‘What’s a skill almost everyone thinks they’re good at until they meet someone who’s actually great at it?’ – 21 things we all suck at, actually

Being a ‘jack of all trades’ means being pretty good at a lot of things, but not an expert in any of them, and that probably sums how most of us think about ourselves up pretty well.

But it’s not until we come across someone who is a genuine master of a particular skill that we realise that, in fact, we’re not genuinely good at said skill at all.

Over on the AskReddit page, Wise_March_268 asked this…

What’s a skill almost everyone thinks they’re good at until they meet someone who’s actually great at it?

And lots of people chipped in with the stuff we’re all actually pretty ham-fisted at, like this…

1.

‘For a lot of dudes: fighting.’
–heretoseewhats

2.

‘It’s easy to think you’re a good storyteller until you meet someone who is actually a good storyteller and you realise they can just hold court to basically any group of people at the drop of a hat.’
–zyrkseas97

3.

‘Singing. It’s really easy to tell difference between someone who enjoys singing and an absolute pro.’
–f4snks

4.

‘Musical instrument. I was considered really good in high school. Went to University of North Texas for Jazz Studies and realised I was pretty average.

‘There were so many fantastic musicians. I was pretty humbled. After a year of music school, changed to computer information systems. Had a good career with that.’
–GotSeoul

5.

‘Teaching. You don’t only need to be well versed in the subject matter. You have to be able to effectively explain that information based on the specific audience in front of you.’
–Stinky-Camel

6.

‘Acting. It looks all natural and straight forward. I’ve done some self-tapes and done some acting and discovered that it’s really hard to appear natural.’
–1tacoshort

7.

‘Photography, because folks with an iPhone think they are Ansel Adams.’
–Elegant-Editor-4789

8.

‘If you are of a certain age, Super Smash Brothers or Mario Kart. Everyone had that one guy in their group that just demolished everyone else in the group. Then you went to a party and people were playing and you watched your friend get destroyed.’
–anix421

9.

‘Anything thats played casually. Cornhole, bowling, darts. People do pretty good playing against their buddies at the bar, but showing up to a an actual competitive league or tournament is eye opening.’
–PresentBeverage

10.

Comedy is one of those things where sure, you can be funny among your family and friend group whose senses of humors you know. But doing so up on stage night after night trying to figure out what makes strangers laugh sounds like a literal nightmare.’
–swanson_theory

11.

‘Driving. Everyone thinks they are well above average.’
–Callec254

12.

‘Governing and specifically budget decisions. I’m not sure there is ever really a moment where the average person meets an elected official and gets a real conversation out of it.

‘But a majority of people believe government is easy and solutions are simple because they don’t understand the complexity of how tax dollars are spent.’
–gemmacosta