Hyped-up activities that are actually shite.

[DarkestBerty]

Loads of my friends do yoga. It's really relaxing, they say. It's really mindful, they say. It's a good workout without realising you're working out, they say. It's a really nice community of people, they say.

So on Saturday morning I tried it.

It was bloody awful. Everything about it was bloody terrible. It wasn't remotely relaxing or mindful. I wasn't a very good workout and the people were cult-loke lunatics.

And I've felt a bit lightheaded, dizzy, and just not quite myself ever since.

Tell me about activities that everyone seems to have a wide-on for, but which you hated.

I thought this too. A&E Dr here!

Living abroad now I really miss bonfire night! Getting bundled up to go and see fireworks, a big bonfire, have a hot cider and a toffee apple!

Park run. I just can't get into it. I like running, but I can't get into the obsession surrounding PR.

I need to find a way to teleport out of my body so someone else can exercise it while I’m away.

Also spa days and hot tubs. I find 'spas' uncomfortable, boring, fake and overpriced. Can't understand why so many people love them! Hot tubs are just sitting around in bacterial soup with a bunch of other people - very primal, I'm sure, but I'd rather have the chat in a pub.

Any activity that involves any kind of sliding - snow/surf/skate boarding, ski-ing, skating, windsurfing ... I totally get the appeal, the exhilaration, etc, but I can't do it! All winter sports, actually. I fucking hate the cold.

Golf: I don't mind traipsing round the course on a nice day, as long as I'm not expected to play, but people actually pay to watch golf matches! Blimey! It's much more fun to watch ants fetching crumbs to their nest, and I only do that when I'm terminally bored.

You're so right. My go-to crisis relief is at least two bottles of wine in a really comfortable bar, preferably with a sympathetic friend but alone is also good.

Mumsnet wouldn't like that, but I'm happy with the MN-approved alternative of a night away at a decent hotel (where I'll order the two bottles of wine) 🍷🍷

Yes agree yoga is a bit dull
tapas pay almost full price meal price for tiny tasting plates and then you are supposed to share them!
we have someone doing sound baths locally about £20 to go along. I would fall asleep but I find it extraordinary that anyone goes
Fake UK Christmas markets like the ones in London
camping (such hard work)
Photo shoots
places other people go to get drunk
we went on one of those picnic concerts at Kew Gardens once which should have been lovely it was literally vile, the true embodiment of ‘hell is other people’

Never heard of fake pumpkin picking. Is it a national past time. And just why?

Those Christmas "experiences" where you make gingerbread and " reindeer food". It's quite sweet really but then you see the price and it's just ridiculous.

Rounders
Scrabble
Video games

Yoga is an acquired taste. Definitely found it a bit weird at first, plus many different types and teaching styles.

Eating out.
Food is massively expensive and usually disappointing.
And don’t get me started on the wanky lowercase 1 decimal point menu nonsense. I’m so triggered by it that if I read the menu online beforehand and see that I won’t go!! Your “fish and chips 10.5” can get in the bin !!

You've got me on board with reading an Edith Wharton novel. I've read some of her short stories and love them, but to date, only read Ethan Frome which is a novella, IIRC.

I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned it, but fucking walking holidays. I am tired. I want to sit down on a beach in peace. Or I’m staying home in my own bed, with my own food and WiFi

I tried Tai Chi once many years ago. It was so boring! I excused myself with a headache after about 20 minutes. And yet I know that many people find it very beneficial.

NRTWT, but as a pp said, these things are subjective. I don't really enjoy any form of exercise beyond walking and dance (the sort you do at weddings etc) but I appreciate what team sports, swimming, rafting, pony trekking and the rest do for others. My DH used to play badminton regularly with a colleague and I encouraged him. My Dad didn't just like like football, he loved it. It would be impossible to overstate the pleasure it gave him.

I'm not interested in spa days, but I love afternoon tea. I'm in my element in an art gallery or museum. I can happily spend hours browsing in a bookshop (musculoskeletal problems permitting) but I'm aware that not everyone thinks hours spent reading is worthwhile at any level. As long as you spend as much time as possible doing what you enjoy and minimise as far as you can the things you deplore, does it matter what anyone else thinks?

Reformer Pilates for me! Mind numbingly boring. Zumba was similar, thought it was horrible.

Totally concur re: escape rooms, spa days, Halloween, Winter Wonderland type experiences (in UK), Park Run, running generally. Also, culinary fads (matcha).

Great thread. Would be fun to do the reverse, as well: things that are meant to be a bit crap but kind of aren't. E.g.: Evensong. Holidays in Holland.

Paddle boarding. Just boring.

I have seen two types of paddle boarding that impressed me;

1. two ladies of a similar age to me , pootling about the harbour in St Ives, facing each other with a ice bucket between them, drinking wine.
2. A bloke surfing the waves on a paddle board, also in St Ives, he made it look effortless and exhilarating at the same time.

Love open water swimming. Hate spa days, and yoga. And massage - even the thought makes me shudder.

River swimming. Wtf. It's like a bloody cult where we live. People even do it on Christmas Day. Nobody seems to care that there's actual shit floating by...

Start one! ;)

Camping
Work away days
Work secret santa
Any group activity where your grade depends upon the other
Ice breaking exercises

🤣 funny.

Mindfulness. Went to a mindfulness course once as everyone raving about it. End of first session we all had to say what we thought was good about it. I literally said I thought it was a waste of time and that doing it made me so mad I wanted to punch someone. Shocked silence followed. I didn't go back.

The hippy bollox is my favourite 😂 love outdoors yoga or indoors as long as there is hippy stuff. I love yin.

Can't stand yoga as a form of fitness though and would much rather do something else.
Also really not a fan of male yoga teachers, I would never specifically go to them but have been at some where they let a man teach part of the class for his training and they kill the vibe 😂