they presume I don’t understand the meaning of a word apparently unusual for them. “Melancholy” and “quotidian” come to mind too.

        On the same vein, I also surprise English speakers when reading, writing and understanding scientific names. Not all of course, but many are descriptive of the creature they refer to if you know a latin language. What’s often a mouthful of nonsense for native English speakers can sometimes be meaningful to me.