I touch type. I never ever look at my keyboard. I am a fast typer, but not amazingly so.
I don’t use my pinkies much, especially on my left hand.
I can not stand ‘hunt and peck’ people I just want to grab their hands and force them to do it (more) correctly.
I can touch type reasonably well. The problem is that I hardly ever do it.
I write software, so special symbols are extremely common. Even a short Perl script is likely to use every special symbol on a 101-key PC keyboard, and in any given second the odds are at least 50% that I’ll need one of these symbols.
I’m not good enough to hit all of these without looking at the keyboard, and when I do it breaks my stride. It makes it so that even when writing an email or something that doesn’t require special characters, I don’t have the time to ramp up properly if I have spent the rest of the day coding in my normal style.
So I chose “haltingly” even though I’m capable of it under optimal conditions.
32 - touch type very well. I can type upwards of 80WPM without looking in the same general direction as my keyboard (so no cheating with peripheral vision). I can type about 60WPM while having a conversation on a different topic and not looking at the keyboard.
My mother taught me the basics when I was in second grade (1988) and then I played with Mavis Beacon (still my favorite typing program). When I was in 7th grade I was required to take 6 months of typing but I changed schools halfway through the year and ended up taking it for the entire year. Ugh. That was horrible. I typed better than both my teachers.