Proclaim Your Ignorance

[Miss Chicken]

Robin Williams once described cricket as being "baseball on valium".

I understand cricket but maybe not well enough to describe it to someone without even basic knowledge of the game.

 

[Emher]

Eh, social interaction? Well not really maybe, but certainly the kind that seems to be the norm with people of my generation around here. I just don't get how it works sadly :/

How to play an instrument or how to read notes. I love music and have tried learning several instruments, but I just can't do it nor read those damn scribbles!

Scripts, code, html, all that. I'm a big computer user, but I just can't get that into my head.

I guess some of these things is because my head is full of so much other stuff like geography, history, languages, film-making, writing, images, and I'm sad to say, politics.

Oh, and flirting. I've never quite grasped the concept.

The secret to flirting is to not even try and make an effort. Trying to put the effort into it makes it all look stilted, artificial, and obviously false. Even worse is pulling out all the stops and putting in an extraordinary amount of effort in order to make it look like you're not making an effort, which just ends in disaster. It's a natural, flowing, evolving thing, I guess. But then again, I'm not that great an expert at it either. [I don't think I need to comment on this at all... - someone]

Natural and flowing? This is why I have a reputation for talking about physics when I'm drunk or in social situations; I get nervous and so talk about something that is "natural" and "flowing" to me. Unfortunately, it seems to alienate people.

Mind you, it takes two to flirt: one to flirt and one to fall asleep.

Like I said, I'm miserable about cars. My dad, on the other hand, can tell you anything and everything about any and every car ever assembled. His knowledge is encyclopedic -- you'd think I would have picked some of it up. I remember watching a movie with him once, and there was a shot of a young woman sitting inside a car. All you could see of the car was the corner of the passenger window behind her, just the corner of the window, and my dad went off, "Oh! That's a 19 such-and-such such-and-such, they only made this many, and they came in only these colors, and..." It's really mind-blowing how much he knows.

I'm also don't know jack about flirting tsq, at least not IRL. I've somehow managed it at times online for some reason So anyways don't feel bad about it and know that you're not alone.

As for the whole cars thing... I'm first kinda sad that so may people don't know anything about cars! But then again I was not a huge gear until a few years ago.

As long as no one's one of those people who think a car is "just a car". Then you're on my list.

 

[Lookingglassman]

Any kind of sports, anything mechanical that has to do with cars.

 

[Holdfast]

Economics/Finance is wonderful fun, I can't understand how people don't love it. I don't pretend to understand the mathematical minutiae of it, but frankly quantitative analysis is boring in any discipline and usually one can understand the qualitative principles behind the maths without needing to actually run through the equations.

Economics is no different to any other complex feedback system struggling to achieve a dynamic equilibrium. This sort of complex system is present through nature and across almost all disciplines, so if you understand it for one discipline (maths, physics, biology, psychology, sociology, whatever) you can understand it for any (just the particular mechanisms change, not the basic concept).

As for cricket, the vital thing to understand it's similar to baseball in many respects, but you need to get your head round one major difference in order to enjoy it. In baseball, strikes are routine, but runs are rare and much anticipated. In cricket, the runs are commonplace, but the wickets are what you're waiting for. Once you switch that conceptual framework, you'll enjoy it much much more and the mechanical details of differences are easy to fill it. I found this out from watching baseball (coming from enjoying cricket) and only managing to enjoy it once I got my head round that difference in reverse.

I'm a "systems person" - I look for patterns, fundamental concepts and the nature of interactions between elements of the system. Once I grasp those, I find details slot in very easily. So I'm very good with subjects that work that way - anything where you need a synthetic or integrative approach to working with systems.

The flip side is that I do not do at all well with detail-oriented quantitative processes. I dislike most forms of statistics, and the exact way things are made (eg anything requiring I pay attention to cutting, measuring, etc) rather than why they need to exist.

By nature, I'm an instructor, a teacher, a listener, a co-ordinator and a contingency planner. Understanding and directing systems towards a goal.

I'm (partly willfully, admittedly, because I find it very boring) ignorant of the actual detail/protocol of doing practical things. Being a conscientous part of the system.

 

[mimic]

Music/TV - Growing up I didn't listen to the radio and most of the music my parents had was classical. I now know a bit more about classic rock, but I missed most of the music that people my age know the lyrics to, etc. The same goes for most television shows that my peers watched as kids. I was a bookworm. I did not watch TV at all until I was 13-14.

Alcohol - I know the basics of what is what, but I have very little experience with different types of mixed drinks, different beers, etc.

Basketball - the only American sport that I don't really 'get.' That said, college bball can be fun. I do well in March Madness, particularly the BBS leagues (came in 2nd twice in the three years I've done our pool, and won my Dad's work pool) The NBA though - I have tried to watch and just can't.

 

[RandyS]

Women. The more time I spend in their company, the less I understand them.

 

[captcalhoun]

reality TV shows (except Strictly Come Dancing, which i only watch for the fit women)

 

[John Clark]

I have an apparent ignorance of picking up signals from people who are interested.

I also have some degree of ignorance to certain sports (American football for one - we never played it at school).

 

[Zulu Romeo]

reality TV shows (except Strictly Come Dancing, which i only watch for the fit women)

But not Arlene Phillips?

 

[captcalhoun]

the judges are a side-dish. Tess is the starter, the fit pro-dancers the main course and the fit celebs dessert.

damn, now i'm hungry...

 

[Gertch]

Star Trek fans ignorant about sports? Careful, you guys might get stereotyped.

LOL

For me its sports as well. While I always enjoy playing I don't get into following. As a kid I used to put my Gerry Cheevers cards in my bike spokes and not a collection. *kicks self*

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Computers. Economics. Cars. Sports (all sports) and their appeal. Current trends in popular music. Clothing and why clothes shopping is apparently interesting or fun. Pretty much any technology more complex than a pencil.

My ignorance in these matters is like a beacon, shining gloriously in a statement of total incomprehension while my brow furrows in ape-like attempts to understand.

 

[Saturn0660]

I don't know anything about basketball.. I couldn't even begin to tell you what a power forward is/does.. Plus i'm not really into sports other then maybe college football.. Go Bucks!!!

 

[Saturn0660]

Football

Is that all forms of football or one code in particular?

Mostly American football, I don't get exposed to other forms of it regularly. But even then, I understand very little about football, I find it rather boring to watch actually. It just sort of looks like 2 seconds of throwing followed by 5 minutes of standing around (that always bugged me when I was a kid, I hated it when they stopped the clock - I figured, GET ON WITH IT already! )

And I definitely don't care about the bloody Super Bowl. I don't even know what a First Down is, how pathetic is that? It just seems like everyone else in the country is a football fan except me. Then again, I usually assume that about everything - I'm genuinely surprised if there are other people who have the same tastes as me.

I'm just enjoying the baseball season as long as I can, because baseball is the only sport I really care about.

And I forgot SEX. That's right. I know absolutely nothing about SEX at all.

Me neither.

I find it ironic that you find football so boring when baseball its nothing but guys standing around.. Or so it seems to me.

 

[Emher]

Oh yes, I need to add soccer to my list. It's like national sport here and everyone is expected to love it. I can honestly not see the appeal. Then again I've never been into sports much, at least not team sports. Swimming and other easily measured sports, with times and records that are easy to get your head around I get. 20 men with barely the brain capacity to run around a filed to chase and kick a ball (and apparently their opponents as well at times) I don't see the appeal of.