This was a discussion we had at the dinner table recently - What is something that you tried but just was not good at - or just didn’t like??
One example for my son was Boy Scouts. Sometime in the lower grades he gave it a try - probably more on my prompting (he did so many sports! This was something different!). I’ll never for get when I picked him up from a meeting - he also HATED wearing the required BS garb….and he looked at me and said “mom, Boy Scouts is just not for me”. That was his last meeting!
Myself, I’ve got a couple.
Tried, just didn’t like: golf. H bought me lefty clubs and thought we could enjoy it together. Nope. Hated it. Slow paced. HOT. Competitive. Needs lots of practice. NOPE!!!
Tried it, I just wasn’t good at it: Sewing. Tried various times since a teen to sew with a machine. Loved fabric - how fun to pick out fabric! But the end product no matter what always looked like a sack. I can mend basic things by hand, but my mantra became, “if it needs to be sewn, time to get a new one”.
Violin. Tried once as a kid, and again when my D started playing when I was an adult. Totally sucked at it.
I’m also not good at either sewing or golf. No interest in getting better at golf but would like to be able to do better with sewing. I managed kitchen curtains but you can’t look too closely at them or you can see all the flaws.
Singing. Tried out for a choir in HS and was laughed at. I would make a great mystery bad singer on I Can See Your Voice. Funny that I can easily tell when someone is out of tune even a little bit.
Piano lessons. I always wanted to take them as a child, but we didn’t have a piano or the money for lessons. I took lessons in undergrad school for the first time. The teacher gave me an A grade on the promise that I would never take piano lessons at that college again.
I tried lessons when my kids were younger but just didn’t have the time to devote to it.
In 2019 I found a fabulous piano teacher who specialized in adults, like me, who knew the basics but just needed to play more. Unfortunately those lessons got derailed by COVID.
I grew up with a mom who wanted to do everything but wasn’t allowed to (pre title IX) so she made sure I tried EVERYTHING!!!
The one and only one activity I asked to quit was dance.
The one I wished I was good at and tried so so so so hard was gymnastics. I practiced and practice but I was a clumsy and inflexible kid (and worse adult). Then in 7th grade I grew from 5’ to 5-9 and that was the end of that.
I was also terrible at many others. Tennis comes to mind. I was doing well to keep it in the court. Ice skating was similar to gymnastics but we moved to an area where it wasn’t feasible.
Soccer - my dad told me I’d be better off as a rock in the field because then maybe at least I’d make the ball bounce the right way. He wasn’t wrong.
I was decent at basketball and softball, but i dropped them when swimming - which I was good at - required more time.
I was also pretty good at piano, though nowhere near like my sister. But it helped me with trumpet and guitar.
I was also a Girl Scout and brownie. Those were ok but not really for me either.
Weight lifting and running I took up for real as a teen/adult.
That was my mom!! Her father, my grandfather, was a menswear tailor. He had an old Singer with a mechanical foot pedal… when my mom decided to try sewing, she couldn’t operate that machine so grandfather installed a hand crank thingy for her. Did not help either. Grandpa rigged an electric motor with a foot pedal for her… nope. Frustrated, grandpa decided that “even an ass pedal will not help!”
I took over that Singer and was pretty good at making simple garments or hemming things for my mom when grandpa got too old to do that.
Skiing comes to mind immediately. I imagine there could be a long list if I devoted more effort to considering this prompt as I am not terribly good at many things.
Piano - My grandmother played beautifully and we had a piano in our house. I took lessons for a number of years but just didn’t “have it.” Even when I played all the right notes, the music never really seemed to flow. Was relieved when I was allowed to stop.
Skiing - I dont like being cold and I fell too often trying to keep up with better skiers (including H). Couldn’t wait to stop.
Golf. Back in the 1990s, golf surged in popularity; and I gave it a try. I took lessons but found the game frustrating. I haven’t touched my clubs since then.
Dance. I have two left feet. I joke that all rhythm has been bred out of me, but if you’ve ever seen my parents dance, there is some truth to it.
The one thing I really wanted to do but couldn’t, scuba dive. I’m pretty afraid of the water and not a good swimmer although I know how to. But I really wanted to.
Piano. Took lessons for the first time in my late 30s. I could already read music so that wasn’t the obstacle. No matter how much I practiced, my left brain refused to tell my right hand what to do and vice versa. I gave up after a year and a half.
I had BEGGED my parents to let me take lessons in middle and high school with no success. We had no room in the house for a piano, and their interest in paying for something that all their friends’ kids wanted to quit was nil.
Being a motivated and disciplined but terrible piano student taught me some good life lessons. The experience actually made me a better instructor.
I wanted to like playing golf, because I enjoy watching it, but it’s just too frustrating for me (and I have taken lessons).
I really wanted to be good at speaking French. I took four years in high school, and I could read it pretty fluently. But speaking it was incredibly difficult for me.
Just adding to the remembered pain–I’m also no good at guitar. People with significant hypermobility are known to have trouble with it, because our hands don’t have the stability to press down. Nevertheless–I persisted for a few months, a year ago! But even with lightweight strings, I never could progress far enough to get that jolt of confidence. No problem, I’ve always loved singing anyway.
One of the best things that I ever did in my life was that when my daughters were in elementary and middle school (over perhaps 10 years) I took 6 Monday afternoons off in January and February to ski with my daughters and their school’s ski club. For some of those years I was skiing with 6 or 7 or 8 year olds. Inevitably they would fall in a way that looked very uncomfortable and I would think: “how many ways would I have broken bones if I had done the same thing”. When they were in single digit ages body parts did not break so easily. I think that skiing is something that is best learned early (and first learning to skate at an even earlier age can also help).
I agree with others wrt golf. Hitting the ball 150+ yards forward wasn’t impossible, but the additional 50 yards sideways did not help at all. Nor did the 3 putts per hole.
And the serving part of tennis was tough, as was the fielding part of baseball and softball.
I am terrible at any kind of sport (every single sport I ever attempted - I lack all coordination and any speed).
I can’t sing at all (although I am not tone deaf). But, I sing anyway all the time (in private - my poor family has to listen to me).
My sewing is horrible. I remember in Junior High School we had sewing. We were supposed to model what we made at the end of the class sessions. Mine was so embarrassingly bad.
I’ve never given golf a “real” try. Because I can’t even contact the ball whenever I’ve attempted to do anything other than putt
I’m bad at throwing baseballs etc. I’m horrific at darts. Yet I’m weirdly good at shooting guns (though I loathe it) and archery, probably because there’s so little body movement. I had to do gun safety training for work (long story) and I was hitting the targets with all the different guns better than the experienced people in the class. But I couldn’t get those guns out of my hands fast enough. I do fine at non-ball sports and big ball sports.
I’m not bad at yoga, I just dislike it. I seem to dislike exercise classes in general, but yoga is the worst. I might like it if I did it independently.
I LOVE skiing but I grew up doing it, which probably helps a lot. I love playing instruments of all kinds. I’ve got a good sense of rhythm but I’m uncoordinated with skilled limb movements so I’d be bad at dancing.
I dislike crafting of almost any kind. I’ll do it if I really need/want the item, but that’s the only time I don’t dislike it. And I’d rather not have to make the thing myself in the first place.
Funny that I can easily tell when someone is out of tune even a little bit.