What are you bad at?

[mistyoptic]

Making “polite conversation”
being diplomatic
I was once picked for a task because “you don’t suffer fools gladly”
can’t play anything musical
no artistic talent

 

[Drago]

can’t play anything musical

Burn the heretic!

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Burn the heretic!

No, he can't play that one either.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Knife throwing at the circus. Far too many unfortunate incidents

Yes
I think you are getting the concept wrong and that is the problem

They have professionals that they employ to do it - it tends to over excite people when you just turn up and start doing it in the crowd

 

[Accy cyclist]

Keeping my flat tidy, D.I .Y.....More to follow. 🤔

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I am bad at DIY
main problem is this

You know when they say "Measure twice - cut once"

well that is all well and good

but what if you measure twice and the 2 are different
Ahh - says the professional - measure again and it will match one of the others and that is the correct measurement

which is a total under estimation of my ability to cock it up

either I will get a 3rd different measurement - which leave a rather strange dilemma
or, worse , it WILL match one of the first ones - but it will be the other one that is right

Oh - and I can;t cut straight and my hand jiggles a bit at random
which also buggers up painting corners and edges

Basically I am fine for bits and pieces that need no particular accuracy - shelves in the shed and the like

but not connecting to parts of a kitchen worktop - I will end up with an inch gap at one end only!!

 

[Stevo 666]

can’t play anything musical
no artistic talent

These two. Seems to be a fairly common theme.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

I'm bad at anything that requires precision, attention to detail.
Things like painting with emulsion, glossing, drawing, anything arty and crafty, like knitting.
Which is quite strange, because at any job I had in my life, I can spot a mistake a mile away!
Music I love listening to, but I cannot sing to save my life
I'm very bad at anything that needs physical coordination, like sports.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

As far as sport is concerned - am OK at cycling - in terms of casually wandering around

and I was pretty good when I was sailing - and I could get a windsurfer going pretty well on the few occasions I tried it properly (all in warm water!)

I was also pretty OK at badminton

Tennis - rubbish and the more I tried the worse I got
Golf - totally awful
Archery - which I really tried at - rubbish again

Turned out - with 20:20 hindsight - I have small hands and not much muscle in my hands or wrists - forearms are better but not great
after that it gets a bit better but not much
legs are strong and general body is good - but ratehr overweight
balance is terrible - I wobble all the time
and eyesight is not too good without glasses


when I was a kid my friends all played tennis
turns out that - unknown to me
a) They could see the person and the ball at the far end - that was all a blurr to me due to eyesight
b) if the ball his my racket even slightly off perfectly central by hand, wrist and forearm were never going to be strong enough to hold it well enough
c) my balance was not good enough to maintain a strong enough stance for a strong powerful stroke


all of which is the opposite for badminton - the court is smaller and better lit - which means my eyesight is just about good enough
the racket and shuttlecock are much lighter - so a weaker hand and wrist is actually better as it is faster

and as you are moving small distances fast all the time - balance is not so much of a problem

and Saling and windsurfing are both based on a platform that moves all the time
as my brain is used to the world wobbling I have an in built advantage with them!



If only I knew all this earlier - I would have avoiding wasting loads of time trying to improve at tennis, archery and several sports I used to try


of course - nowadays I also have a knackered knee and feet which bugger most of them up anyway
but I was good enough to play well for some local teams while I could

 

[Jenkins]

DIY
Don't care what it costs, I'll pay someone who knows what they're doing to do it for me.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Art/ drawing.

Can barely manage a stick man

 

[Reynard]

Music / singing / playing an instrument. I appreciate such, but I'm just rubbish at it. Can' keep a tune overly well when singing and play the recorder very, very badly.

Swimming. I can just about swim, better at backstroke than the others. Very slow in terms of speed. I took up fencing at school in part to get out of swimming. Whacking someone (legally) with three feet of steel is far more my style.

Gardening. Unless it involves chainsaws, loppers and such. I'm a bit clueless about fancy plants.

Socializing / small talk. I'm ok in small groups of people I know, and when I'm *doing* stuff like at cat shows. Parties and big gatherings. Nope. Being shy and being teetotal doesn't help.

 

[Vapin' Joe]

Art/ drawing.

Can barely manage a stick man

During my engineering apprenticeship I part trained as a draughtsman. I've never met a draughtsman who could draw anything freehand, no matter how good they were at their job. They are two separate skills, one involving geometric precision and the other being able to hold an image in your head while you put it down on canvas.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

During my engineering apprenticeship I part trained as a draughtsman. I've never met a draughtsman who could draw anything freehand, no matter how good they were at their job. They are two separate skills, one involving geometric precision and the other being able to hold an image in your head while you put it down on canvas.

Yes, I have an engineering degree and was taught engineering drawing as part of that.

Engineering drawing, I am merely terrible at as a result, vs art, at which I am truly excrable. I daresay that if I undertook a course in, say, still life drawing, I could aspire to be no worse than terrible at that too.

 

[albion]

Baad at The Bard.