Shuffling cards. Throwing a spiral. Grilling the perfect burger. Patching drywall. Somewhere between childhood and middle age, every guy quietly learns a hundred random skills… and has no idea when it happened.
I had a series of funny parenting moments last week while on vacation that led to this column. Over the course of a few days, during downtime and various activities, my daughter kept asking me the same question:
“Dad… how do you know how to do that?”
And I kept giving her the same dumb answer: I honestly don’t know.
Now let me explain:
Somewhere around your mid-40s, you wake up realizing you’ve become weirdly qualified at about a hundred completely random things. Nobody hands you a certificate and you don’t mark any particular milestone. It all just… happens.
After four or five decades of being a guy, you quietly rack up what I can only describe as random-but-mostly-useful guy skills. You never took a class. You don’t remember practicing. You couldn’t tell your kids where you learned them if your life depended on it, but you have them.
Take shuffling a deck of cards.
I can shuffle, bridge the cards together, split the deck, deal poker, blackjack… whatever. And I’m sure you can too. I have absolutely no memory of learning how. Somewhere between Go Fish and adulthood, it just downloaded into my brain.
Same thing with juggling.
Last week I picked up three tennis balls and started juggling them while we were hanging out. My daughter asked when I learned.
I have no clue.
I don’t remember practicing. I don’t remember watching somebody else do it. I just… juggle.
Throwing a tight spiral.
Sure, my dad showed me how at some point. But if somebody throws me a football today, I don’t think about my grip or my mechanics. I just let it rip.
It’s buried somewhere in the operating system. Same with spinning a basketball on my finger. Or dribbling between my legs. Or throwing a knuckle ball. I mean, I have zero use in my life right now for throwing a knuckle ball, and I’m no Tim Wakefield, but I can throw a decent one..
Then there are all the little things.
Hooking up a propane tank. Grilling a perfect burger without cutting into it like a psychopath every thirty seconds. Knowing when charcoal is actually ready. Throwing a filthy Wiffle ball curve. Keeping score during a round of golf. Playing a respectable game of chess. Swapping out a drill bit. Re-stringing a weed whacker. Patching a hole in drywall. Replacing a hook on a fishing line. Untangling a fishing reel. Lighting a cigar correctly. Reading a tape measure without staring at it for five minutes. How to mulch flower beds. Finding studs in a wall and making the joke that I’m the stud while looking for it (you all know the joke). Walking into any gym in America and instinctively knowing how every machine works.
Nobody teaches you this stuff.
New to Midlife Male? Sign Up Now for Free
There isn’t a semester in college called weed whacking.
You don’t earn your black belt in propane.
You just pick these things up. Your dad shows you one. A buddy shows you another. You break something and figure out how to fix it. You work a summer job. You spend enough Saturdays in Home Depot. Then one day your kid asks how you know how to patch drywall and you’re standing there thinking…
“Huh. I just do.”
The other day my daughter’s bike chain slipped off.
Without even thinking about it, I flipped the bike upside down, threaded the chain back onto the gears, spun the pedals a couple of times and handed it back to her.
She looked at me like I’d just pulled a rabbit out of a hat.
“Dad… how did you know how to do that?”
Great question.
I honestly don’t know.
Same thing with cutting hair.
I’ve been cutting my own hair since college. A bunch of us got tired of paying for haircuts, so I bought a pair of clippers at Walmart and figured it out. I’ve never taken a barbering class. I’ve never watched a YouTube video. I still cut my own hair today, and I still cut my son’s.
Again…
“How do you know how to do that?”
I don’t know.
I’ve just been collecting guy skills for forty-seven years.
And maybe that’s what growing up actually is.
You spend decades quietly accumulating all these little pieces of knowledge without realizing it. You grill enough burgers that charcoal becomes second nature. You fish with enough buddies that eventually you know how to tie a hook and fix a reel. You spend enough time in gyms that every machine makes sense. You smoke enough cigars to know you need a cutter before you need a lighter. You play enough backyard Wiffle ball that you can still make the ball break six inches with your fingertips and absolutely embarrass your kids.
None of these skills, by themselves, are particularly important.
Collectively, though, they make you a capable guy.
The funny part is you don’t even realize you’ve become that guy until one of your kids keeps asking: “How did you know how to do that?”
And your only honest answer is…
“I don’t know. I’ve just been a guy for a long time.”
midlifemale
midlifemale
midlifemale
Jon Finkel
Editor-in-Chief, Midlife Male
follow me on Twitter/X, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Check out my latest books at jonfinkel.com
midlifemale
midlifemale
midlifemale
Join 50,000+ driven men over 40 getting free weekly advice on maximizing their health, wealth, and fulfillment in midlife. Subscribe here.
P.S. What belongs on this list?
Hit reply and tell me one of those completely random skills every guy over forty seems to know how to do, even though he has absolutely no memory of ever learning it.
I have a feeling we’ve barely scratched the surface.
