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

  • RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works
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    10 hours ago

    I’m able to forget most things my dad says … he has an opinion of everything and will babble for 20 minutes about stuff no one else in the house cares about.

    Also, I can picture a blueprint in 3d.

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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    12 hours ago

    Somehow, it’s a surprise to people that I’m a competent trumpet player. As if every high school in the state doesn’t have a band class. Fully half of my graduating class in high school were musicians of some kind between chorus, orchestra and band classes. But somehow nobody expects a random dude in his mid-30’s to pick up a trumpet and play a few bars of Ravel’s Bolero.

  • kelpie_returns@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    I can click my tongue really, really loud. Like a baseball hitting a bat hard. Aside from making people jump, I have yet to find any practical use for this talent.

    • HuskerNation@lemmy.zip
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      11 hours ago

      I never forget a face but damn if I can remember their name. Drives my wife nuts, when she asks me who that was

  • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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    15 hours ago

    Cooking. IDK why but everyone assumes I don’t know how to cook. I must fit a stereotype or something. The last time I lived alone I cooked (or had leftovers of something I cooked) every night for like 8 months. I tell people that and they are always surprised. It’s a big reason I hate living with roommates because the kitchen situation is so chaotic I can’t really do that anymore.

    • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Same, and especially baking bread, which people seem to think is an involved, laborious process that requires dedication and being obsessed. I learned it on youtube lol. Making a loaf of really good bread takes like 10 minutes of actual work; the rest of the time it’s making itself.

  • njordomir@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    People are surprised that I can jodel a bit. My geeky high-schools self worked hard to build this skill.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days 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
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      13 hours 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.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Sewing fellas unite!

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

        • Hadriscus@jlai.lu
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          2 days ago

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

          • spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
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            2 days 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

    • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days 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.

    • Rossi199@lemmy.world
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      2 days 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.).

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

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

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
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    2 days 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
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      12 hours 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.

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        18 hours 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.

    • Rossi199@lemmy.world
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      2 days 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
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        2 days 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.