With the start of a new semester, I always seem to forget about the first week of icebreakers that come with making new friends. In theory, these questions should help build a bond, but they are always much less intimidating when you’re the one asking them. Being on the answering end puts my brain into an immediate fight-or-flight state, praying a specific four-word phrase doesn’t leave the other person’s mouth: “What are your hobbies?”
Faced with an awkward open-ended question like that, every instinct tells me to say “I don’t know“ and avoid diving into it, but the funny thing is that I am fully aware of what I like to do for fun. My mind immediately races through the list of things I have recently picked up, like playing pickleball, practicing yoga, embroidering, and running. My hesitation isn’t because I lack options, but because of an unspoken expectation that enjoying something means you must also be good at it. To escape that pressure, I fall back on safe responses like shopping, going to the beach, or hanging out with friends. While I love those things, they aren’t necessarily the unique interests that make me who I am.
The reality is that I have plenty of hobbies; I’m just hilariously bad at many of them. Take pickleball, for instance. During my most recent game, I sprinted for a return, missed the ball, and stepped directly on it, crushing the plastic flat. When embroidering, I envision myself quickly stitching together a Pinterest-level masterpiece, only to flip it over several hours later and realize I’ve somehow tangled the stitches over one another. Even on the treadmill, I feel like an absolute athlete until the song transitions between tracks and I’m stuck facing the music of my own heavy stomps while gasping for air.
So what is the point in me admitting to my unskilled passions, aside from proving a lack of finesse? One thing I’ve picked up from talking about my honest hobbies is that, when shared vulnerably, they break past the surface and do what icebreakers are intended to do. Even when the inevitable question of whether I’m any good at them comes up, being able to laugh and share an embarrassing story gives the conversation somewhere to go. Whether it comes from a shared niche experience or collective laughter, opening up about these moments reminds us that we are all imperfect people trying to make sense of this world. Bonding over those failures is far more meaningful than connecting over a polished answer.
Life already has enough pressures of its own between daily responsibilities, social expectations, and personal goals without turning our hobbies into another thing we have to optimize. Maybe admitting that we aren’t good at them is the first step in remembering that we were never really supposed to be. For me, accepting that I can love a hobby and still be terrible at it has brought back that childlike fun of doing an activity just because I want to. There’s a certain courage in trying something new, despite knowing you might be bad at it. It’s a rarity in adulthood to find a space for rest where there’s no need to compete or come out on top. Thus, we should cling to those hobbies, no matter how “good” we are at them, because somewhere in the process, we might find pieces of ourselves and genuine connections we never expected.