Poll of the Day > What's Your Most Unexpected Skill?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ever find yourself randomly good at something you never expected? Maybe you can tie a bow tie in record time, solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded, or identify every cheese by smell alone. Or maybe you have a weirdly specific video game talent, like always landing the perfect drift in Mario Kart without trying.

So whats your unexpected skill?

I have perfect pitch. I know nothing about reading or composing music.

I have perfect pitch. I know nothing about reading or composing music.

I can make my left eye look downwards so far you only see the whites while my right eye looks left.

It's not a useful skill, but it's mine. And I terrified a lot of kids in middle school with it.

I can see the best in the worst of things and the worst in the best of things

I can identify almost every kind of plant that grows around here (except grasses; with 12,000 species Poaceae is a bitch to ID), whether its edible or poisonous, and if it has medicinal value or other usefulness.

I can fence at international standard with either hand.

coyot posted...

i have the strongest calves in the world, but they dont live with me

world's saddest mom cow

I have no skills.

I can revert into an egg on command

Oh, I do actually have a real skill - even though it gets me in trouble often.

I have a very authoritative tone of voice and cadence. People often think I'm an expert in a subject even when I'm only making naive speculations as a layperson.

I am actually extremely good at clapping with one hand, and can pretty much do it on command.

I'm pretty decent at finding silver linings in a majority of situations, but I keep it to myself as it can come across as insensitive or crass.

Always picking out the exact amount of what I need of something just by eyeballing it.

I can write words and draw incredibly small.

Blah, blah, blah when I was young I wanted to make (trading) card games and had a lot of practice drawing on the paper cards after I made them. Actually spent an entire night by the light of a gas heater making a card game once, blah blah blah.

One time, I got halfway through wiring in a replacement ballast in a fluorescent plant light before thinking "wait a second, I don't know anything about wiring in replacement ballasts, how did I get here?". I don't know if that was so much unexpected expertise, though, as it was a passable baseline level of mechanical/technical competence and a fairly intuitive project (the wires were all colour-coded, I just replicated the way that the old one was hooked up, and it doesn't exactly take a rocket surgeon to figure out how to put a wire nut on).

I have an uncanny memory of when uneventful events occurred, I have a knack for finding things that somebody else is looking for, and I can recite the alphabet faster backwards than forwards.

I can smell mood and hormonal changes. The scents tend to affect my own mood though.

The_Guess_WTF posted...

or identify every cheese by smell alone.

I could probably do this with peanut butter, with some practice. My senses of taste and smell have always been sensitive. I can't empathize with people who call vanilla "bland".

My ability to communicate with people and general social awareness kind of crept up on me. I used to have a lot of social anxiety and didn't understand social situations. Then all of a sudden I just had no issues talking to people or even getting them to trust me. Almost all social anxiety wiped away without me realizing. I'm still not perfect and there's still a lot I can't do socially, but I'm very surprised at how little effort it took to get where I'm at now.

I can yodel.

It's not hard, if you can sing falsetto. Yodeling is basically just rapidly shifting between your normal (chest) voice, and your falsetto (head) register.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx3FwSNF5wA

Blue_Thunder posted...

I could probably do this with peanut butter, with some practice. My senses of taste and smell have always been sensitive. I can't empathize with people who call vanilla "bland".

To be fair, when people call vanilla bland, theyre normally talking about cheap ass vanilla ice cream that doesnt taste of vanilla at all.

Glob posted...

To be fair, when people call vanilla bland, theyre normally talking about cheap ass vanilla ice cream that doesnt taste of vanilla at all.

Vanilla perfumes and body lotions absolutely have a distinct smell and I really like it

Blue_Thunder posted...

I could probably do this with peanut butter, with some practice. My senses of taste and smell have always been sensitive. I can't empathize with people who call vanilla "bland".

yep, thats peanut butter alright

Glob posted...

To be fair, when people call vanilla bland, theyre normally talking about cheap ass vanilla ice cream that doesnt taste of vanilla at all.

Which generally contains vanillin, rather than vanilla. While vanillin is the primary component of vanilla, true vanilla contains a whole bunch of other components that add complexity to the flavor and aroma.

Like caproic acid, which smells like goats. So you really can taste the goat.

If you give me any two digit number I can almost instantly tell you what the change would be. So like if you said 69, a quarter nickel penny.

I can also ice skate backwards faster than most people can skate forwards, including fellow skaters and hockey players at my level.

I can tie a knot in a cherry stem in like 20 seconds

LonelyStoner posted...

I can tie a knot in a cherry stem

I can tell you about Leif Erikson

MICHALECOLE posted...

yep, thats peanut butter alright

Lmao

But yeah none of the brands I've tried so far tasted exactly the same. Jiff has a nutty taste, Peter Pan is very sweet (too sweet IMO), Skippy Natural is perfectly balanced, etc.

BADoglick posted...

If you give me any two digit number I can almost instantly tell you what the change would be. So like if you said 69, a quarter nickel penny.

I can also ice skate backwards faster than most people can skate forwards, including fellow skaters and hockey players at my level.

So when of your unexpected skills is the ability to do primary school level maths?

I don't think it's really a skill, but I find that I might have decent finger dexterity and coordination. I've come into the habit of casually flipping objects I'm holding around because I guess it feels more comfortable for me. I don't really know how to explain it, but for example I'll hold bottles in a reverse grip when carrying them, and when I go to set them down I'll need to switch grip by flipping it 360 degrees.

I don't know if that sounds impressive or noteworthy, but it's something I notice that I do out of habit and I don't really think many other people do.

Im a decent bowler.

I'm decent in writing proper grammar without relying too much on software programs.

Salrite posted...

I don't think it's really a skill, but I find that I might have decent finger dexterity and coordination. I've come into the habit of casually flipping objects I'm holding around because I guess it feels more comfortable for me. I don't really know how to explain it, but for example I'll hold bottles in a reverse grip when carrying them, and when I go to set them down I'll need to switch grip by flipping it 360 degrees.

I don't know if that sounds impressive or noteworthy, but it's something I notice that I do out of habit and I don't really think many other people do.

Okay, so I was selling a phone to someone for his kid, must have been six or so. And the kid was excited for it and watching me ring it up. And I do the thing again where I pick up the price gun from the top and I have to flip it over to grip the handle. And the kid goes, "Woah! What was that?" And I ask what and he says, "You did a cool trick!" and it was really cute.