We all have talents. Some people who can’t sing, draw, or perform on stage will tell you that they are not talented, but that’s not correct at all. Talents come in all forms and shapes, and if you can make total strangers feel comfortable around you in your first meeting, that’s your talent. It may take you some time to discover your hidden talents — because we usually don’t know where to look — but once you do, put them to good use and wear them proudly.
But even if you can’t do something naturally, there is always a way to learn it. In fact, everyone around you, from your family to school to potential employers to HR, will always encourage you to find some new things to learn, and every skill you have will be celebrated one way or another, right? Well, it turns out, not really. Some unusual skills you have might look really suspicious to others. Even though these weird talents — like being able to precisely remember a conversation that took place two years ago or knowing how to pick the lock of your own house — might not be harmful or dangerous, people will still find it quite bizarre that you can do it.
Users on AskReddit shared their special talents that always result in a couple of raised eyebrows whenever people find out about them. Do you find them suspicious too, or do you have skills that other people deem questionable? In your opinion, what are some cool skills to learn that you would actually spend time on acquiring?
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"Reading body language and being particularly sensitive to people. I have a friend who's so good at it that he knows what you're going to do before it ever even crosses your mind. First time he pulled the whammy on me was when I was just about to look for the remote and he handed it to me."
Growing up in an unstable and abusive household produces these kind of skills. From my own personal experience, you learn very early to read moods, behaviours and second guess a situation.
"Knowing the proper way to dispose of/bury a body, without it being discovered.
Growing up on a ranch, you have animals die. Disposing of the carcass without attracting scavengers and predators to the ranch is a vital skill to have.
I've had a few weird looks from people when watching crime shows where bodies were discovered, and pointing out what they did wrong.
Along with that skill, ranching brings the ability to quickly skin, clean, quarter, and butcher a carcass.
I've learned to just be quiet during those shows."
"Having mentally prepared for chaos or emergency scenarios in your head so when they happen people are shocked that you actually had a plan. An overthinker."
"Walking with minimal sound."
A friend of my Dad's was a Ghurka and whenever he came to stay with us would take great delight in sneaking up and standing behind us so quietly that sometimes it would take us 5 minutes to realise he was there , which sounds scary but actually, he was a really nice guy, who loved all of us dearly. Years later I found out he was part of a unit that operated behind enemy lines in Korea that specialised in hit and run attacks on enemy soldiers, who would camouflage themselves so well that they could get to within 20 ft of an encampment without being detected. I still have a photo taken in about 1952 of 10 Ghurka in camouflage in a jungle. Even now and knowing where they are, I still have difficulty finding them !! Uncle Ron I salute you !!
"Cleaning out stains. I cut my hand pretty badly once and blood got into my white shirt. I tried to clean it myself but the stain never got out. I told my mom who told me to bring it with me when I came back for Christmas break and she cleaned it. By the way, she didn’t even bleach it. Her ability to clean stains so well has since then been suspicious to me."
All the men being confused 😂😂 most women know how to get bloodstaines out of fabric.
"Avoiding people. Everyone assumes I'm up to something because I spend so much time alone and out of sight."
Yeah, and people just want to get into your space to ask you why you're not joining them, what's wrong and all that BS.
"My grandpa, (I swear he was magic) could always find a front-row parking spot for anywhere we went. It didn't matter if people were parking out in the grass. If he drove up to the front there was always a spot. If there wasn't then immediately someone would pull out of their spot to leave. ALWAYS. Sadly, he did not pass down this magic to anyone."
Lucifer comes bearing magical gifts, for a small, tichy tiny, inconvenience of a fee.
"Moving through unreasonably tight and cluttered spaces normally. My friends and I used to hang out at an extremely cluttered warehouse that belonged to a hoarder friend. It was full to the point where moving at all without getting stuck on something or causing a garbage avalanche was difficult.
And there I was just gliding through hills of hoarded garbage like some kind of ghost, they told me it was creepy."
That's a useful skill for working in a crowded bar or a tight kitchen.
"Imagine a guy at work who tells you not to forget your wife's birthday next week. Yea I'm that guy. ADD has thaught me to remember the things I pay attention to."
Yea.... You Will end up in trouble if you keep doing that, thats stalker level of skill, if i had that power i wouldnt say ir to anyone lol.
"Being happy. Everyone always thinks I'm high."
Spatial awareness.
"I can look at something and tell you whether or not it will fit onto a wall, into a box or car, through a hallway or stairwell, etc. I was at a shipping store a few months ago and a guy was in line behind me trying to figure out which size box to get for the box he was trying to fit into it. I pointed at a specific size and said, 'That one, but only if you put your box in this side up.' It slid in perfectly and he gave me the weirdest look."
I've got the opposite of this...I'm the lady with the ranger trying to get a sectional home and not understanding why it won't fit(slight exaggeration
"Being able the strike up a rapport with random people. After someone else see's you do it they act weird like you're a Jedi or something."
"There was a restaurant in a 'Hyatt Hotel' that had a casino, the waiter from that restaurant remembered our preference when we showed up with a friend 6 months later."
"I've forgotten my apartment key to the point that I can pick my own lock. People find that suspicious."
I'm more concerned how low quality the lock must be if you can pick it without special equipment
"Breaking into someone's car. A few years ago I was at a new job and a coworker locked her keys in her car. I got the door open in under a minute. The security guard watched me and had some concerns with the speed at which I opened that car without damaging it."
"Closing the door handle with no sound. I hate it when people just simply close the door making an annoying sound. Can’t you just turn the handle and gently close the door?!"
Thank God, someone else agrees with me. I was starting to think I was the only person left who knows what door handles are for.
"Googling, oddly. People find it unsettling how quickly I can learn stuff that untrained people aren't supposed to know. All I did was google search till I found the info and then gave it a try."
Google is pretty bad as a search engine these days because of their search bubble. startpage.com forwards annonymised searches to the big G and so avoids the bubble. Much better results.
"Being able to recite the alphabet backward with speed."
"Remembering things about them they forgot. I told my friend I was getting a job at a store we know. She told me, 'I think I’ve been there before.' Then I told she has and I repeated the conversation we had, word for word. I got some weird looks from her lol."
I have always done this. I remember tons of random stuff people tell me about their lives, hobbies, etc. I can visualize the conversations really well. It weirds them out because they said it in passing or did not realize I was paying attention. Now I am a mental health counselor. Much of counseling is paying attention and gathering details that might be important later
"Lock picking. My friend got locked out so I grabbed the bobby pins out of my hair and started picking. He thought I was a criminal, it was a master lock."
"Paying attention. I mean when someone is talking, paying them absolute attention - what they are saying, how they are saying it, and why they might be saying it. People don’t like this."
I've had friends like this and it can be mildly unsettling. But as long as you can gracefully pretend not to notice when I'm repeating jokes or anecdotes with you, then we're good!
"Remembering oddly specific details about someone's past."
"Microsoft Excel. I found that by taking over reporting from others because it took them so much time. I’d automate it to pull from the database where the previous owner was spending 2 hours a day copying/pasting hundreds of cells. A couple of hours of work once and I hit a button. Done."
"I will remember your car and every detail about it before I can remember your name."
I have a habit of memorizing not only the make, color, and model of friends' and family's cars, but also part of their license plates, sometimes the whole number. It comes in handy if we have to caravan somewhere since so many cars on the road look a lot alike and I have to follow one particular vehicular doppelganger.
"Winning every game of poker because you know the odds."
"Remembering someone else's schedule."
I can easily do that, if Im interested in that person, when Im interested in someone i kind of become an " information sponge ", apart from that.... You're lucky if i even remember your name.
"Being able to recognize pills. No, I'm not a drug dealer, I just work in a pharmacy and some of them are very recognizable."
"Knife sharpening."
Thats Magic for me, i love blades, but can't sharp a knife to save my life...
"I am super good at lying when the need arises. Like very good on the spot and it freaked out an old friend of mine. I'm just super creative, and have a worst-case scenario mind so I think of a lot of possibilities."
"Good at finding purposely hidden items. Thanks my parents for hiding my devices as a kid."
"Staying calm."
This reminds me of a bad joke I tell at work. We have to wear alarms in case we are put in danger while in the stacks at the library. *Hands alarm to coworker, "here, now you can panic"* it has many variations and all are just as terrible, but I still get smiles 😁
"Being unbothered by blood and guts. I’m a veterinarian. I’ve spent days up to my elbows in all manner of bodies and parts and fluids. I can watch surgery or necropsy videos over lunch."
"Recognizing sounds. I've knowledge of everything happening around me through sounds."
"Being a good listener. People assume you’re a stalker."
My friends just assumed i was gay..... ( And no Im not jocking lmao, untill my late 20s i had " white Knight syndrome " also known as " simp disorder " lol, only got cured after meeting my 1st girlfriend ), still a good listener though, and with a frikking hard drive for a brain.
"Anything with a computer. If you're good enough, with literally anything to do with computers, people will think you're able to hack computers."
"I once got into hydroponics. Of course, none of my friends thought I was just growing kale and tomatoes."
"Counting calories and knowing how many calories are in every food that exists. Not always but typically a sign of an eating disorder."
"Not speaking a lot. Ok, guys, I don't like talking and I don't feel like there is something that requires talking now. That doesn't mean I am plotting something."
"A substantial knowledge of chemicals, who thought being a farmer would give me benefits of chemical knowledge."
You could probably make some pretty powerful IEDs with all the chemicals farmers deal with.
"Sales. When your friends and family realize you can talk people into things for a living, sometimes the sharper ones wonder what you’ve talked them into."
"Opening every jar immediately."
"Not really every day but I'm ridiculously good at finding 4 leaf clovers... It kinda freaks people out when I find 10 in less than 5 minutes. I'm not even a particularly lucky person."
I know a guy like this. Even named his daughter clover. It was nuts, we'd walk into some shamrocks and he'd find at least 2 everytime and I've found 2 my entire life
"Remembering things about people. I've lied about not knowing things to not seem like a creep."
"People that are able to drastically change their personality, or the way they talk and act when around different groups of people or someone else arrives."
I often unconsciously start to mimic whoever I've been spending time with in terms of body language and accent. Or even people from tv-shows I've been binge watching at the time. Can't turn it off really.
"Finding a lot of information about someone online given a small amount of information about said person to go off of."
"Detecting undercover police. You look very criminal. Even if you don't commit crimes. I became very good at it so I could be entertained by the events that would unfold."
"Being too good at forgiving, people think I don't care or prepare my revenge."
"I have a friend who could memorize numbers - esp plates of vehicles. He'd then be able to recall it after months in totally random conversations."
"Shuffling cards."
"Knife tricks."
"Recognizing whether a car is a cop based on their headlights."
"As a security system salesman, it’s literally second nature for me to notice every aspect of someone’s security system at their house. Even if they don’t have one. It’s part of my job as I should know what a potential customer has before I make my pitch. And to be honest, if you own a ring doorbell camera, please don’t put it above your garage door. It looks bad and honestly doesn’t make any sense."
"Starting a fire I would have to say."
Umm??? Great if it's a campfire or fireplace. Not so much if it's arson.
"Firearm knowledge."
This is my dad. He grew up hunting (legally!) and skeet/target shooting. Every time we're watching TV and a gun shows up (doesn't matter which one) he immediately can tell you the make and model along with a brief history. It's uncanny. Yes, I am American, no he's not a criminal. He has done everything gun-related legally with precision. Please don't downvote because my law-abiding dad likes guns!
"Speaking French. There is ALWAYS something suspicious about people who can speak French fluently."
"Tearing boxes. I had a female co-worker who knew how to tear huge boxes like it's nothing. Like in two seconds, there is nothing left out of the box. The first time she did it she got a lot of strange looks."
"Meat trimming."
"Counting bills quickly. Learned when in Uzbekistan, a place where the highest denomination was 1000 but a meal at a restaurant costs 20-30k."
"Telling almost instantly by feel if a bill is real or counterfeit. Though I think more people should definitely be able to do it."
"Remembering specific details about someone's apartment."
"Looking left then right then left then right without turning your head."
Even better if you can do it without moving your eyes. Peripheral vision rocks!
"Swiftly tapping my card and passing through the turnstiles to get to the subway. One time a lady thought I was fare evading because I got through way too soon after she passed through."
"Reading traffic based on sounds, sight, or just the wind. I don't like the noise of the city so I'll drown out the noise and just look straight ahead but move only my eyes. Took a while to learn but I can walk across some of the busiest streets with just a glance at the cars."
I have something, that i call six sense. We often joked in a family that my mother is a witch, but she never did any kind of "magic". Shes a catholic in fact. But i have a same or similar gift. For starters i "feel" (whatever) that means what will happen, even at random or far away events. I helped my close friends with some pains with bioenergotherapy (putting my hand on that spot and concentrating to healing that place), and at some point once i tried i described room that my partner was 200km away with description who was in it, and what was where (not knowing that prior that chilled him to bone). Sometimes i have also prophetic dreams, but those doesent come to realisation years later (but i remember those), and dejavu and feeling of reliving same life is often too. And i can tell instantly if someone is a "bad" person. Everyday i dont give it much thought, but sometime it is useful...
Being able to memorize useless info and exact details of certain incidents but not able to memorize stuff for exams
I hate this about myself. Knowing how to manipulate people. It makes me feel sick, knowing that if I didn't have morals and empathy I could be a successful sociopath. I've been used by a sociopath in my past, and because of her abuse, I have a burning, furious, and enduring hatred for that kind of behavior.
I'm VERY handy; I fix or DIY everything if I have the resources and time. However, I don't tell my friends or advertise it because I don't want to be their handyman; I don't want to fix their leaky pipes for a free dinner or replace parts of their car for a free lunch. I will actually help if I think the friend is that type that would do favors for others (not necessarily to me) or can't afford to hire someone. I also almost always help family if I can.
Being able to memorize useless info and exact details of certain incidents but not able to memorize stuff for exams
I hate this about myself. Knowing how to manipulate people. It makes me feel sick, knowing that if I didn't have morals and empathy I could be a successful sociopath. I've been used by a sociopath in my past, and because of her abuse, I have a burning, furious, and enduring hatred for that kind of behavior.
I'm VERY handy; I fix or DIY everything if I have the resources and time. However, I don't tell my friends or advertise it because I don't want to be their handyman; I don't want to fix their leaky pipes for a free dinner or replace parts of their car for a free lunch. I will actually help if I think the friend is that type that would do favors for others (not necessarily to me) or can't afford to hire someone. I also almost always help family if I can.
