I was well into my 20s when I figured out that people actually could hear a note and identify it, or know what key they were singing in. I can do neither of those things.
I generally can’t recognize a tune if I hear the same tune but with a different arrangement of instruments, or different words. Someone else has to point out to me that the tune is the same, in that case.
I have tried to ice skate. It didn’t go well. I wasn’t able to stay balanced on the single blade. I can roller skate (never tried roller blading, but I suspect that wouldn’t go well either), but not ice skate.
I have never tried skiing, but I don’t think that would go well.
When I become Queen of the World, everybody will have to wear a name badge at all times when they are outside their own homes. Then those people who can remember names and faces won’t have such an advantage over us.
I thought of another: Estimating numbers of people. I’ll go to a concert or something and try to figure out how many people are there. Some people can do this just by eyeballing it. Or you can say, maybe, “X hall holds Y number of people, and this hall is Z times larger/smaller than X hall.” Or I’ll count maybe 50 people and try to figure out how many groups of 50 people are there, at a ballgame or something.
And every damn time I am off by at least a factor of 10.
I tried for a while offering my kids 50% of the money if they would do the rebate processing. Turns out that not following through on rebate processing is genetic. :smack:
Estimating people’s ages. In my world, there are babies, toddlers, kids, teenagers, regular grown-ups, and old people. I can’t tell your age any finer than that by looking at you.
Athletics. I’m terrible. I actually got sort of decent at beginner hockey for awhile, but that’s about the only athletic thing I’ve ever been more than abysmal at. Remember those “President’s Council” patches they used to give out for physical fitness in schools? When I was in school they had 90%, 80%, and 50%–which was sort of the remedial “giveaway” patch so the kids could feel good about themselves. I couldn’t even win that one.
Spacial relationships and directions. If you tell me to “go to the end of such-and-such street and then turn north,” I’ll look at you like a cat trying to comprehend quantum physics. I can navigate by landmark, and I’m good at reading maps, but don’t try to get me anywhere using NSEW directions because I’ll end up in Albuquerque (unless that was where I was trying to go, in which case I’ll end up in Borneo). If you really want to mess me up, give me a map that’s oriented the wrong way (like in a computer game, where I’m facing in such a way that north is down instead of up) and then tell me to go a particular direction. I’m sure I’ll be very amusing to watch, as I try to cock my head such that I can get the map oriented properly before moving.
Procrastination. Which is to say, I’m really good at procrastination, which is bad.
Raising plants. I have a black thumb. It’s not that I can’t take care of them properly if you tell me how to do it–it’s that I forget to. Even my Farmville crops die. I’m not this way with animals (thank goodness). But it’s better for me (and them) if my plants are fake.
Small talk. Get me into a situation where I have to make inane chit-chat (especially with people I don’t know very well) and it won’t be long before I’m fidgeting, looking bored, and sneaking glances at my watch. I don’t do it on purpose–I just get bored stiff by it (I’m not sure whether it’s that I’m bored because I suck at it or I suck at it because I’m bored by it, but either way…I’m a lousy small talker )
Dealing with little kids. I have no idea how to relate to them. Anybody under the age of about five is an alien species to me.
I must look amusing when I get that look, because Mr. Neville keeps trying to give me north-south-east-west type directions. I say, “Just tell me- do I turn left or right?” And even those only work when we’re in the car, and left and right are unambiguously defined- I have trouble with “my left or your left” type situations.
I have to be somewhere very familiar, or else able to see the sun or the North Star, to navigate by north-south-east-west.
Like practically everyone else here, I’m a godawful artist. I’m dating an artist and am just agape that she can pick up a pencil and zip bam something recognizable is on the paper. :eek:
Also need to meet someone at least 3 times before I remember their name.
I wish I could whistle loudly & shrilly by putting my fingers in my mouth, especially since I spend a fair amount of time on athletic fields & its a great way to get someone’s attention at a distance. But all I do is wind up spitting on my fingers.
I’ve tried repeatedly to make myself Access make sense to me, but it’s an uphill battle on muddy ground. I’m striving again to use it, and keeping my fingers crossed.
I’m not a good singer. I *like *to sing, but my range is unreliable and my voice tends to just plain crap out.
I can’t throw, catch, or hit a ball for shit. You don’t want me on your team. You don’t even want me on the *other *team, because that crosses the line from “competitive advantage” to “knobbling the opposition.”
Oh yeah. Me too. I’m terrified of the ball. There is definite ducking and shrieking like a little girl when a ball is thrown or hit in my general vicinity, which started when I was… a little girl.
What makes it especially frustrating for me is that my father-in-law, who was a music teacher and who still composes - has perfect pitch. Not only that, when we went to see Cats in London, he walked out humming all the songs with one listening.
Not necessarily an issue. I more or less learned to skate in college, from borrowing skates and climbing over the fence of the rink with others in my dorm who were doing hockey practice. Soon after I invited this girl skating. We went, I stumbled, held on to her to keep from falling, and now we are married.
When I wrap a gift, it inevitably looks like I was trying to make the present suffer in some vaguely bondage-inspired manner. No matter how careful I try to be.
I am a decent vegetarian cook but cannot cook meat except by luck. I have not been a vegetarian for 12 or 15 years, but I am still slicing steaks in half because otherwise I have no idea how cooked they are.
Using the correct words for “Left” and “Right”. I can find my way on foot/transit to a place that I have been once before, by car, at night, in a foreign country, where I don’t speak the language, but I am reduced to “turn driver’s side” and “turn passenger side” when helping navigate in a car. We won’t get lost, but for the life of me I can’t remember which side is “left” and which side is “right”. Would “turn wedding ring side” be close enough? West? Cardinal directions are just fine, too.
Dyslexia runs in the family, but I’m a great reader. I can’t do arithmetic in my head, dyscalculia? If its written down, I’m fine, though. Its only annoying if I or my husband are not the driver - he knows to turn the way I point, not the way I say
I’m pretty good at picking non-verbal information from other people: Reading body language, interpreting facial expressions, finding an influence to words given by tone of voice, etc.
That makes it even more bewildering and frustrating that I Can’t Read Lips.
If someone’s mouthing something at me, like if they’re on the phone, I’m totally clueless. I just can’t tell what they’re saying.
There was some Seinfeld ep where at the end a character is having a tirade while driving; you can’t hear what he’s saying behind the windshield. Everybody else watching just cracked up, but I could not get it.
This is going to sound oddly specific, but I’m very bad at defusing awkward social situations where I am the common link between two parties. Like when my boyfriend met my parents for the first time, I couldn’t find a way to get the conversation going and put him at ease. It’s odd because I’m not too bad at socializing in general, but in this kind of situation I freeze up and am useless in general.
I am also hopeless at doing anything neatly, whether it’s eating chicken or cooking pasta. I get everything everywhere. It’s disgusting.
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