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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   760 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 28, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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It is the day after Thanksgiving; and so I will oblige my Christmas-obsessed wife by bringing up the Christmas decorations from the basement. As I walk through the basement, I see the detritus of many things I tried and abandoned. Mottizens: what hobbies or activities have you given a good honest try, and concluded: "this isn't for me?"

For me we have, for example:

  • Golf: Tennis is the only sport to which I have ever devoted myself. However, a few years ago, I spent a large chunk of time thinking about golf, taking lessons, hitting balls at the driving range etc. Then I picked up a very aggravating hip injury that healed slowly. By the time I was back to normal, my desire to do anything relating to golf had dissipated to zero. I think with this one, I realized that starting at a later age, I would never realistically be able to put in the hours to hit an acceptable skill floor. Worth noting - in contrast to some other ball sports, I seem to have no natural aptitude for this one.

  • Photography & drawing: I took classes in each of these within the last five years. I do take my DSLR along if I go somewhere interesting, and I actually think I can take some good pictures; but that's all. I never come up on a random day off and think, "I'll get the camera out and go take pictures of things." Drawing is similar except I never did acquire facility at it. In general, I don't think I'm a very visual person; none of the hobbies that I have kept involve creating anything with visually pleasing outputs.

  • Scuba diving: I did all the classroom and pool portions of the PADI cert, and then got bored with it and stopped. I think this is just because I live in the Midwest; if I lived by a large body of water maybe I'd carry on, but as it stands, it's too inconvenient to pursue this. But I also don't think I was as into it as my peers in the class. As is, I suppose, typical for a hobby you try and drop, I only thought, "This is kind of neat," not, "I love this!"

-- Golf. I haven't technically "quit" golf, I still have the clubs and if an opportunity comes up to play I take it, but I've pretty much stopped practicing or thinking I'm going to get much better at it. It's not a bad way to spend a few hours, but I just can't seem to get any good at it. I'm a consistently inconsistent 100.

-- Stand up paddleboarding. I bought a nice inflatable, and it is nice that I can drive it somewhere and go out on the water better than trying to haul a hard sided kayak, but I only use it like once a year. It seemed neat, but ultimately it's kind of a janky way to get around, and only works well in perfect conditions.

-- Realistically, guns. I have a bunch of them, I don't shoot as much as I should. I have a nice target pistol, I have a nice bull barrel .22, both gifts from a champion target shooter friend. I'm embarrassed of my skill level relative to my equipment. And the worst part is, I can shoot in my parents backyard.

-- Every two years or so, I think that I need to actually learn spanish or french. I'm an indictment of the American language education: I took foreign languages in school from ages 10-22, and never learned more than the rudiments of anything. And every few years, I decide I need to fix that. I never make it. Books, duolingo, video courses. Just never happens for me.

-- Outdoor Rock climbing. I got into climbing in the gym, and I bought all the outdoor stuff because that's the cool version. Turns out, I hate spending all damn day fucking around to do two climbs and fail on a third. I'm a gym bunny. I'll probably end up with the same feeling about BJJ tournaments if I ever actually enter one.

-- Video games. Everyone talks about how much they enjoy video games, but I haven't really played one since WoW WotLK. Periodically I will download a well reviewed game, but they never stick, I just can't get stuck in on anything for years now. It's weird because all the autists I hang out with tell me how they all love these things, and I just can't seem to figure them out. At least I haven't been dumb enough to buy a console.

-- It's not exactly something I've started and quit, so much as something I look into every year and then don't start, but every season I look up local Autocross races and what I need to do to enter. Never do it.

Playing bass guitar, it took me about 6-7 years until I properly gave up.

I love the drums as a musical instrument and several times I tried to learn them, including one attempt with in person classes. I couldn't stick to practicing with the lame drum pad, so I bought a used edrum kit on Craigslist thinking that the realistic sound would be more enjoyable. It was, and I continued with a few online lessons with the kit, but I didn't enjoy the lessons all that much and one day I sat on the throne and wondered why I was even bothering to do this and what I hoped to achieve. I couldn't really come up with an answer and I never touched the kit again.

I think it's hard to learn an instrument unless you intend to play with people (or you're an Asian kid on that grind) and I didn't have anyone to play with.

There must be other hobbies like this in my past, but I usually obsessively get rid of stuff I'm not using so they don't come to mind - although the kit is still in the house.

Learning an instrument is primarily about having fun while sucking and embarrassing yourself. This continues once you start playing with other people, and then is given a new form and scope when/if you perform in front of an audience. There's also a lot of discomfort along the way. Yet I'm compelled to continue doing it, it's really unusual.

Good post!

  • Astronomy: I bought a cheap telescope some time after graduating from high school. I put it together and had fun realizing I could look at the neighbors really, really closely. However, looking at the moon didn't go so well. I don't remember if it was blurry or if there was no picture at all or what, but I remember being dissatisfied, and the lens changes I could think of only made the problem different. I think I resolved to look further into the matter sometime, but in practice, the telescope has sat in the garage ever since. I wonder what I should do with it.
  • 3D Printing: I got really excited about making a FGC 9, so I bought an Ender 3 to make it happen. But the assembly got me. I spent a couple hours putting it together, but eventually, I had no idea how the wheels were supposed to be mounted. I took a picture and sent it in to reddit, and they were helpful, but they also said that I had marked the wheels up and that I now had to order new ones, because those ones were gonna hitch up when printing stuff. I ordered them, but as I waited for them, I lost my motivation, and that, too, just sat there. The outcome was different from the telescope, though. Because it was sitting in my room, I had a hard time looking at my failure every day, so I offered it to my geology professor, who I was pretty good friends with. I sold it to him for cheap, something like $40, and gave him all my filament. When I next checked in on him, he told me he actually had gotten it to work on some long Sunday. "I kept thinking 'there's no way I have the part for this', but every time, I would find the part in the box," he said. The difficulties he had putting it together made me think I never would have been able to do it myself; he described needing to shim it and measure things carefully. His wife was quite thrilled he got it working, though, and immediately started getting him to print out miniatures and card holders and whatnot for her tabletop gaming stuff. Finally, he handed me the only thing I requested, the only thing I had interest in besides guns, three really loud 3D printed whistles. While I didn't manage to put the 3D printer together myself, I do think it had a nice ending.

I found that a good pair of binoculars was a better entry point to amateur astronomy than a cheap telescope. They are more portable, you can still get nice views of things like Jupiter's moons or the Andromeda galaxy, and they are handy for other hobbies like birdwatching if you get bored and want a change.

Sounds nice! Do you have a recommendation?

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