Is there something you're really good at, but never tell new friends etc. because...

[SaladandGravy]

... it sounds so highly unlikely you think people won't believe you?

I have one talent that sounds impossible (I may share later!!) but my great-grandma was about 4 feet nothing tall, not very agile but she could juggle with just about anything you could throw at her that she could physically hold (Diddy little hands too!). We used to just shout "oi Grandma" and throw 3 things at her. it was so funny, and she loved it too.

And my ex could turn a digestive biscuit 360° back to front and widthwaya without it breaking.

(Csn you tell I'm. bored?)

[quote Ruthietuthie]@mumsiedarlingrevolta, thank you for the questions.
Actually, I didn't learn any other languages apart from French (badly, for GCSE) until after my undergraduate degree.
For my PhD, I wanted to work in Southeast Asia, but with Chinese dialect speaking populations. I learnt Mandarin (and also Japanese, as you had to study two languages), but then arrived to do fieldwork to find that all the interesting conversations were happening in Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew, so I learnt them too. I then went on to do research in lots of other places (You can see from the post where I list the languages that a lot of them are Southeast Asian, particularly those spoken in Myanmar).
Now, if you give me a dictionary, I can learn the language from it pretty quickly. I work out the pronunciation, the grammatical structure, and go from there. With the languages that don't have a spoken form, I just listen. Once I hear something, I just remember it. And then the vocabulary just builds, without me really realizing it.
As you guess, when someone speaks to me, I click into the right language. Sometimes I don't know what language that is. (Particularly in Chinese dialects. It's only afterwards that I think about how many tones it has and realize, say, that it was Hokkien [which has more tones than Mandarin]).
The speaking stays. The writing I can easily lose if I don't practice, so (for those that have a written form) I try to read to keep it up.

I haven't ever connected this, but yes I am musical. I played an instrument to a professional level and could have made it a career. Maybe that explains why I love tonal languages. But I am also really nosy and hate not knowing what people are saying, so there is that too!!![/quote]
You are a bona fide genius.
In fact there are so many talented people on this thread. I am in absolute awe.

Tie a knot in a strawberry lace with just my mouth

@TeeBee

I know lots of ways to kill people in one hit and also very good at singing. Oooh, could really freak someone out by doing them at the same time.

You sound like a character from a Harlen Coben novel!

I can read as fluently upside down as the right way up. My brain seems to turn it round for me.

I have an innate ability to read someone and/or their intentions after a very short space of time.

I would never disclose this to a person I’ve just met but I would be assessing their body language straight away.

Well when I told an old friend she said … “how strange I’ve never heard of that before “ 😂 so I won’t chance a new friend

I have incredible hearing.

I can hear people whispering in the next room and behind closed doors. Sometimes further away. Very handy in the office.

Even better at night.

I dont tell anyone obviously as people would avoid me!

Sadly not my ‘talent’ but I know two people who can make themselves fanny fart on command

I can kick my self up the butt

People who eat my cakes and scones tell me they're the best they've ever eaten. I've won baking competitions and had people say wow, did you make that cake? about cakes I've donated. I don't tell people, neither do I make cakes for work (not even Macmillan if I might get found out). Why? Because of those people who are the cakemakers at work. I also have family members who make them professionally (apparently not a patch on mine according to the whispers in my ear) so I keep quiet and let them shine. If my work colleague apparently makes the best lemon cake you've ever eaten, I'm not going to alter that. My DS makes even better cakes than I do...they refuse to make cake for anyone outside our household due to the same embarrassment. I genuinely don't know whether my baking is all that although I can taste it's better than some and is better than my colleagues' but I don't want people to think this post is a boast rather than sharing my guilty secret.

@Graphista
I also feel I can assess people accurately. Sometimes I can just feel that the person they want to appear to be is just not real. I've seldom been wrong, even if I change my mind about someone I normally find I was right in the beginning

I have a few really random talents:
Really good at reading people and identifying their motivations
I can make, copy pretty much anything from a picture, hairstyles, curtains, cakes, etc.
I used to have a really good memory (they called my raingirl at work) until I had kids n they stole my brain also have a high Iq and used to attend special Mensa classes in school they were weird

I am totally demoralised by this thread because I have no special talents or superpowers like this at all. I am quite good at spelling but so are lots of people.

@Thisgroupneverceasestoamazeme

Sadly not my ‘talent’ but I know two people who can make themselves fanny fart on command

that used to be a game played by southern belles in southern USA....its called queefing

I have an odd talent. I can guess people's dates of birth even if I just met them. I have to be drunk, but I have some strange perception thing like they shout it at me!!

In a club in tge 80's drunk with friends. In walk 4 guys all work at ITV studios nearby. We're all having a laugh. They're trying g yo get one of them to take to see Top Gun cos I'm the only one who hasn't seen it. So I cut across saying I can guess all your birthdays. I do including saying to the last one, omg you're exactly a year older than one of my mates (pointing at her). He goes over to her asks her dob abd she tells him. He is exactly a yearolder than her. He I'd tge least drunk of us all and accuses Top Gun guy of telling me their birthdays. Top Gun guys says I don't know your birthdays. My mates and I are in bits laughing. It's late, so we and decide to leave., say goodbye end of.

I did it a few mire times at Uni. Not tested it for years, but still feel it's there...!

Aww, posting that made me remember how much I used to love the Conti Club in Manchester...!

I am a crack shot with a bare bow.

I am another one with a skilled, interesting and endlessly unusual job. It requires being very low key, for example my Dad thinks I work in the 'secretarial pool' lol. All my friends and family think I have a boring office job.

The OH is the only one that knows, but his job is just as unusual and also requires being very low key. He just tells everyone he works in IT.

So everyone thinks we are this Howard and Hilda, quiet, boring, grey middle aged couple when actually we are not, at all.

Sigh, the stories we could tell.

I’ve got an IQ of 165. This surprises me, to be fair.

I wish you could give me tips

I can still do some pretty good ballet moves at nearly 60, but only in secret and around the house. God forbid anyone ever caught me😁

@Coffeemaniac

I can read as fluently upside down as the right way up. My brain seems to turn it round for me.

It’s only through reading this thread that I have realised apparently some people CAN’T do that

I have the measurements by eye thing as well. I can have left overs and know which container it will fit in perfectly. I can know the measurements of something just by looking at it. This is handy in my made to measure ladieswear job. I can see a 2D sketch and visualise it in 3D form. I can see furniture in a shop and then look in a room and know if it's the perfect fit or not.
But my large spacial awareness is awful! Can't get around a city I don't know without getting lost and rubbish with map reading.

@DevonSunsets

I am a crack shot with a bare bow.

I am another one with a skilled, interesting and endlessly unusual job. It requires being very low key, for example my Dad thinks I work in the 'secretarial pool' lol. All my friends and family think I have a boring office job.

The OH is the only one that knows, but his job is just as unusual and also requires being very low key. He just tells everyone he works in IT.

So everyone thinks we are this Howard and Hilda, quiet, boring, grey middle aged couple when actually we are not, at all.

Sigh, the stories we could tell.

I did bare bow archery at school in the dark ages and turned out to have a knack for it. I loved it and would like to go back to it but my neck/back shoulder won't allow. I love that feeling when your chest opens and you feel the power go into the bow

I don't have any which are as impressive as the ones above. Once in a pub there was one of those awful punch and test your strength machines, I hit harder that thing than anyone, all the bricklayers, builders, gym addicts. 5ft2 pacifist.

I can talk with my mouth fully closed so it sounds like there's a tiny woman trapped in there.

I do it as a party trick for children, but tbh it's clearly a superior talent wasted on them

@NotPennysBoat I’m the same. I’m useless with names but always remember birthdays. Most days I’ll often wake up and think oh, it’s so and so’s birthday today - it’ll be someone I went to infant school with that I haven’t seen in 35 years. Not very useful.