"What Are Your Hobbies?"

I dread the hobby question. My go to answer is always "reading and writing," which doesn't sound nearly as awesome to other people as it does me. Of course, I could also throw the Internet in there, but much of that encompasses reading and writing (e.g. fanfiction) even if it didn't make some people scoff.

Despite my terrible attempts at keeping up with my reading challenge for the year, the vast majority of what I do every day relates back to either reading or writing somehow. Even in school since I'm an English major. It's what I do with all of my time.

In practice, I'm fine with that, but when it comes time to tell people what my hobbies are, the answer feels inadequate somehow. I think because so few other people answer it quite that way. Yes, some people will say reading, but the usually have something else in there as well whereas I don't really. And it took me a long time to not feel like a fake when I said "writing." I didn't feel good enough to label that a hobby and had to overcome that hurdle. That also contributes to the problem.

I guess I could call Pilates a hobby like some people call the sports they play a hobby, but it doesn't feel like one to me. That's something else.

I don't feel like I'm missing any sort of important outlet for myself. I feel pretty good about how I spend my time. From the little I've managed to read this year, it's clear that even with focusing my time on those two things more than anything else, I still don't have quite enough time for them. What would I do if I had another hobby that took up a substantial amount of time? Probably lose my mind.

So, I'm good with the "reading and writing" answer personally, but I may still have to work on being okay with saying it out loud without feeling judged by others.