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 genuinely thought bottomless brunch meant loads of food 😆 good job I’ve never been!

Spa Days and afternoon tea.

Wild swimming. I started following a group on Facebook, it looked great fun, they had tea and cake afterwards. I went along, it was bloody awful, swampy pond water, a lot of mud, squelching around in a damp cossie. Freezing cold.

White water rafting. It looks fun, it should be fun, but it's just a bit tame, even on really good rapids. Every time I fall for it, I come away thinking I really must learn white water kayaking so I can get a proper thrill.

Stadium gigs

But these things are subjective. Some people find yoga life changing, some don't. Some people adore spa days, acai bowls, or wearing Mickey Mouse ears and going on theme park rides. None of the above do anything for me, but that doesn't mean they're shite, it just means they're not my type of thing. Likewise I don't expect any kind of universal approval of tai chi, Aperol Spritz or Edith Wharton novels.

The disappointment the one and only time I went for a bottomless brunch! I was looking forward to cutting years off my life expectancy with piles of crispy bacon. Ended up with avocado on toast and a glass of orange juice (I don't drink alcohol). Now-DH laughed at how indignant I was about the whole thing.

Any “organised fun”.

Any “live music” in restaurants/pubs. Cannot stand it and will leave. It’s always, without exception, absolutely terrible. I’m a music snob which I completely own and regardless of genre, a good performance is a good performance. Someone screaming tunelessly into a microphone is not a good performance.

Escape room. Most boring hour of my life

I also hate yoga, but I do really enjoy Pilates (with the right instructor). I feel relaxed and calm at the end of a session like I suppose yoga people do.

Pedicures- my friends all told me I was missing out by not having them so I caved. What a waste of money! I didn’t enjoy it at all.

Open mic nights are almost always grim.

I like yoga. I have slightly longer than average arms, and slightly shorter than average legs which means I seem disproportionately flexible. I don't get many easy wins when it comes to exercise, so I'm taking that, in addition to the absence of any shouting/motivation from the instructor.

Bottomless brunches, though. I'm getting cheap prosecco acid burps just thinking about it.

Winter Wonderland type events in the UK are my idea of hell. It's impossible to generate that deliciously festive European vibe when it's 18 degrees, hot chocolate is £10 without squirty cream, everything smells of stale oil and bacon, and you're surrounded by thousands and thousands of grumpy Brits warning each other about pickpockets.

I love yoga but does depend on the class and fellow attendees. There are a lot of yoga dicks.

I don't like running (boring), swimming (all the drying faff) & cycling (hurts the bum).

Thought of another one: BIAB nails. Was great the first time, but didn't last nearly so long the second time and looked terrible and scruffy really quickly. Repeat appointments were more expensive than the initial one and it was very hard to get the polish off without an appointment. Really disappointing.

Advent calendars for grown-ups with miniscule samples & sachets of beauty / skincare shite in them.

I don't get the advent calendar love & I
love beauty products. I just don't want a load of shite I won't use because it comes in a pretty drawer.

Styling influencers who are super popular but wear t-shirts and jeans. How is this groundbreaking in any way! 😆

Yoga
open water swimming
spa days
bodypump classes

Bowling in a bowling alley. Ugh!

I love yoga, but strictly the sweat-running-down, arms-shaking type. Not the breathing and stretching type.

+1 for afternoon tea and theme parks.
I’ll add eyelash tinting (lasts 30 minutes on me), one night stands, glass surfaces (fingerprints!), and sun hats (look great, then the hat hair).

rip boat tours
flipping terrifying
you can't see anything because of the water spray and you get shaken so much you need a chiropractor afterwards to get your bones back in their right places.

Live horse racing. You have to stand around for hours doing nothing, then the horses fly past and then you stand around again....I don't even drink!

Also Christmas light trails. Sounds fun in Sep when you book it but who wants to get everyone out when it comes to it on a cold, often wet, Dec evening. You spend a fortune on snacks and fair rides just to shut your bewildered kids up.

Christmas Light Trails are good if you go big. Like, Kew Gardens or bust. We went to one at [venue withheld out of kindness] last year that genuinely looked as if they'd forgotten they were hosting it until the day before, and then had to hightail it to B&Q to get what lights were left. And there weren't many lights left.

Any location with fake flowers all over the walls and neon signs that are purely for 'the gram'.

Escape Room.

Eating really spicy curry to try and look hard.

Running.

Chess.

Sunbathing.

Tai chi

Went to a class at the local gym just to see what it was like. Everyone was very nice and kept asking me how I liked it, I didn't have the heart to tell them I was bored almost to tears.

To cap it all, the end of the session consisted of a circle session where we all had to go round in turn naming songs, or even sing then to the group. No idea what that had to do with Tai chi, but it was completely cringe.