What is something you’re not so good at that you think most people are good at?

[Pawz4me]

I can't hold numbers in my head, whether it's doing a relatively simple math problem or remembering a date, phone number or address.  They dance around and then skitter away from my memory. Words I can remember. If someone told me they live at 3821 Maple Street in a brick house with green shutters and a white door I can easily remember everything except the 3821 part.

[maize]

17 minutes ago, Miss Tick said:

Yes! My children are always amazed that even this does not help me! Here's the thing, i think it is because I can't orient the phone to *me*, I need to orient myself to the phone. Clearly the solution is more practice time walking in, say, European cities, but I haven't been able to pull that off yet. It will also talk me through the walk, so if I put in earbuds nobody would even know about this accommodation, but I get over confident and wind up in ridiculously wrong places.

I use Google maps and it has two alternate settings for map orientation when driving: you can either keep the orientation constant (i.e. north at the top) or have the direction you are currently heading always at the top so the map is always oriented to you.

[SKL]

Listening is another one.  Please send me an email or text if you need me to remember something.

Also, literally anything before I've had my morning coffee.

[Faith-manor]

19 minutes ago, SKL said:

Listening is another one.  Please send me an email or text if you need me to remember something.

Also, literally anything before I've had my morning coffee.

So much this....the coffee! Seriously, just don't engage me until after that first cup takes effect.

[ikslo]

Whistling. I’ve always wanted to be able to whistle.

[Spryte]

I don’t do mornings well. Coffee helps.

Choosing paint colors. We are repainting and I cannot decide. Ditto all things involving decorating right now. I used to be solid in my choices, but perhaps more limited in those choices. Now that anything goes, and I don’t have an unchanging anchor point from which to start — it’s taking forever to make decisions.

See. Seriously. I started having trouble with parallel parking, some other issues I saw mentioned above, and it turns out that post-Lyme (but I could have been any illness), my eyes were not working together anymore. VT helps, but I’m 3/4 of the way through and realizing I just don’t see things the same way others do these days. I am relearning, but gaaaaahhhhh. 

[SKL]

Oh yeah, snapping my fingers.  It took me forever to learn how to do it on my right hand, but I still can't do it on my left hand.

[Clarita]

5 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Are you shorter than your DH? I was a bit stressed about how quickly my learner driver was able to park and kept worrying he’d hit something. Eventually we had a chat and I realised he can clearly see the front end of the car - I can’t so I have to kind of figure out how to line things up to make it work. ( I could probably height adjust the seat but that involves some other skills I’m also not great at!)

People can see the front of their cars?! Hmm... maybe that does explain some of the parking issues. I'm totally guessing where my car begins and ends without my car cameras. I'm always flabbergasted that DH can get into a car he's never driven before and just drive it like a car he has always driven. 

[Susan in TN]

Dancing.  I really want to be able to dance.  I have a good sense of rhythm.  I feel that most people just get out there and move and it looks like dancing.  Sigh.

I have a very good sense of direction unless I'm in a building.   
   
(Also, the layout of my own house baffles me -  the rooms in the basement in relation to the rooms on the main floor.  I've lived here 15 years.  I'm currently sitting in my living room and couldn't tell you what room is right below me unless I travel in my mind through the basement and work it out based on the doors and windows.  Also, if I am looking out my front door, I believe in my heart that I am looking North even though I have memorized that it is really South.  My whole town feels like the Bermuda Triangle.  It's the only place I have no sense of direction.)

[SKL]

In my old age, I think I learned a trick for parking.  Do my side mirrors line up with the other cars' side mirrors?  If so, I'm probably good.

[fairfarmhand]

I love this thread. It’s so easy to get th idea that so many people are good at everything. And I’m a loser because I get lost so easily or cant drive a tractor or whatever else I’m beating myself up about.
 

This board has very bright articulate thoughtful folks….who also may struggle with directions or parking or hair or sewing or whatever….

my brain knows that everyone has something they’re bad at, but it’s nice to know specifically that I’m not the only one who has a hard time in certain areas.

[Eos]

3 hours ago, Spryte said:

Choosing paint colors.

I used to be bad at this then I spent six months with stripes of 5 extremely different paint colors staring at me and I somehow overcame and chose. Like blues, yellows, and a purple lol

[KungFuPanda]

16 hours ago, TrulySusan said:

Clapping along to music- seriously can’t do it 😂 

I have pretty much stopped trying at this point. 

If you hold a speaker you can feel the bass and that physical cue can greatly help someone with no natural sense of rhythm find the beat. 

7 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

So many things. I can’t merge into small space in a pack of cars going 75 miles an hour. It’s seems terrifying and utterly dangerous to me. 
 

I’m not good at lots of things, lol. Most things, actually. 
 

I am good at organizing, explaining things, and keeping my yard so pretty but in a very simple way. 
 

As an aside, I think @Faith-manor should perform a Rachmaninoff concerto (dang, a whole concert) exclusively for the hive. Boy, would that be something!! It’s fun to daydream and imagine…..

I will tune into that concert.  Don’t care if it’s just practice. She should do a YouTube live event and let us tune in!!!

7 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

I think it is age related for me. I used to be very good, maybe excellent, at multi-tasking. Now it totally stresses me out. The older I get the more I absolutely crave peace and calmness, and multi-tasking is the opposite of peaceful and calm. I've gotten to the point of downright resenting having to juggle multiple things, except the simplest tasks.

I can still do it, but I no longer want to. That people pleading hormone has bled out of my body and I’ve lost interest in even trying to do everything myself. I practice this skill at work because I like being busy there, but not at home. 

6 hours ago, Tap said:

Dancing- poor rhythm

singing-poor pitch control 

Pitch control!!!! Is that what it’s called??? My thing is I’m a truly terrible singer and think it’s sorcery that other people can do it. For a while thought I was tone deaf, but I can HEAR when people are off. I just can’t make my voice do notes correctly. I birthed children who can carry a tune do I don’t understand at all. 

5 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

Awwww, that is sweet of you! But, just so you know, I have kind of grown a little lazy in my retirement. Rach is an endurance kind of composer. Would Debussy, Chopin, and Beethoven work, maybe some Bach? I don't want to have to practice that hard! 😂😂😂

LOL, I don't do much performing anymore. I broke a finger at the joint on my right hand a few years ago and now I have arthritis in it. I had to play Theme from Liebestraum (Liszt) this past summers and I did fine given that it was for a casual, non profit performance, but I sure did notice it, and anyone with a really well trained ear, like Dmetler, would have known it too. It was weak in a few spots. Not noticeable to most people, but man would I hate to be hanging my hat financially on my performIng ability now. That joint is a real issue. Thankfully, I do not have any other injuries or arthritis in my other fingers.

Ok, deal. You choose the songs. We’ll just listen in awe and wonder. I’ll patiently await the announcement with the link. 😬 I’m not even kidding.  First Annual Hive Concert!

 

 

[fairfarmhand]

2 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

If you hold a speaker you can feel the bass and that physical cue can greatly help someone with no natural sense of rhythm find the beat. 

I will tune into that concert.  Don’t care if it’s just practice. She should do a YouTube live event and let us tune in!!!

I can still do it, but I no longer want to. That people pleading hormone has bled out of my body and I’ve lost interest in even trying to do everything myself. I practice this skill at work because I like being busy there, but not at home. 

Pitch control!!!! Is that what it’s called??? My thing is I’m a truly terrible singer and think it’s sorcery that other people can do it. For a while thought I was tone deaf, but I can HEAR when people are off. I just can’t make my voice do notes correctly. I birthed children who can carry a tune do I don’t understand at all. 

Ok, deal. You choose the songs. We’ll just listen in awe and wonder. I’ll patiently await the announcement with the link. 😬 I’m not even kidding.  First Annual Hive Concert!

 

 

Oooo. I like the idea of a concert. But I think we should have others perform as well. I’d also like to hear some of @regentrude’s poetry.

[SKL]

There are lots of things I'm probably not good at because I don't want to do them.  Cooking, make-up and other things related to style, needlework, lawn mowing, dirty-hands car maintenance.  My kids are almost adults, and all those people who warned me that I'd have to learn someday were wrong.  Haha!

[lmrich]

20 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

For me, it’s directions. I have a Terrible sense of direction. I’m the person with a paper map who had to turn the map on the car seat next to me every Time I took a turn. Directions that began with “Go south on highway…” made me break out in a cold sweat.

I was so very grateful and relieved when I got a garmin and I’m so thankful for my phone with maps on it. I don’t have to add 20 minutes of get lost and then turn around and find the right street time to every trip to a new place.

 

anyone else want to share?

This is me!  I even struggle when it says turn left - I turn right! I get turned around in a big hotel. 

My mom and one of my dd's have an incredible sense of direction. 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I can't work out time zones. Even ones that I have to convert between very regularly, I still have to Google and check.

'Two hours behind'. What does that mean?? Two hours before me in the day? Two hours past me in the day?  If it is 2pm here, does that mean midday or 4pm in that 'two hours behind' place? Even when I work it out in that moment, I'll have to look it up again the next time.

 

[gardenmom5]

21 hours ago, Miss Tick said:

I can't seem to follow Google maps directions while walking. It is weird, and consistent. Driving - no problem. Walking I easily end up ½ an hour from where I'm meant to be.

 

IME - I've had times the walking directions absolutely sucked - and sent me somewhere other than where it should have sent me.   I was where it said I should be , . . . that wasn't where I needed to be.  I ended up walking around trying to find where I needed to be.

[73349]

Sooo many things.

I can't picture things/people in my mind well. The more I've seen someone, the harder it is to pull up an image. I don't spell by picturing words. I don't turn a book I'm reading into something visual in my head.

I can't suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy a whole play/opera/movie/etc. To stay focused enough to tolerate most podcasts and videos, I have to move the speed up to at least 1.5x.

I can't dance, though I think I could improve with instruction. And I have no sense of direction, navigating by landmarks, which I understand to be common in women. (Interestingly, I think I'm better at sensing elevation, but there's very little use for that.)

I can't initiate friendships. I can't keep a conversation on one topic or remember what we discussed five minutes ago.

I can't improvise and be spontaneous. It's not just that I don't enjoy it--I mean I can't come up with anything on the spur of the moment.

 

[Garga]

9 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

Awwww, that is sweet of you! But, just so you know, I have kind of grown a little lazy in my retirement. Rach is an endurance kind of composer. Would Debussy, Chopin, and Beethoven work, maybe some Bach? I don't want to have to practice that hard! 😂😂😂

LOL, I don't do much performing anymore. I broke a finger at the joint on my right hand a few years ago and now I have arthritis in it. I had to play Theme from Liebestraum (Liszt) this past summers and I did fine given that it was for a casual, non profit performance, but I sure did notice it, and anyone with a really well trained ear, like Dmetler, would have known it too. It was weak in a few spots. Not noticeable to most people, but man would I hate to be hanging my hat financially on my performIng ability now. That joint is a real issue. Thankfully, I do not have any other injuries or arthritis in my other fingers.

Ooo! I want a concert!!! I’d love to hear you play, Faith!

[Paige]

I'm directionally challenged. I am bad at telling right and left and need to look at the L on my hands. I once got grounded because my parents didn't believe that I could have gotten that lost (wandering for hours) in my own neighborhood on foot. 

I also can't do hair; especially my own. Most times when I want to look cute, I'll spend an hour trying to follow simple directions, but in the end, it's going to have to be a ponytail. 

I can bake good cookies, cupcakes, and cakes, but all my decorating attempts look like a 5yr old tried it or a glop of frosting. 

[SKL]

3 minutes ago, Paige said:

I once got grounded because my parents didn't believe that I could have gotten that lost (wandering for hours) in my own neighborhood on foot.

 

I failed my first driving test because I turned right when told to turn left.  😛  The tester thought I wasn't taking it seriously enough.

[KungFuPanda]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

 

I failed my first driving test because I turned right when told to turn left.  😛  The tester thought I wasn't taking it seriously enough.

 

1 hour ago, Paige said:

I'm directionally challenged. I am bad at telling right and left and need to look at the L on my hands. I once got grounded because my parents didn't believe that I could have gotten that lost (wandering for hours) in my own neighborhood on foot. 

I also can't do hair; especially my own. Most times when I want to look cute, I'll spend an hour trying to follow simple directions, but in the end, it's going to have to be a ponytail. 

I can bake good cookies, cupcakes, and cakes, but all my decorating attempts look like a 5yr old tried it or a glop of frosting. 

I was taught that your right hand is the one you write with and your left hand is the one that’s left. Obviously this doesn’t work for lefties. 🤣

[Pam in CT]

11 hours ago, ikslo said:

Whistling. I’ve always wanted to be able to whistle.

OMG separated at birth.

EVERYONE in my entire extended family and ALL of my offspring can do anything from Bobby McFerrin to the Queen of the Night Aria. And I literally cannot make the sound. It is the weirdest thing.

I do not function at.all before coffee. Fortunately this is a disability one can manage around, like never traveling anywhere without a small bag of grounds and a costa rican coffee sock. Just in case.

I'm very very very bad at remembering names. Even names I KNOW, not just names of new people I'm meeting for the first time. Like, I'm **in the kitchen** of the mother of my kid's best friend, that I've known for years, that had to my own house for dinner, and I'm chatting away and all of a sudden my brain seizes and in sheer terror I think, what is your name again?

Relatedly, I'm extremely bad at small talk. If I'm thrown into a circumstance where it's required, like a benefit or event that I have to attend for my husband's sake, I generally find one person and button the poor soul down into a possibly involuntary Serious Conversation rather than flit about brightly striking up pleasantries with zillions of folks whose name I can't remember.

[mommyoffive]

21 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

Same to ALL these except I’m ok at spelling, but not grammar or writing. 

Not good at those either!

[mommyoffive]

21 hours ago, Clarita said:

Oh I forgot how bad I am at parking. Just to let you know there's a problem with self-parking cars, that is they don't unpark themselves. I was super excited that my minivan can park itself, until the one time when it parked itself perfectly into this spot that I couldn't get out of. I sat there like an idiot waiting for the drivers of the cars near me to come by and drive off before I could leave. 

What minivan can park itself???? I need it.  Um yeah I have been in that position before where  I parked way out in the boondocks because there was no one around and come back and have people parked so tight I can't leave and just have to wait.

[SKL]

1 hour ago, KungFuPanda said:

 

I was taught that your right hand is the one you write with and your left hand is the one that’s left. Obviously this doesn’t work for lefties. 🤣

This assumes that you remember which hand you write with.

[Indigo Blue]

13 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

Awwww, that is sweet of you! But, just so you know, I have kind of grown a little lazy in my retirement. Rach is an endurance kind of composer. Would Debussy, Chopin, and Beethoven work, maybe some Bach? I don't want to have to practice that hard! 😂😂😂

LOL, I don't do much performing anymore. I broke a finger at the joint on my right hand a few years ago and now I have arthritis in it. I had to play Theme from Liebestraum (Liszt) this past summers and I did fine given that it was for a casual, non profit performance, but I sure did notice it, and anyone with a really well trained ear, like Dmetler, would have known it too. It was weak in a few spots. Not noticeable to most people, but man would I hate to be hanging my hat financially on my performIng ability now. That joint is a real issue. Thankfully, I do not have any other injuries or arthritis in my other fingers.

Dmetler should play, too. It would be fun to set a time and everyone tune in and watch together! A real hive concert! But that’s not realistic, I suppose. If you ever want to, just post a link and we will enjoy the “concert!”

 

 

 

 

[Clarita]

18 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

What minivan can park itself???? I need it. 

The Chrysler Pacifica has an option with that.

[mommyoffive]

1 minute ago, Clarita said:

The Chrysler Pacifica has an option with that.

Well now I  am dreaming about getting a new car!!

[SHP]

15 hours ago, Spryte said:

I don’t do mornings well. Coffee helps.

Choosing paint colors. We are repainting and I cannot decide. Ditto all things involving decorating right now. I used to be solid in my choices, but perhaps more limited in those choices. Now that anything goes, and I don’t have an unchanging anchor point from which to start — it’s taking forever to make decisions.

See. Seriously. I started having trouble with parallel parking, some other issues I saw mentioned above, and it turns out that post-Lyme (but I could have been any illness), my eyes were not working together anymore. VT helps, but I’m 3/4 of the way through and realizing I just don’t see things the same way others do these days. I am relearning, but gaaaaahhhhh. 

I cannot do paint colors at all because I don't see colors the way others do. I am not color blind, but I just cannot see the shades colors if that makes sense. It is always frustrating when people ask me what a color is or talk about a color having a different color undertones. "This grey will match because of the purple undertones." I am like, if you want the purple just paint it purple. 

[SHP]

5 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

 

I was taught that your right hand is the one you write with and your left hand is the one that’s left. Obviously this doesn’t work for lefties. 🤣

I tell my husband he can remember which way is right when driving because that I, the navigator, am always (on his) right.

 

[Susan in TN]

21 hours ago, Spryte said:

Choosing paint colors.

I'm with you on this one.  Once I tried to pick out a nice, neutral "sand" color and it turned out the color of cheap bandaids.  My late dh, who was partially colorblind, could run to the Depot of Homes and pick out exactly what I wanted in 2 minutes.

[LuvToRead]

Too many to name!

I am not alone in being directionally challenged!  My DH doesn't get it lol.

I can't whistle

I am terrible at makeup, hair styling, and basically style in general. 

 

[historically accurate]

Oh, yeah, sleep. I've been an insomniac for decades. I don't sleep more than 2-3 hours for 7-10 days, and then my body gives out and I sleep "well" for one night. I can get so much done the day after that. Then I repeat. 

 

[Harriet Vane]

1 hour ago, historically accurate said:

Oh, yeah, sleep. I've been an insomniac for decades. I don't sleep more than 2-3 hours for 7-10 days, and then my body gives out and I sleep "well" for one night. I can get so much done the day after that. Then I repeat. 

 

I just read a fascinating, whimsical book on insomnia. I promise it's not a medical how-to. Rather, the author dealt with extended insomnia and made a decision early on to accept it and roll with it one way or another. The book is a delightful read. She intertwines her own journey with anecdotes and stories and historical research. She also explores some of the science, but NOT in a formulaic do-this-to-fix-the-problem way. All the science is from the base of acceptance and rolling with it and understanding. I have thoroughly enjoyed it--you might appreciate it too.

It's called:

Sleepless: Unleashing the Subversive Power of the Night Self, by Annabel Abbs-Streets.

https://a.co/d/f1Cmm9I

[lauraw4321]

I cannot make a space (any space) look nice. I don't know how to decorate. How to keep neat and organized. I have no idea what I would like a space to look like. I enjoy being in nicely decorated spaces, but I could never make one. I feel like it's borderline a moral failure in a wife/mom.

[ScoutTN]

Many, many things.

Anything musical - can’t sing or dance.

Anything artistic - definitely not picking paint colors! Or decorating. Or anything crafty.

Hair and make-up. Nope.

Math beyond arithmetic

I am a poor speller, but teaching spelling phonetically and tutoring intensive phonics have improved my spelling quite a bit.

Taking timed tests. I do not perform well under time pressure. 

Spreadsheets and many other computer things.

Parallel park
Drive a stick shift 

Housekeeping -though this is partly bc I just dislike it and only do the minimum. 

Being funny. I am just not.

 

I can organize, cook, garden, swim, teach, and have a decent sense of direction. 
 

 

[SHP]

16 minutes ago, lauraw4321 said:

I cannot make a space (any space) look nice. I don't know how to decorate. How to keep neat and organized. I have no idea what I would like a space to look like. I enjoy being in nicely decorated spaces, but I could never make one. I feel like it's borderline a moral failure in a wife/mom.

This. I will spend hours trying to make it look nice and nothing. At like age 8 one of my kids walked through a space I hadn't been able to anything with and in 30 seconds the area looked incredible.

What magic is that?

[Harriet Vane]

25 minutes ago, lauraw4321 said:

I cannot make a space (any space) look nice. I don't know how to decorate. How to keep neat and organized. I have no idea what I would like a space to look like. I enjoy being in nicely decorated spaces, but I could never make one. I feel like it's borderline a moral failure in a wife/mom.

In my case, I cannot make it look nice the first time. Invariably I do it wrong first, live with it and hate it for a while, and then I fix it and it looks fabulous. The wonderful end result makes me feel like surely I must be good at decorating. Then the next decorating challenge comes along and as usual, it looks awful. Then I fix it later down the road. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That said--do you have a friend who can help? I have two friends and one uncle who are fabulous at decorating. They all live in a different state, so that makes it hard to comment sometimes. Nevertheless, there have been so many times that one of them suggested one or two easy things and the whole space was transformed. I never hesitate to ask one of them for input--what they sense and know off the top of their head is usually spot on and takes only a minute of their attention. 

[SKL]

Oh - swimming.  I "taught myself to swim" in public pools as a young kid, but I never had lessons, and I have no swim stamina.  I know you're supposed to put your head underwater, and I'm not scared to do that, but I don't actually do it while I'm "swimming."  I also find it difficult to "float."  (I'm thinking about going for swim lessons to address these issues.)

[ScoutTN]

57 minutes ago, SKL said:

Oh - swimming.  I "taught myself to swim" in public pools as a young kid, but I never had lessons, and I have no swim stamina.  I know you're supposed to put your head underwater, and I'm not scared to do that, but I don't actually do it while I'm "swimming."  I also find it difficult to "float."  (I'm thinking about going for swim lessons to address these issues.)

@SKL I hope you get a chance to do lessons. I used to teach swimming and loved seeing kids and adults become more skilled in swimming and therefore safer in the water and more able to enjoy being in it.

[Eos]

3 hours ago, Harriet Vane said:

I just read a fascinating, whimsical book on insomnia. I promise it's not a medical how-to. Rather, the author dealt with extended insomnia and made a decision early on to accept it and roll with it one way or another. The book is a delightful read. She intertwines her own journey with anecdotes and stories and historical research. She also explores some of the science, but NOT in a formulaic do-this-to-fix-the-problem way. All the science is from the base of acceptance and rolling with it and understanding. I have thoroughly enjoyed it--you might appreciate it too.

It's called:

Sleepless: Unleashing the Subversive Power of the Night Self, by Annabel Abbs-Streets.

https://a.co/d/f1Cmm9I

Love this author, thanks!

 

[Paige]

18 hours ago, SKL said:

 

I failed my first driving test because I turned right when told to turn left.  😛  The tester thought I wasn't taking it seriously enough.

That's why I made myself a small cardboard "R," decorated it nicely, and hung it on my rearview mirror before my driver test. If asked, I planned to tell them my mom's name was Rebecca or something.

16 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

 

I was taught that your right hand is the one you write with and your left hand is the one that’s left. Obviously this doesn’t work for lefties. 🤣

I'm a lefty. You'd think I could think to myself, which hand do I write with?- but no, it takes me a second to remember. By then, it's obvious I don't know.

I also park poorly and the automatic parking in my van is too scary to try. I'm poor at spatial awareness. But also, I think it's because I'm short. I have less visual information to use while parking than a taller person. 

 

[kbutton]

On 4/28/2024 at 7:49 AM, cintinative said:

If you have me do a new exercise video I haven't done before, the first couple times it will be a comedy routine for anyone watching.  Decades ago my friend and I tried Tae Bo and I laughed so hard at myself I was doubled over. 

I'm not good at art. I could have a fantastic picture in my head, but what comes out on paper is around 3rd grade level.  

I identify with both of these. Aerobics or anything remotely similar is enough to make me depressed, though I did a yoga session once, and I loved that (beginner).

I am a jack of all trades, master of mine sort of person with a lot of beginner’s luck, which means that I am good at looking promising and very bad at delivering. I was the good swimmer that couldn’t do flip turns to be on swim team, the grade school softball player who started out looking great until everyone else on the team improved, and I did not, etc.

I am not good at doing things the way other people do them, which drives people nuts when they try to help me improve. It just doesn’t compute.

[dsmith]

Definitely peopling and anything that is dependent upon that. I will go to great lengths to avoid calling customers - I'd much rather deal with people through email. (It doesn't help that I have trouble understanding people on the phone, especially if the connection isn't great or if they have an accent.) You know how you can be at a gathering and there's the women that will make their way into the kitchen to help with clean up while chatting away with each other? They are like a different species to me lol. I have trouble with small talk. Ok, any talk, really. Overall, I find people exhausting, but I do wish I was better in navigating social situations. I have a son on the spectrum - sometimes I wonder about myself.

Remembering names and faces. My father was the same way, but my mom always had his back, telling him who was coming up to him, any details he needed to know about them, etc. He was active in our town, on the town council, on various committees, etc., so it was a big help for him. 

Distractibility and short term memory. I can flitter all over the place, lol. My husband is always reminding me to keep my mind on what I'm doing, like the green beans I was blistering in the frying pan last night that ended up quite a bit burnt because I was sidetracked by something else. If something distracts me I will lose all memory of what I was doing. It has me a bit worried at times. And I don't know how many times someone will tell me something or ask me to do something, and 10 seconds later I've completely forgotten it. 

[wisdomandtreasures]

Making or keeping friends. I invite. We visit a few times. The conversation and laughter flows. Then nothing. Invitations are rejected or completely ignored. I have done so much self reflection and am extremely self conscious of how I'm talking, my body language, what I'm saying, etc and they seem to be having a good time but then... Nothing. I don't get it. I give up. 

[Alice]

I'm sure people are going to argue but I wonder how many of these are "don't want to" instead of "can't".  Reading the things listed it strikes me that a lot of us seem to have reached an age where we are just find saying "I don't do that" because we really don't have the interest...or at least we don't have enough interest to spend the time figuring it out. I don't mean that in a mean way and I think it's totally fine to have there be somethings in life that I just don't care enough to learn or get better at. And there are definitely always going to be things that are just naturally harder for some people. 

I'm sure some are true "can't"  and I know it's annoying to be told that you just aren't trying hard enough to do something. Like I cannot carry a tune. At all. I'm pretty sure I'm tone deaf, or close to it. Our piano is apparently very out of tune and it bugs everyone else and they are amazed I cannot tell.  I cannot identify a song until I hear the words. But I have been told by so many musical people that there is no such thing as being tone deaf and that I could learn to sing. Possibly they are right...but I do not have the energy or time that would require as I think it would be a huge amount of time and energy to overcome my natural deficit. 

Other things that I would say I can't do...I'm pretty sure I could if I wanted to. Gardening. Doing my hair. I just really don't care about them and so I say I'm not good at them. 

[Eos]

34 minutes ago, Alice said:

I'm sure people are going to argue but I wonder how many of these are "don't want to" instead of "can't".  Reading the things listed it strikes me that a lot of us seem to have reached an age where we are just find saying "I don't do that" because we really don't have the interest...or at least we don't have enough interest to spend the time figuring it out. I don't mean that in a mean way and I think it's totally fine to have there be somethings in life that I just don't care enough to learn or get better at. And there are definitely always going to be things that are just naturally harder for some people. 

I'm sure some are true "can't"  and I know it's annoying to be told that you just aren't trying hard enough to do something. Like I cannot carry a tune. At all. I'm pretty sure I'm tone deaf, or close to it. Our piano is apparently very out of tune and it bugs everyone else and they are amazed I cannot tell.  I cannot identify a song until I hear the words. But I have been told by so many musical people that there is no such thing as being tone deaf and that I could learn to sing. Possibly they are right...but I do not have the energy or time that would require as I think it would be a huge amount of time and energy to overcome my natural deficit. 

Other things that I would say I can't do...I'm pretty sure I could if I wanted to. Gardening. Doing my hair. I just really don't care about them and so I say I'm not good at them. 

Ok, challenge accepted! S/O thread ...

[regentrude]

1 hour ago, Alice said:

I'm sure people are going to argue but I wonder how many of these are "don't want to" instead of "can't".  Reading the things listed it strikes me that a lot of us seem to have reached an age where we are just find saying "I don't do that" because we really don't have the interest...or at least we don't have enough interest to spend the time figuring it out. I don't mean that in a mean way and I think it's totally fine to have there be somethings in life that I just don't care enough to learn or get better at. And there are definitely always going to be things that are just naturally harder for some people. 

I'm sure some are true "can't"  and I know it's annoying to be told that you just aren't trying hard enough to do something. Like I cannot carry a tune. At all. I'm pretty sure I'm tone deaf, or close to it. Our piano is apparently very out of tune and it bugs everyone else and they are amazed I cannot tell.  I cannot identify a song until I hear the words. But I have been told by so many musical people that there is no such thing as being tone deaf and that I could learn to sing. Possibly they are right...but I do not have the energy or time that would require as I think it would be a huge amount of time and energy to overcome my natural deficit. 

Other things that I would say I can't do...I'm pretty sure I could if I wanted to. Gardening. Doing my hair. I just really don't care about them and so I say I'm not good at them. 

This. 

I can't draw, but I have never made a serious effort to learn how to draw. And there are other things I haven't given time and attention because I'm not sufficiently interested in figuring them out.

Edited April 30 by regentrude