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?)

@RantyAunty

I'm a natural systems thinker.

Me too. I did a diploma in systems thinking (systems practice) with the Open University (DipSysPrac) as part of my OU degree. I loved the whole course and its been very useful at home and work.

I don't tell people either, because then you have to explain what it means!

A couple of years ago I taught myself to match bet one afternoon then proceeded to fleece £8k from the gambling organisations before most of them banned me. I suppose my talent is I have self control and knew when to stop. I have a job as a lecturer so didn't need the cash really so not sure why I did that.

I feel rather inferior compared to you lot of high achievers and very focused people but one post reminded me that I am very good at remembering dates. I’m also excellent at tidying and organising junk. Neither skill is that useful or interesting but still,
One day I hope to have enough ficus to become great at something worth writing home about…

Another ex-singer here. When I sang for hours and hours each week I had a really terrific voice, but then I had depression and couldn't sing at all for about a year (not even to myself around the house). I've done the odd choir course since then but my voice gets tired very quickly - no stamina. I miss singing, but I miss needing to sing even more. I just don't have the space or inclination for it. I still get a lot of compliments when I do sing, though, which is nice.

I'm also bizarrely good at mazes. Put me in a maze and I'm in and out again in a flash. This has never come in useful, although I am quite good in new places/big buildings at remembering how I've got somewhere.

I also associate numbers with colours, so I find it quite easy to glance at sudokus and get a feel for which numbers are missing from the overall aesthetic of the 3x3 square or the row/column.

Finally: the missing vowels round on Only Connect. My housemate would always just sit with his mouth open when we watched it and I just banged the answers out one after another.

I can calm any situation...have stopped a man being stabbed in a bar fight, a mother threatening to burn down a school etc. I work with children and frequently am given the SEBD children as mine is the only company they remain calm in. I don't know what I do differently but it works.

I can also "smell" colours and "see" sounds it's called Synesthesia

In day to day life i have an awful memory (aka if i don't right it down it doesn't happen) so by result i'm super organised.

However, if i've listened to and sung a song once, i can pretty much sing it again word for word even if i don't hear it again for many years. I can also often sing along with a song i've never heard before and be able to predict the lyrics.

I do also have a brilliant singing voice. Never done anything professional and am incredibly insecure about it hence why i never mention it.

Im an amazing speed reader. I can read most books in less than 3 hours and tell you the whole story. Also, i have never spelled a word wrong in my life.

I can mirror write faster and neater than my normal handwriting. You can only read what I’ve written if you hold it in front of a mirror (or happen to have a talent for reading mirror writing!)
I can also do some great singing impressions and can do any accent in the world.
I can also learn any song on guitar or piano just from listening to it a few times. - can’t read a single note of music though!

I’m trained for the ministry but just after finishing Bible College I needed a job straight away and being a single parent took up the offer of a cleaning job at my DS school because of the hours and I’d be at home when she was so didn’t need child care. Now ten years later I do breakfast club and lunchtime too.
I can also name most wild flowers!

@DrJackDaniels

I can mirror write faster and neater than my normal handwriting. You can only read what I’ve written if you hold it in front of a mirror (or happen to have a talent for reading mirror writing!) I can also do some great singing impressions and can do any accent in the world. I can also learn any song on guitar or piano just from listening to it a few times. - can’t read a single note of music though!

the mirror writing is interesting. I had spinal surgery, it went wrong so couldn't use my dominant hand. I learned to write with my non-dominent hand and to me it looked perfectly good, except it wasn't. it was true mirror writing. I cant explain this.

Wow that is strange, especially as it is just after surgery. Similar to when people have been in comas and then wake up speaking in a different accent! I’ve always been able to do it so can’t pin point an exact time.

I'm like Notpennysboat - I have this weird facility to remember people's birthdays even if we've only met once ( I'm also in charge of sending out stuff to DH's siblings & their children even though they don't reciprocate and I'm an only child. Rant over...)

I'd have said I wasn't particularly talented before I read this. But if you play me the first few notes of a song written within my lifetime, I can name the song, the month and year it was released and probably what I was wearing when I first heard it.

I can mirror write as easily as writing normally.

I was bumped up from reception class to top class infants due to my ability to read and write, my teacher gave me a book and I read it to her. My mum swears she never taught me as she believed in learning through play, so I probably picked it up via telly or whatever.

However, I can't see numbers. They jump about and make no sense.

I'm a decent artist but rarely show people in real life because most of what I draw these days is commissions so doesn't reflect my actual tastes very well.

I am very good at coming up with explanations. My DP gets very bothered by plotholes in TV series and books, but whenever she brings them to me I can usually reel off a satisfying explanation without hesitation.

Actually....thinking about it, I rarely showed my art to people even before I took commissions because draw a lot of muscular and beautiful men...and I'm a lesbian. It's too complicated to explain how men are super fun draw, while holding zero real life sexual appeal.

I’m really good at telling if people aren’t good people. It sounds completely woo and insane, so I would never tell anyone. But I see a colour, or pick up an energy. There are so people I’ve encountered with a dark cloud and just being near them makes me feel physically uneasy.
It doesn’t happen all the time, but I’ve thought it about people that everyone else really likes and then had it proved right something much later on.
It works the other way too, I feel upon meeting someone like a feeling of rushing ahead and rushing back to myself and just knowing: “this is a good person”.
It’s obvious why I don’t tell anyone this.

I had a problem with a really unpleasant and rude neighbour. The first time I met her, she was friendly enough, but I just felt so flustered and off balance during every interaction. I just couldn’t feel comfortable. When I went inside her house, I just felt even worse.
This person grew to be outright rude to us and now openly despises us. I FELT that feeling while grocery shopping and I just knew it, she was in the next aisle. It wasn’t even our local store, it was 30 mins away!

Our other hippy neighbour commented to me: “there’s a dark energy coming from that house”.
I don’t know what it is that I’m/we’re sensing, whether I can feel her feelings of unhappiness? Or she’s projecting hatred at me?

It’s all so woo, but yes, I can feel her before I see her, and it’s awful.

This person is incredibly nice and generous to others and kind of a queen bee school Mum. But something is not right there.

@DrivingHomeChristmas

Are you a milionaire?? Anyone would hire you for help I'm sure! This is the most useful skill I've ever heard of. Please do a thread on this!!!

I can imprint a view in my mind like a photograph and examine it later.

For example if we went somewhere together and you asked me about it later, I would recall the picture in my head and could count the number of people on the room, tell you what exact items were on the table, who was wearing what etc.

It's like an exceptional memory but visually recorded.

It used to be incredibly useful for revising for exams. I'd create everything I needed to know on one page of revision notes and then in the exam just effectively copy it word for word off the photo of the page in my head.

@Botanica

I can imprint a view in my mind like a photograph and examine it later.

For example if we went somewhere together and you asked me about it later, I would recall the picture in my head and could count the number of people on the room, tell you what exact items were on the table, who was wearing what etc.

It's like an exceptional memory but visually recorded.

It used to be incredibly useful for revising for exams. I'd create everything I needed to know on one page of revision notes and then in the exam just effectively copy it word for word off the photo of the page in my head.

Photographic memory. My DM has it and I wish I'd inherited it. So useful.