Something you're just good at with minimal effort and/or you learned much more quickly than average.
For me, it's paper snowflakes. My brain just seems to effortlessly figure out what cuts to make to the paper wedge to make it turn out exactly how I want it. Largely useless, but good fun and was a much-needed ego boost when I was a kid :]
I have an excellent sense of time and space, i can accurately tell how much time and distance I’ve gone without tools. Im great to bring along for a hike.
I am a really quick reader compared to most people. Doesn't sound that amazing and it's certainly not unique, but it comes really handy. Always helped me with exams, as I got some precious minutes more to actually work instead of reading. I can go through books and articles really fast. Retention is not amazing, I'd say it's about the same as when most people read in their normal speed.
I really envy the people that can read quickly and retain everything. But I am also content with being relatively quick.
Sure you think paper snowflakes are useless but wait for an elementary school play to need set design and they will crawl in their hands and knees to rescue them 😉
i can stop my own hiccups at will 100% of the time
i have always lucid dreamed since as far back as i can remember, i genuinely believed that everyone experienced sleep like that until i was in my mid-twenties
Chess. I’ve been playing since I was a kid, and sometimes I’ll create new accounts on chess websites to see how quickly I’ll get them rated to 2000+. I’m living proof that chess players aren’t that smart though because I’m a dumbass when it comes to literally anything else.
I have unusual muscle control - I can make my eyebrows and knees dance, plus I am a regurgitator. Not as good as Stevie Starr but enough to have a disgusting party piece. I am disappointed that I never mastered the art of the flatulist.
I'm good at puzzles, particularly like jigsaw puzzles, but also games like flow where you match the pipes. I can sometimes do it so quickly I don't understand how I know what I'm doing, it's more like instinct.
I’m really good at getting cats to vocally respond to me. I don’t know if I’m just on their wavelength or what, but almost every time I start a convo with a kitty I get a response. Oddly specific, but also pretty fun. Kids love it lol.
Very fast reflexes and I can see in the dark far better than most people.
I had never realized that my eyes were different until my compulsory miltary service. I could reasily read maps when others couldn't see shit and I never stumbled during night training in the forest.
Fast reflexes are generally pretty cool to havel, but it's not fun when a knife falls off the kitchen table and it is impossible to stop your own hand trying to catch it.
My "learned talent" is fixing mechanical devices. When I was 6 or 7 I took apart and fixed the family VCR so I could finish watching the Smurfs. My mom found me studying the jammed mechanism, with all the parts lying on the living room carpet. She had a fit and wanted to collect the parts away, I started crying and told her that I'll never get it back together if she messes up their places. She watched as I released the stuck tape wheel and reassembled the device. And it worked.
I've fixed countless devices with just visual analysis and pure intuition after that.
I am literally unable to remember people's faces. If you talk to me, go for a walk, and come back ten minutes later, I won't recognize you.
Once, the guy who sat next to me at university for two years, and with whom I spent countless time together, took the same bus as me. I hopped on the bus, saw him, and my brain told me "Uh, that's kind of a familiar face, I guess". I smiled to him (because he looked familiar), then I passed him and and went to sit some rows behind.
He's made fun of me ever since.
The worst thing is, I work at the front desk of a hotel. I always struggle to remember who's who. Sometimes I recognize their shirt, their hair, their voice, or I see a family with two kids and remember "oh yeah, they're from room 210". But most of the time, I must ask them to remind me which room they are, even if they checked-in just ten minutes before.
I've got a competent and authoritative voice. People frequently assume I'm the most qualified in a group when I'm really objectively not as soon as i start speaking. Whatever I say or decide rarely gets questioned and people just keep letting me do stuff. When something is my word against another's, people believe me.When I say something is needed, it's done. When I make a proposal, that's usually what's agreed on and done without me really trying to push it.
I can look at a small open space (trunk, corner of a room, shelves, etc) a and then look at the item I need to fit in that space and say with a decent amount of confidence "yeah that'll fit perfectly" or "that's gonna be slightly too big"
I can smell extremely well. Can tell where coworkers / family members were (like on the staircase, in a room etc), recognize which seasoning is used in foods, that sort of stuff. Every once in a while I try to follow scents like a dog but it doesn't work out that well.
On an unrelated note, I hate taking the subway, especially on hot days for uhh reasons.
Also I can hear pretty good, my friends use me as sound radar in Audio-Direktion heavy FPS games like Tarkov or back then PUBG.
My eyesight is pretty bad tho, probably for Balancing.
I'm pretty good at sensing the emotions of people around me. It's not magic like some people think, but an obsessive awareness of small facial and body movements.
Oh, and writing dialogue is super easy for me, not sure why some people have a hard time with it.
My ex-wife was a medical nightmare, so I got really used to be around ambulances, ERs, etc. As a result of that, I'm calm in (some) emergencies. I'm the guy on the phone calmly explaining the situation to 911 while I watch a pool of blood slowly creep towards my feet.
Also, I can splice bezier curves together seamlessly, while typing in the x,y coordinates by hand.
Running. I'm pretty fit and I work out (retty much only bouldering tho). Despite running on average once a month I can run a 45 min 10k. I think if I actually trained for running I could be pretty good but I just prefer climbing as a sport.
Drawing, painting and sculpture in general. I guess with AI advancing as it is, these skills are becoming more and more useless every minute but that's what I got.
I've sat on a potter's wheel twice in my life and both times the instructors seemed impressed at the results. "It's said people like you were potters in a past life". But I didn't become a potter or ceramist in this life, so...
I recently discovered I can use an angle grinder with a level of precision and finess most people take some time to develop.
From free hand cutting straight lines into pretty much anything that can be cut, to precise cut of stone, cement or even metal.
I was dead afraid of this particular power tool for all my life and only when forced to use one to do some repairs around the house I discovered I could handle it so easily.
Super flexible biological clock - I dont get jetlag - at all. I can fly half way round the world non-stop and get off at the other end and just carry on with my day, go to sleep when its night time at my destination. I also find shift work really easy, as long as I get some sleep at some time before or after I'm good. I can also turn sleeping on/off as required. I should have had a job that required a lot of travel
I have a strong visual sense. I can create movies in my head, and skits. Helps with art and writing.
Also, I'm emotionally intelligent. Unfortunately I'm also incredibly sensitive/and a cry baby. :/
Having an ear for new languages and their pronunciation- I can memorize vocab and grammar quickly but what makes a big difference is being able to parse a conversation and pick out the pieces I don't know or didn't know until I heard it used. It makes it easier to dive in and learn as I go, which is so much faster, but unfortunately it also means I dabble a lot because I'm always wanting to try a new language.
I'm polarizing, both in a good and a bad way, and I always have been.
No matter where I've been or what I've been doing, people tend to remember me. I've ran into teachers decades after I was in their classrooms and they instantly called me by name and remembered something I said or did in class. Same thing with old jobs. When I started teaching, some of the office staff instantly said "welcome back!"
Even casual acquaintances seem to pick me out quickly. Last week a random person I admittedly didn't remember myself said "I remember you at Borders" (back when that bookstore chain existed) and remembered an argument I made and how heated it got about what was (at the time) my controversial opinion that refinancing mortgages was a very bad idea and the fact they were so aggressively pushed on TV was a sign that the entire thing was going to go tits-up. That person remembered my opinion because they were mad at me for saying they were making a mistake... and they wound up being between one house they couldn't sell when the recession started and another house they could no longer afford to pay for that they were trying to move in to.
I didn't hold that over their head; actually I was glad they crawled out of that mess and were doing better. It's harder to be mad at people in person.
I’m a perfect failure. If you hand me anything, no matter how complex or simple, I will fuck it up beyond all chance of repair and you will never figure out how it happened because even I don’t know.
Citation: my life, job, friends, ex-gf, family, hobbies, etc..
I have really good hearing and I'm good at guessing pronunciation of people's names in certain languages.
I have fond memories of listening to conversations at the other end of the table at family gatherings. If we're out with a bunch if people, I'll listen to the various conversations.
I don't think I have any natural talent really. Most of my talents come from dedication and grinding my way to getting good. I do think that I might have had some boosts up from natural ability but in general I believe that genetics plays a very small role in what a person can or cannot do.
My ability to whip a story up at the spot is pretty damn good. I run Dungeons and Dragons in a homebrewed world, and a good part of it is made up on the spot. While doing this, I always make sure to keep consistency.
The only thing I'm lacking is long monologues.... That is hard to just make up
Keeping avocados fresh. I have a knack for knowing exactly what ripeness of avocados to choose without doing all of those hackey “squeeze” or “pick the button off” or “store in water” tricks. Then I store them on the counter for varying amounts of time just by appearance and then they go in the fridge. Yesterday I cut open 5 week old shrivelled avocados with perfectly green insides. I put zero effort in and didn’t even check on them periodically.