r/AskReddit • u/Wise_March_268 • 1d ago
What’s a skill almost everyone thinks they’re good at until they meet someone who’s actually great at it?
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u/heretoseewhats 1d ago
For a lot of dudes: fighting
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u/winkingchef 1d ago edited 5h ago
Early in life my dad taught me : “anyone can start a fight, but it’s the winner who decides when it ends.”
Don’t count on the kindness of strangers to stop when you want it to, especially if you instigated it
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u/Informal-Project-235 23h ago
Wow that’s a real good life lesson
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u/Dasseem 23h ago
One of the biggest risks of getting into a Street fight is not knowing how willing your opponent is to win.
Some dudes out there will stab you and ruin their lives just to save themselves the embarrasment of losing a fight.
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u/AssassinOfFate 22h ago
My grandfather taught me something similar.
“Someone hotheaded enough to fight you on the street or in public in general is probably also hotheaded enough to very seriously harm you or worse. So try your best to never get involved in a fight that you can actually still avoid.”→ More replies (17)857
u/KFlaps 21h ago edited 7h ago
I just commented this recently in another post, but my dad effectively said the same thing:
"The best way to win a fight is to not be in one in the first place"
Edit: (3hrs later, so some comments below wouldn't have seen this): He did also go on to say that "if you're cornered and have no choice, fight dirty - go for their eyes and balls".
He was an RAF policeman in the 60's who saw some interesting action, including getting shot, getting his nose broken and getting jumped (all separate incidents), so he spoke from experience lol.
Edit 2: As this comment is getting some traction, I'll add a little story he once told me that highlights the above:
As the story goes, one night out when he was stationed abroad he knew he was going to be jumped when he left the bar, as apparently the barman had warned him (something about looking at someone and pulling down your lower eyelid as a discrete message that you're in the shit - no idea if that's true but that's what my dad told me).
So my dad grabbed a bottle on the way out and sure enough got confronted by four guys outisde. Right before they went for him, he raised the bottle and said something like...
"you'll get me, but one of you is leaving here blind"
...and in the moment of hesitation that caused, he lobbed the bottle at their feet and legged it in the opposite direction 🤣
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u/RangerHikes 20h ago
It's so true. You could very easily win, and still have your face permanently fucked up. And for what? Pride ?
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u/Peewee223 19h ago
Most martial artists say the best thing you can bring to a street fight is a good pair of running shoes.
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u/PyroDesu 17h ago
The master at the Tae Kwon Do place I went to as a kid once demonstrated the best way to win a fight:
Run away screaming.
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u/norsish 23h ago
I will destroy myself just to make sure you are destroyed.
(That's rhetorical, btw. Not saying I'm that guy, just met guys like that. Girls, too, come to think of it.)
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u/ijustneedtolurk 22h ago
The fights between girls were always so awful when I was in school 20 years ago, and judging by the "viral videos" of current fights, the brutality is only growing with "clout."
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u/MyCatLaughsAtMe 22h ago
Dude. I saw a fight between 2 girls in high school in the 90s and they ripped off each other's eyebrows...
Sure a guy will punch you but christ that's just feral.
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u/LurkerZerker 21h ago
There's a reason girls stop to take their earrings out before they fight.
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u/Naive-Kangaroo3031 20h ago edited 19h ago
Im a teacher, girl fights are 1000% worse. Boy fights are all the same, they get loud, get really really close while staring, and then if they touch they swing.
Girls will be laughing and carrying on and then flip a switch. One girl told me the best fighting advice ever. "Just grab the back of their head with one hand, and try to punch it as hard as you can with the other"-she was 12
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u/Dramatic_Original_55 21h ago
Don't mess with me, buddy. I know karate, judo, jiu jitsu and a half a dozen other Japanese words.
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u/Hortos 22h ago
A LOT of people have never taken a punch to the face and as a consequence don't know to guard their grill in a fight.
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u/Neat_Rare_5389 1d ago
Not if I see red bro
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u/east_van_dan 23h ago edited 23h ago
Their are too wolf's inside me. Won is ready too kill at the slightest sine of danjer and the other 1 is taking me from behind.
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u/Supreme_Primate 1d ago
“Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face”
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u/graveybrains 1d ago
I am proof that's not true. There's no plan before, either.
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u/DigNitty 1d ago
My plan is to get punched in the face, so I win regardless.
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u/HoodDuck 1d ago
lol getting into martial arts just teached me I’d really prefer to not ever get into fights. Also a slightly irrational fear of wiry dudes because there always stronger than you think hahaha
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u/wilebi 1d ago
For real. I wanted to get into BJJ as an older gentleman and I got ragdolled by even the most unassuming sparring partner.
I couldn't keep going because my back wouldn't let me but it was a fun few days, and eye-opening.
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u/Naramie 1d ago
BJJ is extremely tough and there's alot of complexities. It's almost like a chess match where, there moves, then numerous counter moves, and counter moves for those. First few weeks you're going to be learning basic stuff like the different types of guards and basic defense. Then as you advance they start training in leg attacks and defense.
Unless you're alot bigger, extremely athletic or have past experience in like wrestling or other grappling sports, you're more likely going to get your butt kicked for the first few weeks as you figure things out. But if you keep going you'll learn more and get better being able defend and eventually sweep and submit other people. BJJ is extremely technical, missing those simple things can be the difference maker.
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u/fobygrassman 1d ago
“First few weeks” more like at least first year. Thankfully the place I go to has white belt only classes, white belt and blue belt classes, all belt classes, and advanced belt only. I can’t imagine getting my ass kicked for over a year straight before i can get a single submission on someone let alone just having submissions chained on me.
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u/tsimen 1d ago
Big guys too! Slimmer guys tend to think they'd have an easy time against big guys because they outperform them in sports - wrong! There's a reason all professional fighting leagues are split in weight classes.
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u/FallenNgel 1d ago
I had a sparring partner that easily had 80lbs on me. He once leaned into a punch and it felt like I got hit by a refrigerator.
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u/EnderMB 23h ago
A decade of BJJ and some boxing, and I'd be happy to never get into a fight.
FWIW, I've known pro boxers get beat up after starting fights on nights out, and I've met very unassuming people that would probably absolutely wreck your shit in a fight. I've also met solid Judoka that can't throw a punch to save their lives, great strikers that almost rage-quitted BJJ because they can't do shit to stop even good white belts, and BJJ black belts that are so violence adverse that they would rather walk away from any disrespect or attempt to get physical.
You just don't know the person, their skills, whether they'd be able to apply them outside of a ruleset, and whether they'd start anything or take it too far. It's just not worth it, ever.
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u/Rare_Needleworker340 1d ago
Ive been doing Bang Muay Thai for maybe 2 months and it didn’t take me long to realize
1) it doesn’t take much to seriously hurt someone
2) never underestimate someone just because they don’t look like what you THINK a seasoned fighter should look like. There are guys at my gym that range from kind of overweight to really skinny, and both of them could lay you out with little to no effort. And the women are just as dangerous if not more so—there’s a 70+ year old tiny Asian woman and if you don’t protect your head she will absolutely teach you a lesson to remember.→ More replies (8)163
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u/Electrical_Delay6530 22h ago
I know enough to know I know nothing. I'm 6'4 and 220 so no ones ever really picked a fight with me. If they do I'm ready. You would be amazed how fast I can run and climb. I can be on the roof a house/balcony faster than you'd imagine.
I am not interested at all. I lose I get beaten and maybe die. If I win there's a good chance I'm getting an assault charge. Either way not interested
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u/csonny2 23h ago
A couple of my friends starting taking jiu jitsu classes, and it completely changed their perspective on getting in a fight with a stranger. They said the most unassuming looking people they train with could kick most people's asses.
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u/Stinky-Camel 23h ago edited 19h ago
Teaching. You don’t only need to be well versed in the subject matter. You have to be able to effectively explain that information based on the specific audience in front of you
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u/Relative_Implement_7 21h ago
I had a friend who could teach anything effortlessly, even if he is just learning the subject himself. When he'd get stressed out his coping mechanism was to start teaching me something, anything, could just be about some random thing he saw on tiktok. He was a weird dude with no other friends and a self described "gray man aura" but holy hell could he teach. I asked him once why he was so good at it and he said it was (don't remember his exact words) because he knew it was his responsibility as the teacher to teach the student, that all the student has to do is WANT to learn, and the burden is in no way on the student to be good at being teachable. It was a responsibility thing for him. He did also stop mid one lesson-rant and look at me dead and say "I think I might be autistic" so, lol. He was in his 50s at the time.
He was so cool I miss that fucker every day.
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u/blacktiger226 16h ago
I discovered I was like this in undergrad. So I went to grad school with the aim of becoming a university professor. After becoming one, I was horrified to find out that the majority of university professors are horrible horrible teachers. Last year, we had an open position to which we interviewed more than 10 applicants, all very highly qualified from a scientific point of view, but not a single one of them could even be considered an "okay" teacher.
Turns out being a good teacher is really a rare talent.
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u/olive12108 13h ago
I sat with a bunch of TA's and dept professors to do in-classroom interviews for 4 potential profs once. Had to give a lecture on any topic then answer our questions. 1hr total.
One lectured, but was mostly reading off slides. One was very enthusiastic about the topic, but it was a PhD level topic, but he explained none of the background and everyone was confused. One just talked about himself and his career for 40 minutes.
Last guy actually put together a lecture on a topic, explained it well, had back and forth with us asking questions about it, etc. He did an amazing job, blew everyone else out of the water, not even a contest. We were asked for our feedback and every single TA said he was their favorite.
He did not get the job because his research resume, while impressive, was not as impressive as the other candidate's.
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u/Streborsirk 14h ago
Academics tend to be really good at the learning and researching part of the role. The teaching, supervising, and managing people parts aren't what most got into that line of work for, and it shows.
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u/MoneyMontgomery 22h ago
This is a good one. It is a skill that is not innate and sometimes cannot be learned based on the person's personality. I've done a lot of teaching and training in my life for work and school and I have never seen myself as a teacher or have those characteristics...no rather I just don't like teaching or training people. But I've done it so much I know what the best approach is and have some patience. As much as I dislike it at work, it has helped prepare me for raising and teaching children.
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u/ActorMonkey 1d ago
Driving?
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u/xenosthemutant 23h ago
Fun fact: 70% to 88% of drivers consistently report that their driving skills are above average.
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u/ShataraBankhead 22h ago
Seems accurate. My entire life, Dad has always complained about drivers throughout the state. "Nobody knows how to drove on 280" or "People drive like idiots on 65". I asked him, so is there any road or highway where people are decent drivers? "No!".
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u/V1per41 1d ago
Yes most people think they are good at it, but I don't think most people would recognize good driving if it slapped them in the face. The public in general is one large Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to driving. They lack the knowledge of what good driving is so much that they can't even recognize it when it happens.
A great example is zipper merges. Most people, even when educated about it, still do it wrong and/or get angry at the people who do it right.
Or what about merging onto a highway. A bad driver would complain about how fast a good driver is getting up to speed on the onramp, they wouldn't recognize it as better driving.
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u/countess_cat 23h ago
Yep. My dad is a professional driver and lives in a country where people are notoriously bad at driving. He occasionally gets honked when doing the correct thing because some entitled asshole thinks he knows better. When I visit he lets me drive his car and gives me tips and tricks because I don’t drive often and most of the time he’s like “the correct thing to do in a civilised place is X but people here drive like dicks so you should do Y instead”
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u/LotusPrince 20h ago
My dad's advice, which has always stuck with me, is to pretend that every single other person on the road is a terrible driver.
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u/ThreeJax 1d ago
Excel
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u/theladythunderfunk 1d ago edited 23h ago
I thought I was barely competent at excel. Then co-workers started saying how great I am at it, and I realized ...wow, a ton of people have no idea how to use Excel even though it's an essential part of their job.
Now I think I'm okay at excel.
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u/OneBillPhil 23h ago
I was conducting job interviews once and someone claimed they were advanced at excel. I asked, partly of curiosity and partly to amuse myself what types of advanced functions they are familiar with. I wasn’t impressed lol
I’m decent with it, good enough for what I need for my job but I know there’s a level above me.
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u/V1per41 21h ago
When I was interviewing people to work in my group I would ask the question, "What is your favorite Excel function or formula?"
It's an odd question that I know they wouldn't be prepared for / have some stupid canned response for, but would also provide some insight into how knowledgeable they were.
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u/pauli_matrix 20h ago edited 19h ago
When I interview people for roles that require advanced Excel skills I ask them to rate themselves 1-10.
Anyone who says 8 or higher just told they don't know very much about excel. If you think you've mastered excel more than likely you have been swimming in a small tributary of a massive river and never even understood how deep things can go.
I will sometimes follow up with something like ' when would you use hlookup instead of vlookup? '. Only one person has given the best answer - "never, use xlookup. It doesn't require the index to be left or above the data you want to find."
Almost no one who rates themselves an 8 or higher has heard of hlookup. If I try to give a hint like "the v stands for vertical" I get a blank stare while they try to contemplate a paradigm in which records can be stored horizontally.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 19h ago
Anyone who says 8 or higher just told they don't know very much about excel. If you think you've mastered excel more than likely you have been swimming in a small tributary of a massive river and never even understood how deep things can go.
In fairness every once in a while you do meet someone who has a pretty solid understanding of VBA, and by extension, can make excel do crazy things.
Anyway, it also depends on what you want to use excel for. People who know how to use it for database purposes and people who know how to use it for, say, financial modeling tend to have wildly different skillsets.
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u/TrumpsDoubleChin 16h ago
Yup, that's me - I would be an 8 or a 9 based on what I was doing when I was using Excel. The thing is, anyone who is an 8 or a 9 and doing complicated ETL, Power Query or M language or VBA UDFs also very quickly realizes that by the time they reach that level, that there's a 99% chance that there are much, much better tools to use other than Excel at that point.
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u/Tom-_-Foolery 20h ago
No love for ol' Index Match? Some of the larger sheets I've worked with seem to really perform better with it than any of the lookups.
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u/V1per41 20h ago
Index match was great before xlookup became a thing. Only thing I really use index for now is index filter
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u/hugcub 22h ago
I would teach excel at work and it took a while to get the lessons basic enough that folks who claimed they were good with computers knew what to do. Something as basic as “selects cell A1” would be met with blank stares. “Highlight column F”. Crickets. “Oooooooh, so this right here is called a ‘cell’ and if you look here, this is a column…”. These were “professionals” with college degrees…
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u/theladythunderfunk 22h ago
I once had a coworker who was definitely paid more than me manage to accidentally turn every cell in the worksheet he was editing into a hyperlink. All the same hyperlink, to one of our internal operations sites. He absolutely panicked and couldn't tell me what he'd done, just that he needed me to undo it. He'd only been working on the file for about five minutes before this happened, so I had him close it without saving and start over. This is tied for first with another coworker as instances of men roughly my age at work being absolutely floored by me providing a very obvious "technical" solution.
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u/kw3lyk 1d ago
Did you know that there is an annual event called the Microsoft Excel World Championship? They treat it like it's an e-sport, complete with commentators and a row of dudes at computers on a stage.
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u/rrkrabernathy 20h ago
I love when the competitors run out through the entrance tunnel like they’re going to do a boxing match or something.
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u/psodstrikesback 1d ago
Anyone who says they're an excel expert is almost always barely intermediate. People who actually know excel know that they have just scratched the surface.
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u/Ancient-Afternoon374 23h ago
I watched a world cup Excel event once on YouTube.
Makes me look like my grandpa trying to use a computer.
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u/countess_cat 23h ago
when I was 17 I took a Office extracurricular and got a bunch of certificates. My teacher thought it was enough to get me into a serious event. Got teamed with a couple guys that I never met and we randomly decided what to do between Excel, Power Point and World. We later found out that every member of the other teams coordinated and only studied one of the three in depth, we just winged it. I had to do Power Point, scored something like 550/1000 while the well prepared teams were up in the 900-975 range. The poor guy from our team who had to do Excel scored ~400. It was humiliating to say the least. The three of us got extremely high grades in the certification exams but the knowledge required to compete in such events was 1000 levels above whatever we thought we knew
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u/Generico300 22h ago
As someone who has worked in IT for over 20 years, I wish no one was good at Excel. If you are "good at excel" the chances that you're using it for something that excel should absolutely not be used for is almost 100%. You'd be amazed how many companies are operating on a ludicrously bloated excel workbook that takes 20 minutes to load and should have been converted into a real DB-driven app 15 years ago, all because one guy in the office is "good at excel". Everything in excel that's considered "advanced" is shit nobody should do in excel. Learn a real programming language and a real database instead.
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u/theREALbombedrumbum 21h ago
Anybody sufficiently advanced at Excel should be skilled enough to know that Excel is not supposed to be a database.
If I have to turn off calculations just to view your workbook without waiting for everything to refresh, you're doing everything wrong.
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u/Gain_Agin 21h ago
Because it takes fucking 6 months to get approval & budget for a boutique solution, than 2 weeks of tinkering around
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u/BabsK444 1d ago
I came here to say this. When I was working, I made some pivot tables and my boss was impressed. I thought to myself, please don’t ask me to do anything sophisticated, then you’ll know how very, very little I know.
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u/kakaobohne 23h ago
Pivot tables are the worldwide benchmark for "I know excel".
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u/SecondHandWatch 23h ago
Your boss being impressed by pivot tables is proof that “almost everyone” doesn’t think they’re good at it.
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u/Altruistic_Seat_6644 1d ago
Writing.
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u/Moby_Dick_Energy 23h ago
I know a guy that’s writing his second novel. I’m super impressed and surprised at the process; multiple rewrites and it’s taken like a year to get half the book through an editor. I told him one day I’d love to be a writer but I doubt I’m very good. He told me, “it’s easy!just start!”
Then he told me he doesn’t read. I asked to read part of his completed novel that is ready for publication. It’s terrible.
Which just makes me think, well if he can’t do it, I doubt I’d be any better.
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u/yuval16432 22h ago
It does not surprise me at all that someone who doesn’t read won’t be a good writer. That is the least surprising thing I’ve read all week.
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u/Beneficial-Act-9933 19h ago
There's some pervassive thought in modern writing/book tok that reading is actually detrimental to your writing skills. That somehow being pure makes you a better and true writer because your writing is not influenced by any outside force.
This is of course completely false and anybody who's subscribed to this train of thought has been a terrible writer that writes like they're trying to describe humans to aliens.
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u/dog_cow 20h ago
That's pretty disappointing. But I can one up you there. There's a guy I know who loves AI and has published a book on Amazon that AI wrote for him which he says has earned him a small amount of money (like a few dollars here and there). Then someone asked him if he'd read the book himself and of course I assumed he must have. The answer was no... he has not.
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u/Jimmy_J_James 20h ago
"One of the few people who's written more books than he's read."
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u/1tacoshort 1d ago
Acting. It looks all natural and straight forward. I've done some self-tapes and done some acting and discovered that it's really hard to appear natural.
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u/Blockchains_Release 21h ago
Even just standing still and looking natural is surprisingly hard. The moment a camera is on you, you suddenly forget what to do with your hands.
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u/searcherguitars 21h ago
I used to work at a Shakespeare company, and we had a senior member who liked to say to young actors, moments before we made an entrance, "Don't think about your hands."
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u/happysri 19h ago
Absolutely. Someone did an analysis’s of Martin Freeman’s acting and my god the number of factors involved in a very plain scene of him doing nothing were crazy. The way he leans, uses his eyes and mouth and so many other micro expressions that contributed to making the scene normal.
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u/brickson98 20h ago
Makes me think of the scene from Talladega Nights: “I felt like I was on a spaceship... and uh, I'm not sure what to do with my hands.”
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23h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Without-a-tracy 23h ago
Haha, jokes on you!
I'm autistic, I never know what to do with my arms, my walk always feels fake, and blinking/eye contact is always something I think about!
(/hj)
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u/False_Cookie8226 23h ago
Studying Charlie Chaplin helped me to understand physical acting. How to embody a character. But it was the realization that for the most part good acting comes down to a certain level of twitchiness... tensing the eyes at the right time, the fraction of a second snarl, subtle tiny movements that people don't usually think about because they occur naturally. Go back and watch some of your favorite actors, odds are you notice those twitchy micro expessions, really study the actors subtle little twitches. Then watch bad acting and note the lack of such subtle nuances.
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u/Alternative_Suit_902 22h ago
Even voice acting looks way easier than it actually is, I was surprised how bad I was when I tried it
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u/hologram137 19h ago
Watching Eartha Kitt voice Yzma for the emperors new grove made me realize just how much talent it really takes
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u/Johnny_Banana18 21h ago
Most people think voice acting is just doing impressions, but you have to make that character be mean, sad, cry, sing, ect.
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u/glidejanger 21h ago
People have much much more quirks than they believe they do, and acting is great at exposing that. Everyone would benefit from some acting training.
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u/PresentBeverage 23h ago
Anything thats played casually. Cornhole, bowling, darts. People do pretty good playing against their buddies at the bar, but showing up to a an actual competitive league or tournament is eye opening.
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u/Cute-Hand-1542 17h ago
This was me with RTS games in the mid 2010s. Went to my first amateur tournament and got dog walked by people who had no chance of making it to even a semi pro tournament themselves. There is levels to everything.
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u/Shuttlecock_Wat 16h ago
I have always been extremely good at Super Smash Bros. I've had people hear I was good and challenge me because they beat all their friends. I make them look like children.
Then I try going to tournaments and all my opponents make me look like a child.
It's hard to even realize how many levels there are with some skills because you've only ever seen the ground floor.
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u/GodEmperorZach 1d ago
Evaluating authenticity of information/advice. Most people are very bad at it.
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u/whaddayaNeedtoKnow 23h ago
I was going to say something in the same vein: media literacy. Most people believe they are watching/reading things and picking up what they’re putting down, might occasionally admit to not understanding a movie or book that’s particularly esoteric but they certainly believe they’re competent at, yknow, watching movies and reading.
But then 90% of the people I’ve watched things with or been in book clubs, even my MA lit program it’s just like…oh. Most people genuinely can’t even summarize what’s actually happening accurately, much less pick up on the little details and foreshadowing and subtle devices.
And it’s not just high lit/artsy films. Just run of the mill movies, people are simply barely getting the bones of the plot if that.
I got my funded MA at a damn good school, and I was ahead of the game, AMONGST OTHER LIT GRAD STUDENTS, just for being able to accurately summarize something we just read or watched.
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u/GotSeoul 23h ago edited 21h ago
Musical instrument. I was considered really good in high school. Went to University of North Texas for Jazz Studies and realized I was pretty average. There were so many fantastic musicians. I was pretty humbled. After a year of music school, changed to computer information systems. Had a good career with that. Was still able to play in bar bands when I was young while doing computer stuff during the day. Until playing in bars got tiring when I got a bit older.
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u/Plug_5 22h ago
LOTS of us have this experience. I was one of the top 5 or so pianists in the West Palm Beach area when I graduated high school in 1993. Went to NYC for college, and holy shit. There were people my age, especially from Europe and Asia, who knew and had performed multiple concerti. Technique that blew me out of the water, etc. I started practicing my ass off right away, it was humbling.
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u/QuantumBeef 1d ago
Any trade. Don’t get me started with some of these DIY folks on this site. Yikes.
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u/minuteman_d 1d ago
I was helping a family in my neighborhood the other day who's been through some really rough times with death and terminal illness.
Their mailbox post was rotted out and needed to be replace because it was basically fallen over.
I figured it'd take me an hour tops to get it done.
It took me like three hours to dig out rocks and roots and to dig around sprinkler lines and to run to Home Depot twice, and I realized: if this were my job, I'd probably get fired.
That, and I was tired that night and I had blisters the next day.
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u/OneStepTwoTrips 22h ago
For even a minor home improvement project- plan two trips to the hardware store (minimum). First trip is for what you think you need. Second trip is for what you actually need.
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u/Blaizefed 23h ago edited 8h ago
The longer I have been a mechanic, and witnessed the gap between what I can do with 30 years of experience, and what the average DIY’r pulls off (then brings to me to actually fix it, edit- and the replies here tell me I’ll never run out of this work….), the more willing I am to pay tradesmen in every other field.
Just last month I had a plumbing issue at home and had to do the mental arithmetic. On the one hand, yes, I could probably figure it out, and stumble thru the repair, over the course of a week of evenings. But if I just pay a guy who knows what he is doing, it will be done in an afternoon.
I paid him.
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u/sc_we_ol 1d ago
Lol I just replied drywall before I saw your comment. I’ve been in the trades for a while and drywall is something I just will not do anymore there’s zero reason when a crew dudes can do do it better and faster than I ever could
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u/Quiet_Economy_4698 23h ago
I was doing some work on my house recently and got to the drywall portion, it was not going well. I called my buddy who's a drywall/paint guy to see if he could come over to give me some pointers. He took one look at it and told me to stop and he would be back the next day to do it for me. Came out great in the end lol
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u/kenzijacobspg 1d ago
Plumbing. Every homeowner thinks swapping a simple valve is a 15 minute job until they are on their fourth trip to Home Depot at 8:45 PM on a Sunday with the water shut off to the entire house.
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u/I_can_vouch_for_that 23h ago
I feel like that's a personal attack !!! 😂
In fairness to me, I never leave it that late.
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u/Karmek 22h ago
I have a rule, "Never do critical repairs while the hardware store is closed".
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u/MasterPain420 1d ago
As an electrician, I agree
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u/Expensive_tea694 1d ago
CHESS
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u/thedkexperience 1d ago edited 23h ago
One of my college roommates was a top 100 ranked player in the world. I was just a guy who knew how to play chess.
The one time we played he beat me so handily it was insane.
And he did it with a blindfold on.
And then he repeated the whole game back to front and then front to back to show me what I did wrong.
And then I stopped thinking I was good at chess.
Edit - This was roughly 2003 for those who were wondering
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u/Satan_McCool 1d ago
Stories like this make me feel like chess is less of a game and more of a memory exercise.
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u/bro0t 1d ago
Chess is basically memory and pattern recognition. Grandmasters know multiple openings sometimes 20 moves deep. They can play half a game just on memory alone
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u/DrMonkeyLove 23h ago
Yeah, I've seen the video of Magnus being shown a chess board setup and he is able to recall which game it was from in the past. Absolutely insane.
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u/legop4o 22h ago
And it's like not even uncommon, most IM level players have that type of knowledge, let alone GMs
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u/Affectionate-Baby248 23h ago
Well, studies have shown that chess grandmasters don't actually have exceptional memory except for chess specifically, it's really more about practice and gaining familiarity with different types of positions - a deliberate process of gaining intuition. I'm personally a USCF Expert near NM with a 2600+ online rating, and I sometimes forget what I ate for breakfast but can also recall complete OTB games I've played.
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u/Sharcbait 1d ago
Scrabble is another game that can be like that. There are people who like to play scrabble and there are SCRABBLE people.
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u/Elegant-Editor-4789 1d ago
Photography, because folks with an iPhone think they are Ansel Adams.
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u/cloral 20h ago edited 20h ago
Ansel Adams himself famously remarked that if taking photos was harder, the overall quality of photos would increase.
The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.
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u/MarsupialNo1220 22h ago
This omg. People think my photos are better than theirs solely because I own an expensive camera and lens.
Sometimes I give them the camera on normal settings and let them try take photos with it. Some of them complain they don’t know how it works, then they complain that the colours are too dark, or the focus is too blurry, or the subject was too fast to capture clearly. And I’m like “fucking exactly. I don’t just push a button and get a perfect photo”.
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u/Foxbanjo 22h ago
This is surprisingly low down in this thread.
I feel like photography is a particularly "the less you know, the better you think you are" skill. Even when people pick up a camera and try it, as long as its not blurry they think theyre a master.
Because the only people who can or will really be able to appreciate good photos are people who really like art and photos - otherwise their taste is usually chalked up to what makes them/their friends/ their family or favorite animal look good or not.
So things like, exposure, contrast ratio, colour, focal planes, depth compression, and much more, are lost on people because their photos look "good enough" in auto mode.
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u/salty_tealeaves 20h ago
Yes! My partner is a naturally skilled photographer. He uses natural light in a way I am forever impressed by. However, he is not business savvy and never will be - it’s just not in him - and whilst his business does ok, I’m surprised by the number of really average photographers that comparatively do extremely well just because they can run a business. Not everyone can see when a photographer just doesn’t really have it. Creatives get screwed in this capitalist society unfortunately.
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u/MissLilyJones 1d ago
Doing makeup. You think you’re good until you watch someone do a flawless full face in 20 minutes 😂
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u/dwalshhh45 23h ago edited 21h ago
I work at a mortuary now, but I’ve worked at pretty much every makeup counter under the sun and was also an educator at a major cosmetology school before COVID.
I originally came into the mortuary doing insurance and memorial counseling, but I always let the owners know I could step in for makeup if needed. It wasn’t until a family paid someone $900 to do their loved one’s makeup and was extremely unhappy with the result that they called me in to fix it. I redid her makeup in about 30 minutes, and after that, I became their (the mortuary’s) specialized makeup artist.
I completely understand why I had to prove myself—this is an incredibly sensitive business. But makeup is such an overlooked skill. You don’t realize how difficult it is until you see the difference between someone who is properly trained and someone who isn’t. It truly takes experience, technique, and a completely different understanding of makeup.
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u/woody1594 22h ago
I’ve been an embalmer for 15 years, make up and restoration of major cases is my specialty. So many people get make up wrong and makes all of us look bad.
IMO, every embalmer needs to learn proper makeup before being let loose to embalm. The reason being is the embalming is the base for your cosmetics that will make the person “lifelike”.
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u/Acceptable_Search205 21h ago
I didn't realize how much this matters until attending the funeral of a young family member. The make up was upsetting. It was too mature and dark for her young, porcelain skin. All of the kids complained she didn't look like herself.
I'm glad you were able to step in and help. Being able to say goodbye to a person who looks like themselves is important.
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u/dwalshhh45 21h ago
This! It’s sad too because outside of it all I think the masses just expect their loved one will look
“different” but a lot of that has to do with the makeup. You can ABSOLUTELY make someone look exactly how they left and as if they are just sleeping if you know what you are doing. Good makeup but also, as a commenter below said, a good embalmer as well.71
u/redwallet 20h ago
Ugh yes. A long time ago, my sister died at 18 and while we had a closed casket wake, family got the option to see her if desired. I went in alone and all I remember thinking was “god DAMN who thought this shade of pastel pink lipstick would look good with this light olive skin tone? Are they color blind?” Not the best when mixed with the other relevant emotions lmao
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u/vivienleigh12 23h ago
My grandmother, in her casket, looked the prettiest she had in 20 years. ❤️ Gave me all kinds of appreciation for the “behind the scenes” work.
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u/cherlymcdonalidzt 23h ago
It's the color theory that blows my mind. A real pro will glance at your skin for two seconds, mix two completely random shades on the back of their hand, and it seamlessly disappears into your face. Meanwhile I swatch half my jawline at Sephora and still manage to walk out looking slightly orange.
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u/bengalsocks 23h ago
How would I find a real colour theory pro to do this for me
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u/Wise_Jellyfish_9168 1d ago
I go back and look at my pictures from highschool and cringe at every one of them. I wish someone would have helped me 😭
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u/Nikki908 1d ago
It's a rite of passage. I only wore powder and blush for a time. Then I got my hands on the Anastasia dipbrow...
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u/KaleOdd7683 1d ago
Skiing.
I got pretty good at skiing after college. Went from 10 days a year as an OK skier to 50-70 days as a very strong skier. Felt great, could go down any run, excellent technique, ski in any conditions. Was always the best skier out of the group that I'd rent a seasonal house with. I never thought of myself as being at a pro / olympian level, but could keep up with anyone on the mountain.
I go to Tahoe for a week of skiing and Jonny Mosely is there one day. I see him at the top of one of the trails and figure I would follow behind him. Damn. Seeing someone like him ski in person and try to keep up is a crazy experience. I had to stop half way down the trail because my legs were toast, meanwhile he was casually bombing down the run and going off little features. I felt like I had only been skiing for a couple of days.
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u/Victor_Korchnoi 18h ago
I am really good at skiing moguls. It’s not uncommon for people to shout positive things at me when I’m skiing moguls under the lift. I turn on every one, am able to hold some speed, stay completely in control, chest pointed down the mountain.
I saw this ~12 year old kid at Solitude who was so much better than me. He was skiing like how the olympians ski moguls.
It was incredibly humbling
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u/Minimum_Kiwi_1441 1d ago
Comedy
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u/swanson_theory 19h ago
This is one of those things where sure, you can be funny among your family and friend group whose senses of humors you know. But doing so up on stage night after night trying to figure out what makes strangers laugh sounds like a literal nightmare.
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u/clarv 15h ago
I've had friends say to me "You should do standup." I absolutely should not do standup.
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u/minuteman_d 1d ago
My dad worked as a mechanic most of his life.
I learned a lot, and work on my own cars a lot and cars for my friends and family several times a month, mostly minor stuff, but sometimes more involved stuff for people that need help.
It had been like 15 years since I'd worked with my dad (we don't live in the same area) when I had a chance to work with him on my mom's truck.
It was crazy how fast he was. I thought I was pretty good, and I think I'm not bad for shadetree, but he was just getting it done, no fuss, no messing around. I thought the job would take us an hour or two and we were done in like 30min.
I also realized that for much of the times I'd worked with him when I was younger, he would tell me what to do and I'd do it while he watched, and would help mostly when I got stuck or we had to get something done quickly.
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u/ketchuptheclown 15h ago
I had a friend like that, he could fix aaaaaanything. His friend's boat sank, so he didn't want it anymore. My friend said, can I have it? He got it out of the Delaware River on a Wednesday and went boating that weekend. One boring night I called him and offered to bring beer over for a card game. He said he was going to replace the furnace. I offered to help and he said he could handle it on his own. I said okay, see ya later, and he said, I thought you were bringing beer, no? So I asked how long he would need to replace the furnace. An hour an forty five minutes... I thought that was oddly specific, so I noted the time. I made sure to knock on the door exactly an hour and forty five minutes later. His wife said he was in the basement doing something and offered to put my beer in the fridge. I went down there to see him wiping his hands and I asked if he was done. He said, I dunno, hit that switch there. I did and the furnace started up. He said, oh cool, it works...you bring beer?
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u/Identical64 1d ago
Super smash bros. There’s a big difference between beating all your friends at house parties and going to weeklies or tournaments.
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u/Moby_Dick_Energy 23h ago
This was me in college.
I spent 100s of hours schooling my friends in high school. I was the school champ. Got to college and was an asshole that would get trashed at parties and challenge anyone. If even let them pick my character.
Then the college put on a tournament. I figured if I could beat these frat boys when I’m most drunk and stoned I should be able to make a run in a campus wide tourney right?
I don’t think I got a single kill. Hung up the sticks that day.
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u/valledweller33 1d ago
I was friends with Hbox in college and we went to the student union once where they had a set up advertising the gaming club's tournament that week. Random passerbys would sit down and play a couple games vs him and it was like watching a lion play with their food. Multiple games of 0% damage taken and every stock was a rest kill
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u/Cheetodude625 1d ago edited 18h ago
I like to think I'm a decent writer/watercolor painter because I do it in my free time. I have written hundreds of short stories for fun in the past 6 years. I have painted 13 art pieces for myself. I like to think I'm decent.
In reality, I am nothing.
On all of those "free" to publish online stories, AO3, and similar sites, I have learned that I suck at writing. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of poorly written crap out there (some of which got movie deals). However, the well-written stories really shine through and it hurts to compare your work to it.
Same with art. Seeing and watching very talented, self-taught, or classically taught artists make beautiful works from nothing is both amazing and painful. I say it like this because it made me realize that my art sucks ass as well. Hell, I even seen Deviant Art pieces that look a million times better than my paintings.
Again, I know I should not compare myself to them, but to realize that you are still a novice at best in comparison to these skilled writers and artists is a painful truth to swallow. Just keep grinding even if it hurts.
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u/BookGirl67 1d ago
Cooking
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u/hlnhr 23h ago
Most specifically the cutting part side of it. Actual professional knife skills are otherworldly.
I cook a lot and I’m fairly confident I’d be recognised as a pretty good amateur cook, but my knife skills (as in using actual safe and cuisine approved techniques) would probably make a chef’s skin crawl. I’m pretty quick at preparing my veggies because I’ve done it sooo many times but it’s just so yolo.
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u/SleestakJack 22h ago
I’m convinced you almost can’t get really good with knife skills without working in a pro kitchen. Peel and cube 100 pounds of potatoes. Now do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Peel and dice these 6 bags of onions. Every day. Peel and make carrot sticks out of these bags of carrots. Every day.
I mean, with enough money and willingness to waste food, I guess you could do this at home, but even super rich folks are rarely that kind of wasteful.
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u/Drinkingdoc 21h ago
Oh yeah this is the truth! I have knife skills and people often remark when they see me chop something up in a hurry. I used to spend 3 hours of my shift at the beginning just cutting veggies. Sometimes just one type. Imagine cutting onions for 3 hours!
And there were guys who were faster than me too. One young kid could cut a box of mushrooms in less than 5 minutes. We’re talking like a kg of mushrooms in thin slices!
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u/f4snks 1d ago edited 19h ago
Singing. It's really easy to tell difference between someone who enjoys singing and an absolute pro.
EDIT: I just wanted to edit that there's nothing wrong with somebody singing because they love to sing. That's a great, valid reason to sing. Just when you hear someone with a superlative voice it's really obvious.
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u/iris-evergarden 23h ago
The first time i was in the room with an actual 'good singer'... It was like a magical birdsong, nothing like me and my friends screaming Toto's Africa at the top of our lungs
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u/SugaryShrimp 22h ago
As a karaoke host, this is definitely my answer! Usually the quietest are the great ones and the braggarts are trash lol.
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u/tlf_crew 1d ago
listening. everyone thinks they’re doing it but most people are just waiting for their turn to talk
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u/robaroo 1d ago
Communication. Everyone sucks at articulating their thoughts to a high degree of fidelity.
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u/Without-a-tracy 23h ago
The more people I meet and form relationships with, the more I realize how bad some people are at communicating.
I know a lot of people who think they're excellent communicators, but spending three minutes explaining why you're about to say a thing you're about to say instead of saying that thing isn't good communication. It's exhausting.
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u/SituationTrue7524 1d ago
Playing any musical instrument.
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u/Shhhhhhhh_Im_At_Work 1d ago
I’m a really, really good guitarist. Not bragging, just the results of 25 years of playing. I can confidently say in most rooms I am the most capable guitarist.
Pros are on another level entirely. The closest I ever got was in my late teens / early 20s when I was pursuing a career in music and was putting all of my time into practice and rehearsals.
The big tell is that intermediate musicians will struggle with playing difficult parts the same way every single time they attempt it. A good intermediate player might be able to get a YouTube ready take of a Polyphia cover once out of ten tries, but Tim Henson will nail it every time, eyes closed, half asleep. The dynamics, the timing, the vibrato - you’ll hear intermediate players struggle to replicate their phrasing accurately from take to take.
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u/breakfast_cats 22h ago edited 22h ago
Practice isn't over when you can play it correctly. It's when you can't play it incorrectly.
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u/VodkaMargarine 23h ago
I'm like this with drums. I feel like I can play most songs on the drums if I learn them. Then I meet a proper drummer who can play most songs, with metronome like timing, after listening to it only once or twice, and can adapt the feel and the groove in ways that are obvious enough to feel but too subtle for me to work out how they're doing it.
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u/Callec254 1d ago
Driving. Everyone thinks they are well above average.
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u/Krostas 23h ago
Oh, I know I'm well above average.
I'm also convinced that the average is so dangerously shitty that this barely says anything about whether I'm actually a good driver.
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u/H0rny_On-Main 23h ago
"I'm not good. I'm legal, and that puts me in the 90 percentile at least" is something I've quoted more than once to my coworkers
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u/B_Bogus 1d ago
Pool. Im guilty of it myself. People think they can’t miss especially after a few beers, but when you play someone who competes with a lot of people watching, you rarely even get near the table.
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u/samtresler 1d ago
And when you do, somehow you have no clear shot at all. What absolute luck the other person has ! /s
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u/swole_ninja 23h ago
Ha. This was one of my roommates in college. When we “played pool” it was basically me drinking beer and him practicing against himself. There were plenty of games where he broke and I never shot.
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u/samtresler 23h ago
I got schooled by an elderly drunk in a small town bar. He was clearly a local novelty.
He played with the mop they kept in the corner. Mop head hanging behind him and the handle was just your standard 3/4"-1" dowel mop handle. He chalked it with no cue pad or anything.
I never got to the table. He broke and ran with a mop.
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u/CMKeebs 23h ago
Pre widespread internet: everything
I thought I was good at Tekken as a kid then I played one guy at an arcade and he immediately disabused me of that notion. Nowadays all I need is to go on YouTube to find anyone half-decent at the thing I’m into to find out I’m basically a beginner at everything I feel kinda good at
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u/Greenlimer 1d ago
Mudding drywall
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u/Reikko35715 1d ago
I was building a built-in bookshelf/entertainment center in my living room about the same time we had our kitchen redone. I had just started taping some small joints and mudding when the contractor asked my wife if "we'd" like him to knock out the mudding and taping really quickly. She convinced me to go along with it so I said, essentially "Sure, I guess. I could do it, but the wife wants it done quickly so go ahead eye roll." I was not going to do as much as he did and it looked great. I can't imagine how jank it would have looked if I had actually done it myself.
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u/TheOlSneakyPete 1d ago
Oh, im good at it. It just takes me 10x the time of a professional.
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u/gemmacosta 20h ago
Governing and specifically budget decisions. I'm not sure there is ever really a moment where the average person meets an elected official and gets a real conversation out of it. But a majority of people believe government is easy and solutions are simple because they don't understand the complexity of how tax dollars are spent.
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u/expandablespatula 16h ago
I'm a government budget analyst and I basically can't talk about work with anyone who's not a coworker because people just want to argue with me about it
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u/Kinglycole 21h ago
Reading other people. Everyone thinks they can do it but almost no-one actually can.
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u/iAMgnarrshy 22h ago
Vehicle diagnostics. My dad and grandpa have worked on cars as a hobby for decades and their ability to just listen to something for less than a minute and tell you exactly what’s wrong is uncanny.
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u/Tiny-Ad-7590 20h ago
This applies to any kind of technical diagnostic.
I work in IT. I once saw someone diagnose a critical fault by looking at the hex of a memory dump from a critical failure. I like to think I'm pretty good at my job but holy fucking shit.
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u/DESIDIALL 1d ago
Driving. Most people think they’re above average until they ride with someone who actually understands smooth braking, awareness, positioning, and how to anticipate what everyone else on the road is about to do.
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u/PersistentPuma37 22h ago
one of the proudest days of my life was when I was ushering around an old, cantankerous, German woman with a lifelong history of emotional abuse and withholding with her children. 'You're a very good driver,' she said with conviction. You couldn't get me off that high for a month.
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u/Dapper-Condition-608 23h ago
Graphic Design - so many now think that knowing how to use canva means they’re a designer.
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u/BumblebeeCareful5810 15h ago
People are confusing "almost everyone" with "me specifically"/"my friends" and "thinks they're good at" with "is a pro".
Just because you can't hang with the pros doesn't mean you are bad at it.
If you're skiing black diamonds, you are good at skiing. Most skiiers arent skiing black diamonds.
If you can paint with watercolors and keep the color in the lines, you are good at watercolors. For most people, the colors bleed and go all over the place.
If you beat all your friends and family at Mario kart every time, you probably are genuinely good at it. Most people are losing against their friends and family as much at they win if not more. If you win every time, that brings their average down. Most people can't get 3 stars on a single 50cc cup. If you have 3 stars on all the 150cc cups, you are FAR better at Mario kart than most people.
If you can sing in tune, you are good at singing. Most people can't sing in tune.
If it takes you 6 hours to fix something that would take a shop 1 hour, you are good at fixing cars. Most people can't change their own oil, let alone their own transmission fluid or a strut.
Just because you aren't as good at the thing as the professionals doesn't mean you aren't good at it.
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u/zyrkseas97 1d ago
It’s easy to think you’re a good storyteller until you meet someone who is actually a good storyteller and you realize they can just hold court to basically any group of people at the drop of a hat.