Hello. My name is Rose. It’s nice to meet you. I am an adult woman with a moderately successful career, a set of friends I love, a dog that is very cute, and a relationship that functions quite well. I say all of this because what I’m about to admit feels very strange and might make you think I’m not well adjusted. So here we go.
I don’t have a hobby.
I don’t know if I’ve ever had a hobby. I played sports as a kid, which is sort of like a hobby, but also sort of not? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a hobby simply as “an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.” I suppose under that definition, sports are hobbies. Assuming they’re fun. Which, for many kids growing up they are, until they’re not. But this isn’t a blog post about how traumatic competitive soccer can be as a teen. This is a blog post about hobbies.
I don’t have a hobby, and I want one. I want something to do when I’m not working. This is another sad sentence to write. I literally do not know what to do with myself if I’m not working. I rock climb, but there are only so many days I want to be at the gym, and only so much my hands can take. I want an activity away from the computer, too, since the point of this is to get myself some place mentally far away from work. Which means that while many of my friends find coding or writing bots a fun hobby, I’m looking for something more physical and tactile. Something that doesn’t have a keyboard in sight. Something, ideally, that involves making a physical thing that I can look at and go “yeah… I made that.” Even if “that” is a poorly glazed ashtray.
So I’ve made a list of possible “activities done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure” to audition, because I’m that kind of person. They include:
- pottery
- painting
- sewing
- general crafting
- jewelry making
- neon sign making
- glass blowing
- woodworking
- metal working
- archery
- cheese making
(Is this list also kind of sad and hipstery? Yes, I am who I am.)
For many of these, I have no clue where to start. I don’t own a sewing machine or a potting wheel or a forge. Which means I have to find a place to go to do them. This ultimately leads me to google “[hobby] near [my location]” and consider the results. I’ll look at websites for each place, and each place will offer lessons, which I certainly would need. But then, every time (and this has happened many times now) I will look at the lessons on their website and consider whether I want to spend $75 trying out a hobby I am not sure I will even like. And so far, the answer has always been: “maybe tomorrow.” And here I am, still, without a hobby. Unless looking for hobbies is considered a hobby?
But I think there’s a bigger barrier here than the $75. When I close out the windows it’s not really, truly because I am not sure I want to spend $75 trying out a hobby I am not sure I will even like. It’s really because I’m not sure I want to spend $75 trying out a hobby I am bad at. What if I suck at these things? I know the point of a hobby is not to be incredibly good at it, but I like being good at things. I, like most people I suspect, dislike doing things that I am not good at. And yet, perhaps that’s the entire point of a hobby? Broadening both your horizons and your ego. Practicing skills you don’t have like, for me, patience and attention to detail. Measuring twice and cutting once (as they say in a hobby I do not have called sewing) which is something I seem to be constitutionally incapable of doing.
On the other hand, what’s the point of a hobby if it’s not fun? I don’t want a chore, I want a hobby. I don’t want something that reminds me of all my faults, I want something relaxing. I’ve written in the past about the pressure to turn every side project and hobby into its own “side hustle” with an Instagram account and monetization plan, and I don’t want that. But I also don’t want to leave my designated hobby time feeling worse about myself than when I came into it.
But maybe this is the ultimate skill I have to learn: how to suck at something and not let it get to me. Is anybody good at that? If so, are they offering lessons? I’m willing to spend about $75.
Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Unless you enjoy both being burned and having small pieces of glass embedded in a more-or-less regular pattern on your hands and arms, you should cross glass-blowing off your list. Trust me on this.
(*still hobby-less myself*)
Sewing—embroidery/handwork – – you do not need a machine.. getting started is cheap
– – – Coats and Clark had a booklet, “100 embroidery stitches”. used to be a dollar, probably up to 5 by now.
Sewing has many of the fun bits of painting, with less mess. a whole project fits in a bag or basket. When you Quit for the day, you just stop, shove it in the bag, and walk away–no cleanup, really
I have been known to sew whole garments by hand
I’m a regular hobby-starter and I still totally get the hesitation to start something you don’t know if you’ll like. I’m pretty sure this is why folks watch so much TV. Of your list, I bet archery would be the easiest to get onto. See if there’s a range near you. The range by me is like $20 for an hour rental. If you stuck at it (I’d be surprised) it imply costs you an hour and $20 to find out.
I also second the person suggesting hand embroidery. You can find cute beginner kits on etsy. I tried one for the first time this year and got excited about my anatomically correct heart embroidery kit 🙂
Look for chapters of the Embroiderers’ Guild of America and American Needlepoint Guild near you. Membership in each guild/local chapter will be less than $75 per year and you’ll learn a lot just by going to meetings. Both guilds have cyber chapters if they don’t have local chapters and they both publish magazines. Don’t be scared off by the level of work some members are doing; they were beginners once upon a time, too. The mission of both guilds is to preserve and teach needlearts and we love to see new members who want to learn.
If quilting appeals to you, check out the American Quilt Guild.
Beading, knitting, and crochet are other potential needlework techniques.
I hope you find something you love.
A problem with “making things” for a hobby is that pretty soon you have piles of things you’ve made accumulating around the house. You can no longer get rid of them. You’ve already foisted them onto your friends & family who have smiled graciously at your mediocre hand-made crap and then had private little arguments about how long they have to hang on to it before you’ll no longer notice that they’ve thrown it away. Some of them will be clever enough to stash it away and only bring it out when you’re coming over. Most will just have angst and guilt. A few will tell you these things are crappy and laugh with you about it. (These are the true friends.)
Eventually, of course, if you stick with it, you’ll either become good at it or you’ll no longer have friends.
I call this the zucchini effect.
No. I say pick a hobby that doesn’t involve *making* things.
Gardening. You can plant pretty things, you can plant edible things, you can have times when you shovel and chop and work yourself to exhaustion (but look at all I’ve done!) and other times when you drift around, pulling a weed here and there, and in the winter you look at catalogs and make extravagant plans. If something doesn’t grow, you pull it up and put in something else. Plus you are outside.
It’s not on your list, but a couple of friends and I just started taking ukulele lessons. I think I paid about $25 for my (bright yellow plastic) ukulele and the lessons are costing us $30 per, which comes out to $10 each. Pretty cheap and I’m amazed at how I can spend an hour practicing and hardly know where the time went. Will we ever be good? Doubtful. Is is fun and does it feel like it’s using some completely different part of my brain? Absolutely.
Watching is a fine indoor/outdoor hobby. Or gazing, or spotting, or identifying, depending on what it is you’re looking at, and how close to darkness or wilderness or whatever else you are. If you like lists, some things have enormous amounts of variety to check off, with seasonal variations.
In terms of making, uh, I would likewise shy away from making permanent things, but chalk and sand are fun, and there’s always gardening.
I have been knitting a scarf for the past four years. Make cheese!
I find knitting scarves quite soothing, as long as I don’t get too fancy. A truly skilled knittress told me the secret is to keep your stitches simple (I almost mastered purling once, but generally stick to straight knitting) and let the yarn be the star. And while it’s cheap to get started, you can work your way up to some fabulous hand-dyed alpaca-silk blends once you’re feeling confident.