What’s the Most Unexpected Skill You’ve Learned?

Probably Fatherhood, as it was the last thing on my mind that I ever expected to end up doing!

I wanna say maturity, but that woud be a lie

It was in my thirties and I realsied I could reverse park a beemer, whilst eating a hamburger, and retrievinig a dummy from down the side of a childs carseat all at the same time.... 

I can also get myself into a full lotus position, rise up onto my knees and waddle about across the floor. (JUST! I had a quick go at it, and it seems now I'm in my sixties getting into the postion isn't so easy, and it hurts a lot quicker!) 

NAS95189 said:

Which of your acquired skills has surprised or intrigued you the most, and how did you learn it?

I learned to make victorian corsets from scratch.

Not through choice mind you but as a way of helping my wife with her start up fashion business where she was doing a range based on corsetry.

It is a very involved task with lots of cutting of delicate fabrics (silk and lace), really tough stuff (the metal strips in place of whalebone take some effort ro snip), careful sewing to make sure there are no rough seams that will be against your skin and a fair bit of brute strength when it comes to fitting them,

The fitting was quite entertaining, squeezing some very large ladies into corsets with bits overflowing and popping out unexpectedly was a hoot - luckily they saw it the same way as I was standing there with one foot on the floor, one on their back and leaning back to pull the laces tight on the corset.

Table tennis! I think I hyper focus on the ball and have learned how to play pretty well and can spin the ball when I hit the ball which I thought I would never be able to do. I thought I would struggle with the sport as I usually get easily distracted and usually move in a slow manner to process things but I practised and can focus super well with table tennis as I like the rules and its fun. 

A strange outgrowth of PTSD, is now that I rarely get triggered enough for flash backs, bi-location and other temporal strangeness, I find that my reactions times are greatly improved, if I drop something like a piece of toast or a glass, time seems to slow down but I can move and seem to move much faster and catch the dro9pped object really quickly or block an incomming object. It's like I'm moving in bullet time from the Matrix, I'd love to learn how to explore this more, I also seem to be aware of falling enough to be able to roll and avoid hurting myself to badly, it's very strange.

I am starting to get won over by Number's bot theory... (apologies if OP is real)

NAS95189 said:

Please share your experiences and any fascinating backstories

Welcome to the community! Perhaps you might also like to share yours? :)

Mine really is weird. I can pretty much outstare anyone. 

It is weird because I have the same eye contact issue that most of us have.

I can 'win' these stare downs, BUT, I would be totally incapable of holding any conversation, or any type of thought, while doing so.

How did I come across this? There was a guy from South Africa that I had to work with who would outstare other staff as a form of dominance. I noticed this because I notice what people do like all high maskers.

I made a decision to try to 'beat' him and I did. I had his respect for the rest of the project. He never acknowledged the staring (maybe he wasn't conscious of doing it.)

I've done it a few more times when I think that it is necessary.

When I was younger I was able to debate with powerful people online. I wasn't expecting to be able to do that as I am just a Posties Son.   I was brief friends with  a senior journalist and an MP.


I went through a period of being sought after by the opposite sex that lasted from my late twenties to early 30's.  That was also welcome and unexpected.

When I was a young teenager I scored 90 percent in a Maths test shocking my teacher.

I was  once involved in direct action.

I once had a group of friends that seemed happy to be around me.

Figuring out the price of things, in comparison to my cash-in-hand. I do keep a spreadsheet of my spending, as well as keep separate records of cash payments from digital payments. The former is the larger, by a bit.