But which hobby is for you? There are so many different aspects of personal growth and enjoyment that a hobby can fulfill—it really depends on what you’re looking for. Generally, it’s best to pick three or four from a list of things that you want to get out of your new activity. The range of possibilities, at least in my humble experience, looks something like this:
• Losing a certain amount of weight/getting in shape without having to go to the gym and be stared at by grunting, flexing bros and hot soccer moms in full makeup on the elliptical.
• Meeting a new group of friends who will at least somewhat extricate you from your incestuous inner circle of people who cannot stop sleeping with, dating, and breaking up with each other at regular intervals.
• Staving off having to sign up for online dating for at least a few more months with the hope that you’re going to meet the love of your life between the hours of 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. after work three days a week.
• Potentially honing a skill that you would one day perhaps like to turn into a full-time career (a career that doesn’t make you vaguely consider suicide every time the alarm goes off).
• Being able to tell people you meet about your exciting new activity, briefly giving the illusion that you are a multifaceted human being with interests outside of browsing the Internet for GIFs of cats and taking Photo Booth pictures of yourself holding a glass of wine.
• Reconnecting with a friend or significant other by engaging in some new, fun thing with her that doesn’t include eating handfuls of cheddar popcorn and watching reality television (not that those things aren’t uplifting and wonderful).
• Learning a new skill that you’ve always thought of as being really cool and something that, despite the likelihood that you will be terrible at it, you really want to try.
No one hobby is going to cover all these bases, and that’s fine—you probably don’t need it to. But opening the door to having things to do throughout your week besides working, sleeping, and eating Chinese food is guaranteed to bring nearly endless other possibilities of things you could engage in. The guy at your office who is training for a marathon, who comes in with his bike hoisted above his head, who is constantly attending these obscure jazz concerts and telling you about the amazing group of Czech backpackers he hosted through Couchsurfing—how do you think he got that way? Do you think he just woke up one morning and said to himself, “Hey, I think I’m going to make all the people I come in contact with feel bad about their total lack of motivation in life?” I mean, it’s possible, but I doubt it. It’s a process, and it has to start somewhere.
Getting Involved in Activities
First things first: You’re probably going to want to get in shape. Now, as someone whose fingertips are at least 70 percent of the time coated in a thin film of Dorito dust, I am not one to decide exactly what “in shape” should entail. It is not a particular size, it is not a particular diet, but it is a feeling. Even I, who would literally subsist on a diet of whipped cream shots out of the can and curly fries if given the opportunity, have had to suck it up and balance my life out a little bit. Does that mean giving up everything that’s seen the business end of a deep fryer forever? No. Does it mean spending all your spare time doing hot yoga while feeling incredibly inadequate/sweaty? No. But it does mean finding a decent middle ground, and a good group activity can always help with this.
Let’s say you join a dance class. Yes, at first you’re going to look ridiculous and probably gross out countless partners with your extreme Clammy Hand Syndrome brought on by crippling nervousness. It happens. And it’s tough, because becoming suddenly aware of how out-of-shape and uncoordinated you are can tend to cancel out your potential dates motivation for signing up in the first place. But as time goes on, and as you start to realize that moving your body around occasionally can make your whole day go by smoothly and be filled with more energy, it begins spilling over into the rest of your life.
You want to eat a little better, you want to maybe take the stairs instead of the elevator, you want to make the small changes throughout your day that make getting out on the dance floor (and into a relatively attractive dancing outfit) less of a Sisyphean undertaking. Whatever form of physical activity seems least painful to you, go for it. The point is not so much what you’re doing, it’s that you’re doing something. Because unless you start to put the occasional green thing in your mouth and leave the sitting/lying position for at least thirty minutes a day, you’re not going to have much energy for anything else.
There is no rule that says you have to join a club to get into shape. You could very easily start jogging in your neighborhood and keeping a food log that puts into brutally clear terms just how many Swiss Cake Rolls your daily routine consists of. But if your goal is also to start a new activity during which you come in contact with new people/change up your lifestyle, it is killing two very large birds with one relatively inexpensive stone. There are a lot of benefits to choosing a hobby that includes physical exertion—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t without its downsides.
Each potential activity you could undertake has its own very distinct pros and cons, and it is best to be aware of them from the get-go. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that most of us will probably attempt a few big ones for two weeks before abandoning them in favor of more frequently attending happy hours, and we need to address those. If you are going to pick up something obscure, like Tuvan Throat Singing, I commend you—but as I have no information on the subject, I’ll just assume it’s nothing but upsides. Bitches love a Tuvan Throat Singer.
LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE
Pros:
• You are learning something that gives you a very direct and tangible ability, one you can use as you learn it and practice on your own time, as opposed to things like salsa dancing or fly fishing, which are hard to put in hours for while your unamused roommate tries to play Xbox next to you.
• It’s relatively inexpensive, especially considering all the Rosetta Stones that are out there for the illegal downloading—I mean purchasing, like a decent human being.
• If you get good enough that your meet-up groups can include actual native speakers, this could be the opportunity to meet hot, foreign tail. And even at the beginner meetings, you are at least guaranteed a group of potential dates who have a vague interest in culture.
• Learning another language provides even more justification for your already ill-advised vacation, at which you know upwards of 80 percent of your time will be spent drinking with other English speakers.
Cons:
• It’s among the least physically engaging activities you can take up, so any hopes of burning off the extra wine calories drunk at meet-ups is out the window, unless you hold your speaking groups while riding tandem bicycles.
• The groups of adults learning/practicing languages are often peppered with at least a small sprinkling of creepers who are solely there to hit on people (and don’t even try to mask it with a vague attempt at the language).
• Come on, it’s a little nerdy.
• In order to take the language-learning experience to its proper level (and to reward yourself for all the hours spent practicing), you’re eventually going to have to schlep yourself to a foreign country where it’s actually spoken—an investment that counteracts any amount of language workbooks you may have stolen off the Internet.
PARTNER DANCING
Pros:
• This exercises both literal muscles and the tender emotional muscles that are flexed by having to come in constant, repeated contact with strangers.
• You are learning a skill that is undoubtedly useful, as there is nothing worse than being the person at a wedding or other event that requires dancing and refusing to step on the dance floor for fear of “looking stupid.” That person never gets laid.
YOUR STANDARD CREEPER
• Being able to dance will help you in your seduction of potential mates when you’re out
and about, since nothing is sexier than someone who can do a dance that doesn’t involve having a set of genitals rhythmically grind against your lower back.
• Your butt will look like two scoops of butter pecan ice cream in your clingy dance clothes if you stick religiously to your practice regimen.
Cons:
• You have to dance in front of actual people, and since you are going to see them on a regular basis, you can’t just humiliate yourself willy-nilly.
• Sweaty dance trolls who are there solely to foist themselves on unsuspecting students lurk in the corner of every dance hall, and you may be forced to come in contact with them during the partner-rotating portion of the lesson.
• Possible financial investment in dancing shoes so you’re not the “guy wearing running shoes at the dance lesson.”
• As soon as you make it known that you have taken up partner dancing to any degree, you are automatically labeled “dancing person,” who is expected to “bust out moves” at any and all occasions, even if you are severely unprepared to show off the things you’ve learned. “Come on, twirl me around” will be the new mantra of everyone who has consumed more than one and a half beers within ten feet of you.
BOOK READING OR WRITING CLUB
Pros:
• You will be welcomed into the elite-yet-clammy world of “intellectuals” who actually devote their free time to reading real books, often printed on actual paper. Though anachronistic, it is surely your entry ticket into a more classy caste of society.
• You’ll be provided with a list of literature to read, so you no longer have to do the searching and self-motivating to plow through the new Jonathan Franzen tome.
• You get a chance to meet bookish hotties who can sport a dapper cardigan and horn-rimmed glasses and would be happy to retire to bed after a few glasses of red and a conversation about Bukowski over Indian food.
• You belong to a group that motivates you to work on all that terrible poetry you’ve been saving up in your cramped little heart space for all these years—the poetry that the world doesn’t even know it’s missing.
Cons:
• If getting healthy were even a peripheral goal of yours in taking up a new hobby, sitting around reading/writing/talking about books with other doughy hipsters in blazers is hardly the most efficient strategy.
• The reading could potentially be bad/uninteresting—or you could just be incredibly lazy—and you may find yourself at a meeting for which you have not done the appropriate preparation. You will essentially be re-creating the bullshitting of your tenth-grade term paper on The Grapes of Wrath, only this time, it’s your chosen leisure activity.
• You stand to discover how terrible your poetry actually is.
• People may expect you to be more articulate/thoughtful/ informed now that you have taken up reading as your personal activity, which could lead to awkward watercooler discussions when it is discovered that, outside the book of the month, you mostly just read your Facebook feed.
TEAM SPORTS
Pros:
• The overall benefits of having to work with peers in a team setting to achieve a common goal is one we readily acknowledge with children, but we often forget how positive it can be for adults as well.
• Teamwork is still a good experience at twenty-five.
• You may get to wear cute uniforms, uniforms that potentially show off the adorable butts of some of your cuter teammates.
• An automatic sense of unity and friendship is forged within the group, which greatly facilitates after-game recreation—a useful quality, as the transition from meet-up group to genuinely fun happy hour is not always a smooth one.
• You may actually burn a calorie or two while you’re having a good time.
Cons:
• You run a high risk of getting sweaty, which is not the most conducive quality when you want to flirt with your fellow athletes.
• Adult recreational sports always involve a vague silliness—all of us run a little like wonks, move somewhat slowly, and generally don’t look at the top of our game. It can be unsettling to those of us especially prone to embarrassment over our appearance.
• The uniforms might be highly unflattering.
• There is almost guaranteed to be a Team Asshole whose sole purpose is showing everyone else how athletic and talented he is, which begs the question, “Why are you playing adult recreational sports when you could clearly be out at the Olympics with your more qualified peers?”
The different kinds of hobbies we can take up as adults are almost limitless (even if they usually fall into a few general categories). No matter what your goals are, or where you live, with the advent of the Internet, you can do almost anything with your spare time if you are looking for something besides binge drinking. If you want to pop balloons for sexual release, there is a group for you—and you may get your very own voyeuristic special on TLC. If you enjoy dressing up as anthropomorphic cartoon animals and running around convention halls taking pictures of each other, you likely have a meet-up in your area this week. If you like going out into wooded areas and taking pictures of wildlife to note in some adorable little journal like you’re ten years old, you have endless options out there.
But whatever you choose to dedicate your time to, you have to find something. Because we have all likely met that guy who has so thoroughly clung to the collegiate lifestyle, basing all life’s significant moments and unallocated time to drinking or, in a more general sense, “partying.” While there is definitely a certain charm in being the most efficient binge drinker in the tristate area when you’re nineteen, that title gains a tinge of sadness when you’re well into your twenties.
Obvious health implications for your poor, innocent liver aside, there are distinct limitations in a lifestyle that is wholly centered around being perpetually inebriated. You’ll only meet certain kinds of people, go certain places, and you’ll have to face the inevitable fear of socializing while completely sober and 100 percent yourself. For some, the idea of integrating a new daily/weekly activity that may cost money, doesn’t come with free drinks, and is based on learning a skill seems foreign at best, terrifying at worst. It’s just not something we’re used to.
Taking up a new activity for the first time can be terrifying; it requires stepping out of the comfort zone of “hanging out” that we never even considered before. It’s disarming at first, how much joining a group makes us all feel like children again—afraid to embarrass ourselves and constantly on the verge of nervous tears.
I remember the first time I went to a real swing dance class (a hobby that would end up becoming a big part of my life), I was fucking terrified. First of all, I’ve always been a pretty uncoordinated human being. It’s not that I’m not graceful, as much as I’m essentially a human version of those crazy inflatable dancing car dealership guys. I just kind of flop and wiggle around like an overcooked noodle, knocking things over and spilling things on myself. And, true to form, I was terrible at first. I couldn’t remember the steps, I had a hard time letting other people lead me, and I had hilariously poor form. It was just a mess, and for hours at a time, I would feel the creeping, burning feeling on the back of my neck of a bunch of randos watching me humiliating myself for their enjoyment.
Even worse, the entire group seemed like high school 2.0, in that everyone was already paired off, cliqued up, and designated into “cool” versus “not cool.” The people who were really good dancers were in their own little world, completely unaffected by the plebians over in our corner trying to learn not to step on their own feet every time they turned. It seemed like an impenetrable world of talent and friendship and preestablished groups. But as with most things, as we get more familiar with an environment, it tends to lose some of its initial, terrifying luster. It became more understandable, I started to really dance, and the once-intimidating groups suddenly revealed themselves as standard-issue Dance Nerds who were just really cool in their one environment.
Outside of that—at a party, for example—they were as awkward and strange as everyone else. And considering how much partying serves to unify even the most diverse groups of friends and hobbyists, it was hilarious to see them so completely out of their element.
We come to rely on the act of partying as a social lubricant that allows us to do—and attempt to have sex with—whatever we want. And there’s nothing wrong with partying; it’s awesome. But let’s not act as though the actual definition of a party itself doesn’t drastically change the further away from higher education we get. There are only so many times you can initiate a round of beer pong on a Tuesday night before all your nine-to-five friends start looking at you as “that guy.” This isn’t to say that we should all resign ourselves to the slippery descent into going home at 10:00 p.m. on a Friday night and shooting judgmental looks at our friends who want to enjoy a tiny slice of nightlife before they wither and die, but it’s all about balance.
And nothing helps strike that balance better than finding something constructive to do with your spare time. Speaking from personal experience, you may encounter friends or coworkers who regard your decision to join a dance group or go to language meet-ups or book clubs with more than a slight raise of the eyebrow. “What’s this?” they seem to gasp with flustered incredulity, monocle popping out and landing neatly in their champagne glass full of Coors Light. “You mean you actually have little activities you go to? How cute!” The truth is that as young adults we are just not acquainted with the concept of voluntarily signing up for shit that isn’t going directly on a college application or resume. What do you stand to gain, except possibly a noticeable dip in your checking account from monthly fees?
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