Figuratively speaking, what "gene" or gene weren't you born with?


Maybe a gift or talent or strength your parents or siblings have in abundance.... but you don't seem to have? Because of your family, there should be every reason in the world why you should've inherted this trait--- whether physical, intellectual or emotional-- but you didn't?

Or maybe a trait thought to be common to every "Real" woman or "Real" man?

What comes easy to most people around you.... but has always been a challenge for you?


I'll weigh in with mine later... your turn first---



D.

My mother's ability to play musical instruments. My brother has it, but I'm hopeless.

My dad and my sister are both mathamatical whizzes. Truly, quantum physics, quantum electrodynamics and the ilk are fun to them...makes 'um laugh out loud with joy.
I can figure the tip in a restaurant and the percentage off of a sale price in a department store.
That's the extent of both my ability and my interest in numbers.

My sister, the forensic accountant, will have to be knocked cold with massive pharmaceuticals in order to attend her daughter's wedding in Hawaii next spring. Same for my Dad. I, on the other hand, will be taking care of them whilst enjoying all the amenities of first class flight with no drug hang over upon arrival. It's a celestial trade off I guess.

The selling gene. The other members of my immediate family have been good business negotiators. Me, I'm great at buying (as you know ) but lousy at selling. (Example: You don't want to pay $200 for this $1,200 sofa I'm selling? Oh, okay. Here, take it for free.)

Well, my mother's an expert seamtress, and I can't even hem up a dress straight, so I guess I'm laking the sewing gene...

I'm the same way, 5-0.


My sister and father have great "executive" skills. They know how to budget time and money..... and they know how to get things done. They don't get led astray by whims, fancies, temptations, fads, pipe dreams. Might they dream about the day, two weeks' hence, when the UPS man delivers a $200 perfume? Not a chance! They are excellent at overseeing employees. [Me? I'm like: "Uh, d'ya think you might....uh...like doing this? It's not TOO much work, you'll probably find, and I don't think it will put you out much, and if it's too much., just let me know, and...uh...")

My mother has great "helping" genes.... Loves to help people. I do, too, but not nearly to the extreme Mom does. She is really a "Mother Teresa", Florence Nightingale-type. Lives the Christian ethic to its Nth degree.

I have a hard time demurring. Saying "no". My sister's former partner could tell a person "no" and tell them to "get lost!".... but do it in a way that made 'em smile and understand and cooperate immediately. OTOH, whenever I try to say "NO" or to stand up for myself--- people are just flabbergasted at my presumptuous and rudeness. How dare he say "no" ? He doesn't have the right to do that!! They'll continue to wheedle and cajole. And I'm like: "What part of 'no' did you not understand?" My little complaint in life is that, to be understood, I've had to beat people over the head with a fencepost (something I am loath to do); what I consider "subtlety" just doesn't work in most situations.

I was born brimming over with music, intelligence, art and writing skills. Stuff that people work their butts off over has been a breeze for me. Go figure. But finding love and sane companionship has been a flippity-flappity-f***ing nightmare for me, without exception. Finding stable sources of income has been a problem, too.

Totting up how much I've earned, spent, lost, gained... how much I'm budgeting for X or Y or Z.... must be the driest project I can think of. Like a Holocaust survivor, I do not fully trust that Tomorrow will ever come... Too many other lateral stimuli can-- and surely will--- come out of nowhere. What good does it do to plan anything?

- ability to be methodical, exact, punctilious - without getting distracted or frustrated; without getting creative; without naturally seeming to take risks, accelerate, be a bit sloppy ... could be called the Beefeater gene (this relative to family)

- many of the genes related to things associated with ladies and dealing with grace, fine motor coordination and ways of combining a certain eye with certain dexterity with objects to do things with self, clothes, hair, makeup, household, food

- having a sense of self, of confidence, being able to sit back and relax, build something over time then build on it more, not switch heaps, the things that allow one to self-promote, to look someone dead in the eye and not flinch when they are wrong and one must stand up for oneself, that natural 'this is reasonable and I deserve this, this space, this thing I need, this is my need and I'm going to have it and fulfill it, not ask you for permission, not fear that you will not take it seriously,' not feeling beholden to everyone and at the mercy of what they think, even if you know that what they think is crap; it is hard for me as an adult to know how much of this is predicated upon a terrible early childhood and how much is a fertile ground for that terrible or would have bred similar even with a fairly decent childhood; I have come over time to suspect it's both

The Math gene. Everyone else in my family seem to be very clever with numbers, and I still add on my fingers.


Truthfully, I don't care. My strengths lie elsewhere.

I have no sportive ability. Like....none.


Oh, I could always run quite fast, and in my 30's, I was able to bulk up with some nice muscles. in the Army, I had better endurance than many. But my heart was never in it, not really. I was always the very last boy chosen for sides at any sport, throughout junior high and high school....


All this is because I have no innate competitive instinct. That's one "manly" gene that passed me by. The idea of defeating someone to further my own aims is just.... not, I dunno, part of my psychic repertoire.

Outdoor sports? Hunting, fishing, kayaking, camping? I don't like to get dirty-- bit of a mysophobe--- and I don't like being physically uncomfortable (too hot, too cold, wet, pain, burns, cuts, etc.)

Rasputin, my aunt, on the other hand (related by marriage and unfortunately not a blood relation), sold my late uncle's tools for $2,000--at a garage sale!

The hairstyling gene. I'm hopeless. I wash it, put stuff on it, and go, no matter how bad it looks. The last time I tried to use a curling brush with a blow dryer, the brush got so badly snarled in my hair I nearly had to go get it cut out. I ended up with a big ball of frizz on top of my head.

And the getting-the-horizon-straight-in-photographs gene. Impossible. I've taken hundreds of shots of the ocean or Great Lakes, and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has a tipped horizon. No matter how hard I try to make them straight. Thank heavens for Photoshop.

OMG! I so hate numbers. Can't remember numbers either. Hate the streets on the east coast of FL. They're all numbers. Like I'd remember them.
I guess I'm not left brained! Math scares me.

I have no natural athletic ability. No eye-hand coordination, can't throw a ball, hit a ball, or catch a ball. So really the only sport for me (and one of the few I had a real interest in) was long-distance running. Endurance is required for that sport over other abilities (even speed) and I can build endurance! But I could never do any of the other track events, like hurdles or steeplechase (oh NO!) or relays....no, you need skill for that! And I've tried cross-country and enjoyed it but was always afraid I'd twist an ankle and/or fall, so that's not really for me either. Not graceful!!

Also I cannot sing. At all. Oh well. As others have said of themselves, my talents lie elsewhere.

I am great with math and very creative but I lack the neatness gene that my mother and sister have.

My mother sang opera in the first Italian opera house in Milford, MA. But I can't sing to save my life.

But I can dance any dance you throw at me.

HA! My husband didn't get the selling gene either! He's like you! He always laughs and says that he'd rather cut his arm off than to sell something!

I didn't get the craft gene, musical(singing, instrument). I'm sure there are tons more. I just can't think of anything right off.

I'm happy to say that I got the - stretch a dollar, budgeting gene!

I was talking to my daugher the other day and we determined that she got the perfume gene, but my other daughter didn't get that gene! I mentioned a perfume that I'd bought and she said, I never think to wear perfume. WHAT????? How could anyone forget to wear perfume!? LOL

The "naturally thin person who forgets to eat" gene missed me by a wide margin indeed. Oh, how I wish I could forget to eat.

Singing, dancing, any musical ability. When I hum a tune, no one knows what it is supposed to be. Sometimes when I sing it know one knows, LOL.
I would like to play piano, though. I have long, thin, piano players' fingers.

The writing gene. Everyone in my family writes interesting, entertaining letters, notes and emails and they actually like doing it. I'm so bad at it and it's such a struggle for me that I managed to weasel out of English comp in college by cleping it.

Twitch, very likely the problem is not you! I have the same problem with my camera. The picture shown in the view-finder of my camera is off-kilter from the actual mechanism. What you see is what you don't get. I've had to learn to compensate by holding my camera at a slight tilt up on one side to get a straight horizon. It's supposed to be a precision instrument. The picture quality is excellent but the coordination is off. I'll bet that's the problem with your camera too. (I have full confidence in your abilities! Go, Twitch!)

If you think about it, selling almost ALWAYS involves SOME kind of lying, does it not? Of course, it's glib, cheerful, socially countenanced lying.... a social game we play with each other... but you know what Gertrude Stein said....


(Remember that Dudley Moore movie which wondered, as its premise, what it would be like if suddenly every advertiser and product in the USA suddenly told the absolute truth about itself? Much hilarity ensuing.)

I missed the "thrifty" gene my dad has in spades. That is the biggest regret - I will undoubtedly die a pauper.

I also didn't get the math gene. I'm a words person - excellent at foreign languages, hopeless at numbers.

I don't have the "patience" gene of my mother, or the "sweetness" gene of my sister. I do have the "short-tempered" gene of my father.

None of us can sing.

I have the "can't do maths and can't knit" gene. I know there are others but I have the crappy "not good memory"gene too!

I appreciate that thought, I really do. Unfortunately, it happens with any camera I use. Hey, maybe they're ALL broken!

The patience and humility genes got lost in the shuffle.

This is fun. I have no musical ability whatsoever in spite of the fact that my mother could play the piano by ear and also the guitar. I have no dancing gene but am not sure anyone in the family does. I cannot ski (three sets of lessons - ended up crashing through the lift line while people screamed "Nooooo,") and can't dive for anything. Spent one whole summer trying to learn to dive and ended up with huge black and blues from slapping into the water). I am definitely missing the Suduko gene - can't do even the most simple one thought I love crossword puzzles and other word games. I am missing the "direction" gene. It amazes me when my kids can automatically figure out north, south, east, west and I have no clue.

On my Mom's side of the family, everyone loves to play cards and can understand all the ins and outs of all different kinds of card games, from pinochle to poker. I just don't get it. I can't count, I can't bid, I wind up losing--even at Go Fish!

I seem to be missing my mother's "sensible" gene and my dad's "cool" gene , my brother had this math gene skipped me entirely and one of my daughters managed to get a musical gene which has left me stymied.

I didn't get the direction gene either! I can get lost in a paper bag!

Although I think of myself as creative and am pretty good with language arts/poetry, I often don't understand movies.
I understand symbolism in art, foreshadowing in literature, metaphors in poetry, but just totally miss visual cues in movies.
Probably the same reason I hate computer icons. Just tell me the WORDS!

I'm pretty good at math, I like math even, but I do have to do things step by step. I can't just jump to the end result like some people can.

I have some music and dance abilities, but no hand/eye coordination. My exasperated coach said he knew I had good body coordination because he'd seen me dance, but in his words, "Put a ball in the equation and you're shot!" His only suggestion - "Maybe we should try playing music whenever you're trying to play sports." Tennis for some reason is the only sport involving a ball at which I've ever felt coordinated and if you ever saw me play tennis, you'd know that's not saying much!

And......I think I had a defective or at least severely repressed "fun" gene for a long, long time. Too serious and overly responsible for most of my life. Thanks in part to my beloved DH who brings out my silly side, that "fun" gene is now alive and irrepressibly well!!!!

I am a dancer. Dance is life! Cannot believe that some people actually clap on the wrong beat!
I cannot however, sing. I try............but I think when I was in the choir they turned off my mike!

I can't draw like my Dad does, but I think I inherited his humor gene.

Rasputin, I absolutely know it is possible to sell without lying.

The "mommy" gene. Lots of progeny and desire for it early on all 'round in my family, but bypassed me.

The "Donna Reed" gene (see above). Just don't see the point in sublimating. My mom pointed this out to me after marriage no. 3... but I didn't recognize it in myself yet.

The "good guy radar" gene. If it's there, then apparently the "bad boy radar" gene is dominant, and I'm walking proof! Mix that up with lack of DR gene, above, and you can see that the chemistry is BAD.

This is not about my parents -- more about many women I've encountered and what I've noted and feel I am lacking.

I am missing the gene which makes women feel a burning need to pair up with another person -- a mate.
I mean...I'm married, now. Been married for twenty-five years...but it just sort of happened. I didn't have this burning desire to be with a man. I didn't chase after boys or men and only dated ones which totally appealed to me on all levels and didn't stay with those who let me down. Frankly, I just didn't go through a lot of men. Didn't kiss a lot of frogs to get a prince.
Just found one I FINALLY wanted to have sex with, got pregnant, and married him.

I have no sense of direction. I can't do math.
I have zero eye-hand coordination, but I am an excellent dancer.