Things you enjoy doing but you know you're absolutely terrible at

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Hey there Escapists.

You like this thing. You have fun doing it and people around you have fun too. There's just one thing.

You suck at it. A lot. You should be getting frustrated and yet it doesn't bother you.

Why do you think that is? What is this game or activity you're bad at?

For me its badminton. I'm terrible at it but I weirdly enjoy it, even when I'm getting my ass handed to me. I don't have an explanation for it. Maybe I enjoy the challenge? Even being laughed at doesn't bother me, as long as it isn't malicious.

I haven't been able to play casually with friends for a number of years but I was thinking about it today for no reason.

Do you guys have things like this in your life?

 

[MysticSlayer]

My naturally competitive and perfectionist attitude makes it very hard for me to enjoy something if I'm not good at it. Still, I'd say basketball fits very nicely. Regardless of being tall enough and athletic enough to play the sport, I've never been able to get into the mindset to play it well, and I'm a horrible shooter when under pressure. Still, I'll always play a game if I feel my body can handle it, which unfortunately has become less common ever since sustaining a couple serious injuries a few years ago.

 

[Aris Khandr]

League of Legends, sometimes. I know I'm awful. I can barely handle Beginner level AI. I frequently either overextend or play way too conservatively and thus never do anything useful. Combine that with the fact that I hate, hate, hate, hate PvP in any form that isn't "Play a game against your friends", and by all rights I should despise LoL. Yet I enjoy myself, even when dragged into the PvP nonsense by my more aggressive friends. I'm certainly never in any hurry to hop into a PvP match, but the game is enjoyable enough that I don't hate it completely.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I'm actually pretty terrible at baking, even though I love doing it.
It usually takes me a few attempts to get it right, I've thrown away countless cakes and cupcakes because of failed experiments, they haven't risen properly or they've burnt or look wonky or overfilled... sigh ;;
It's disheartening but I keep going and I feel like I've gotten better with practice. I still makes lots of mistakes.

My problem is, even when I think I'm good at something, I look at people better than me and feel like a bag of shite.

I outright refuse to google cosplays of characters close to the time of me publicly wearing the cosplays because I think mean look shoddy as hell compared to them. On reflection, my cosplays looks like garbage anyway D:

 

[Barbas]

Minecraft. I can never seem to stick to a grand building project for long enough, but I keep going back to it over and over again regardless.

 

[username sucks]

Writing poetry and stories. I like to set myself thinking without really setting a goal, so I just grab myself a pen and my notebook and start writing. When I look back at what I wrote, I think that there isn't much structure or pattern to much of it. To me it looks like it would be horrible to read, but I still cannot force myself to follow any guidelines when I try to express myself in writing.

My poems have are metered and rhyming only when I am inspired to make them so. My stories jump from third person to first, because what I really see the writing as is watching to see what the character's I created will do and think in a given situation. I enjoy it. I don't care about sharing it (although I have shared a couple of my poems here), and I care even less if those who read it enjoy it. It is the writing I care about, and I will write more terrible things for some time to come.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Bowling for me. I'm very lucky if I can break 150 points, and am routinely either last or second to last among my friends, but I still love playing. It's just fun to play and goof around even if you're losing.

 

[Elfgore]

Pool and Bowling. I can sometimes get a good game of pool and bowling, but usually I downright suck. It's still one of my two favorite things to do with friends.

 

[tippy2k2]

Just about any sport.

I love sports. Like...a lot. If you can play it, I most likely love it. Soccer and Tennis are my two favorites but if I can compete in it, I likely would love to join your league.

I KNOW what my body should be doing and how to do it. Unfortunately, my body does not have the ability to do what my mind tells it to. This is large part my fault (fatty!) and slightly my bodies fault (Asthma and leg issues have plagued me for my entire life)...

 

[Silvanus]

Bowling for me. I'm very lucky if I can break 150 points, and am routinely either last or second to last among my friends, but I still love playing. It's just fun to play and goof around even if you're losing.

This. Bowling. I'm a mediocre or worse-than-mediocre player, but there's something about it that's so inherently fun. Rolling balls at sticks.

In most cases, I can be insufferably competitive, and hate losing. But not bowling.

 

[shrekfan246]

Everything.

Writing, I'm far too meandering or rushed and can come up with grand overall lore far easier than specific moment-to-moment events. And I'm just the worst at dialogue. Like you don't even know. But it's still what I'd ideally like to make a living out of eventually. (Maybe I'm not the absolute worst ever, but I'm hyper paranoid about it anyway.)

Playing the guitar, my dexterity seems to be pretty limited, which in itself is a problem. Partly because of that I've also never really tried actually committing chords to memory, and mostly just play silly little riffs that I think sound neat.

Video games, I'm the worst. My APM isn't high enough for most RTS games, my long-term tactical thinking isn't really strong enough for turn-based strategy games, RNG in RPGs always seems to favor the enemy rather than me, and I can't twitch aim in shooters at all, on PC or console. Puzzle games often seem to elude me in the more abstract yet simple sections as well.

 

[Bernzz]

Playing guitar. I've been doing it for about seven months now, and I'm terrible.

I like doing it enough, and I'd love to be really good at it one day (hey, it's my only life goal), but my lack of motivation for anything means I don't practice as often as I should.

 

[Stryc9]

I'm actually pretty terrible at baking, even though I love doing it.
It usually takes me a few attempts to get it right, I've thrown away countless cakes and cupcakes because of failed experiments, they haven't risen properly or they've burnt or look wonky or overfilled... sigh ;;
It's disheartening but I keep going and I feel like I've gotten better with practice. I still makes lots of mistakes.

Don't feel bad, at least your cakes don't look like these. [http://www.cakewrecks.com/] If you can find it you should watch episodes of Good Eats, it delves into the science of the food that's being cooked on a given episode and the baking ones helped me out quite a bit.


I'm pretty terrible at multiplayer in RTS games but when I'm playing with the right people I'll still do it. I haven't done in a long time though.

 

[babinro]

Being a DM in D&D.

To be specific, I have some major strengths and flaws as a DM. I'm pretty good when it comes to making a good combat and ensuring combat runs smoothly as I'm well organized. I also consider myself to be a good/fair judge at making quick rulings to keep the game going smoothly.

I absolutely suck at storytelling, creating atmosphere, and role play ESPECIALLY when any of it is unplanned/unscripted. I love to DM but I've never gotten my players invested in the story beyond their immediate combat implications.

 

[mistahzig1]

Playing videogames actually.

I'm terrible at it. Only play at the easiest level of play available.

But then again, I play games for the immersion factor and not the skill/being-better-then-others-in-online-play.

 

[Harley Q]

World of Warcraft, I have a level 90 Draenei frost mage, who was initially a fire mage, but because the DPS of fire mages is so crappy I had to say farewell to my beloved flames and embrace the change and icicles. I didn't even know what DPS was until my boyfriend told me. I had been kicked out of a dungeon because my DPS was too low[i/]

I play for the enjoyment of the story and character, not to have the best super duper firework spinning diamond encrusted helm and whatnot. Also I just wanted to be a fire mage, destroying enemies with fireballs, because fire is awesome.

 

[Harley Q]

World of Warcraft, I have a level 90 Draenei frost mage, who was initially a fire mage, but because the DPS of fire mages is so crappy I had to say farewell to my beloved flames and embrace the change and icicles. I didn't even know what DPS was until my boyfriend told me. I had been kicked out of a dungeon because my DPS was too low[i/]

I play for the enjoyment of the story and character, not to have the best super duper firework spinning diamond encrusted helm and whatnot. Also I just wanted to be a fire mage, destroying enemies with fireballs, because fire is awesome.

 

[Mersadeon]

Singstar. Seriously, I love playing that with friends, but I don't think I have ever won even a single duel, and if I have ever won a duet, then because of the other person. I am awful at it. It doesn't help that I fall right between two of the "voice presets" the game accepts, so I always have to either go really, really low or strain to get a bit higher.


Aaaand also Real Time Strategy games á la C&C and Starcraft - I love playing them, but I play them my way. The wrong way. So I mostly end up against the AI.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I love playing video games but I absolutely suck at [/i]completing[/i] video games. I can beat a game on lower difficulty settings (provided it's a game from about the PSX or PS2 era on) but I can almost never get through a game on SUPER DEVIL HELL mode. Then there are multiplayer games that I can't even log into and thus, will never get to experience at all but that's more a limitation on my end because of a combination of hardware and, internet connectivity...and time (I don't think anybody is playing the original Darkness online anymore...I'm only missing one achievement for it). This is kind of why I'm starting to love games by Clover and Platinum though...I went from being horrible at Wonderful 101 to being just passably good at Wonderful 101; you can tangibly track out your progress from scrub to awesome...I remember that being the case for Revengance and, Viewtiful Joe...apparently that's why people loved God Hand too back in the day.

 

[Weaver]

Probably playing guitar. I've been playing on and off for like... well over half of my life.
I still love picking it up and noodling around, but having completely forgotten almost all of my music theory I feel inherently limited and unprofessional. Also, I'm just not that good. I'm not that fast, I sometimes struggle with things that should be easy for someone who has technically been playing as long as I Have, but I still love playing.