Things I Suck At
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Things I Suck At
I’m good at lots of things. If I was religious, I’d guess that God offered me the deal that I’d get to learn & do everything I ever wanted during my time on Earth but I’d never get more than middling recognition from it. Seems like a good deal even in retrospect, certainly better than being famous and dying young. Unfortunately, there’s some notable things that I’m not good at; in fact, I suck! There’s probably a lot more but here are the ones I’ve discovered so far in my life to this point.
Keeping friends: I’ve heard that as a man gets older, he has fewer & fewer friends; that certainly happened to me. Part of it is that older men don’t like to reveal too much about themselves, and prefer their own company or just drinking buddies. I’ve heard of men who have friends who they pal around with all the time but that’s just not something I do. The friends I had when I was younger weren’t really friends in that way; they were people whose interests matched mine during that period of my life, and when the interests no longer aligned, we went our own ways.
Politics: I ran for office 6 times, on the primary ballot 5 of those, and on the general ballot once. I was heavily involved in party politics for the short time it took for me to learn it was mostly exploitation & inauthenticity, but I went ahead anyway, running for the U.S. House or Senate 3 times just to see what would happen, and say that I did.
Playing a musical instrument: When I was in third grade, my parents had me take piano lessons; I hated them because practice was too repetitive, and the thing I hate the worst is boredom. Plus, to this day I suffer extreme performance anxiety; as a kid I would cry & put up a fight rather than do recital. My parents finally gave up. I tried playing again as an adult but couldn’t suffer anyone hearing me practice so I wore headphones on an electric piano. Finally, I admitted to myself that I would never be able to perform publicly, and I got no personal satisfaction out of playing, only apprehension, so I packed all the equipment away in the attic.
Games: I dreaded competing due to my extreme performance anxiety and the possibility of losing, which my pride wouldn’t allow. Adding to that, I’m both a bad loser and a bad winner, so though I had a lot of success in personal competition, I quit playing games at all; it’s better for me and it’s better for the other guy too, and playing against yourself is just a waste of valuable time.
Fitting in: I’m not always the only odd-man-out but I never fit into a group. It may be intentional at a subconscious level but I think I’m just too much of a loner. I hate crowds. I hate having someone else who it’s assumed I will take orders from. I could never play a team sport, only solo competition. I don’t know what it’s like to be included among everyone else because I’ve never experienced it.
Pilot: I took flying lessons on & off for decades, finally completing all of the steps to take the private pilot’s flying test. One of the things I still tell people is that landing an airplane is the most frightening thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I’ve done it hundreds of times. Frankly, I’m terrible at it: I’ve landed going the wrong way, I’ve landed at the wrong airport, I’ve aborted a landing on a grass field in the rain. Also, the more I flew, the less I wanted to fly; it became a pass the test and never fly again goal because I really took no pleasure from it. Now, this was before new pilots were allowed to use GPS; it was Visual Flight Rules only back then, so maybe nowadays I wouldn’t be sweating the whole time. However, the heat, noise and movement made me airsick; more than once I had to puke into a bag I kept on the passenger seat. Flying is another thing I just never got the hang of.
Affairs: How do people get into affairs? I was and am a good-looking guy but no woman has ever overtly offered to have sex with me. I’m pretty sure I would have responded by ignoring the invitation like all things I don’t like to do, but since it never happened, I don't know? Lots of other people are having affairs; it seems like it’s pretty easy, but I suck at it. I can’t even flirt. If my wife hadn’t had been as immature as I was when we met, I would never have gotten married.
Languages: The only class I got a “B” in high school was German; twice. It kept me from being valedictorian, even though I took honors classes and the guy who got the prestige didn’t. In medical school, I spent most of my rotations in hospitals where Spanish was the primary language, so I’ve been studying it for over a decode. Add to that, both of my grandkids speak Spanish, and I’ve traveled extensively in Spanish-speaking countries. Unfortunately, of all the things I do well, leaning languages isn’t one of them.
Names: My wife can remember names; I mean obscure, met them only one time, name remembering. Hell, half the time I can’t remember the names of my kids. There’s been literally 1000s of times I’ve called someone “Dude” or “Hey You” because I couldn’t remember their name, even if I’d known them for years. I think this is a guy thing because no man I know can remember names either.
Empathy: I've got sympathy coming out of my ears, but empathy, where you’re supposed to feel what the person you’re sympathizing with is feeling, I don’t got that, and never intend to. Empathy puts you at the mercy of who you’re trying to empathize with, and I’m not giving control over me to anybody, especially someone who want to make their problems my problems.
Employee: Every time I’ve worked for someone, I’ve done a terrible job because I get bored, and have no desire to do something for someone else when I could be doing something for myself.
Employer: I’m a good manager but a lousy supervisor, meaning I’ll tell someone to do something but if they don’t do it, I don’t know how to make them.
Gambling: I receive absolutely no buzz from gambling; in fact, I get whatever the opposite of a dopamine high is. The few times I have gambled in a jovial setting, as soon as I win a little money, I’m done. I do plenty of real-life gambling: starting a business, having a family, traveling the world; how is risking money even close to that?
Boldness: I’m one of those guys who stands back to see how things work before I jump in. This is a great strategy for somebody like me who likes to win but I miss any opportunity that requires immediate action.
Public speaking: I think it takes a narcissist to enjoy public speaking. (I hope that’s not envy speaking.)
Exercising: Is there anything duller than exercising?
Small talk: What the hell do strangers say to each other? Weather? Sports? Trivialities? If somebody wants to talk to me about the mysteries of the universe, or interesting historical facts, or even present their doctoral thesis, I’m all in, but I’ll take silence over banal banter anytime.
Paying attention: My attention span is two minutes tops, after that I start drifting. Internally, I might be crafting the outline of a novel, or troubleshooting why my car won’t start, but I’m not listening any longer, that’s for sure. It’s not a unique weakness, lots of guys are like me; it’s females who can sit in a classroom for hours studiously taking notes. I’m almost always smarter than the person speaking anyway.
Suffering tyrants & fools: It doesn’t take long for men, because of the male dominance hierarchy which we are acclimated to as boys, to identify tyrants or fools. If it were just men, these ridiculous people would be pushed down to their level in the patriarchy, but because women don’t have the discernment, tyrants & fools seem to have the advantage in politics. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Keeping secrets: I might have some secrets but it’s doubtful because I can’t keep them; mine nor anyone else’s. Secret keeping must be something that occurs in the higher thought processes because my lizard brain can’t seem to keep my mouth shut when I’m supposed to tell one person this thing, and another person something else. I categorize secrets along with lying, cheating & stealing.
Holding my tongue: Oh, there are so many times that life would have been a lot easier if I could have just not said anything. I spout out things just to be contrarian or to signal my lack of adherance to the established narrative. Especially after I became the “Wysest Myn in the Wyrld,” there’s just nobody’s opinion that I accept over my own, and I tell them so.
Spending money: Most people must get a dopamine hit from spending money because everybody’s doing it. Me on-the-other-hand, want to spend the least amount, which includes not buying things I don’t really need. Using coupons and getting a great deal is the source of my dopamine. Luckily, I’m married to a woman who feels the same way.
Pretentiousness: It’s not as bad as when I was young because now I do know what people think of me, but when I was completely socially blind, I didn’t care a whit about what other people thought of me. I didn’t then, and still don’t, try to lord it over others via virtue signaling; sincerity is so much more fulfilling, and doesn’t require walking over the backs of the hoi polloi.
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