i just kind of wasted my precious time

February 24, 2024 9:10 AM

I am late middle age and remember feeling like I spent a lot of time in high school and college "doing nothing," vegging out, wasting time, spacing out, etc before it was possible to vanish mentally online as I too often do now. However I have no recollection of how I used to waste time.

I'm not talking about reading a novel which didn't feel like wasting time to me, or even watching TV since I would not have been watching TV much, definitely not during the day except maybe watching TV for an hour at most right after coming home from school. In fact I didn't have a TV while in college.
But I know I would feel guilty for wasting time back in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s.
Especially you are over about age 45 -- What did you do to "waste time" and space out prior to the internet?

posted by ojocaliente to Society & Culture (64 answers total)

I used to sit outside and watch the neighborhood cat colony. In college, I would go to the dorm public spaces, or coffee shops, or the quad and talk to people, or sit around. We used to drive around a lot, just drive from one place to another listening to music. If you saw your friends also driving around, you would stop and talk to them. Sometimes this driving was more goal oriented. Let's go buy weed or take laundry to the laundry mat or buy sodas at the corner store. But these trips would take hours because they weren't mediated like they are today to eliminate every interaction with another human.
posted by tofu_crouton at 9:30 AM on February 24 [9 favorites]

Almost the same things I do now but without the electronic part. I would buy a couple of newspapers every day, maybe a magazine, have a notebook and pen with me for writing, write real letters to people, talk to friends at cafes or pubs, and wander around book stores or the library.
posted by pracowity at 9:31 AM on February 24 [4 favorites]

I'd listen to music. Like, actually and really fully listen to music rather than just putting it on in the background. I'd make mix tapes, too. That could consume hours.

Do you count reading magazines or newspapers? I'd spend a solid amount of time doing that, but never thought of it as "reading" in the same way as a novel or non-fiction book about something.

Sometimes I would just drive around. (Sorry, environment.) Put in a mix tape or album and just drive around.

Calling friends. I could talk on the phone for hours, once upon a time, about nothing in particular. Funny, that, I can't stand talking on the phone now for the most part.
posted by jzb at 9:33 AM on February 24 [26 favorites]

Yeah, talking to friends on the phone for hours, for sure. Maybe you're older than me and this wasn't a thing, but playing dumb computer based puzzle games like Tetris or Minesweeper was another time sink. Long shopping excursions - just poking through the used CD store or book store looking for things of interest. I could easily burn five hours on a weekend walking to my local used CD store, looking around, not finding anything I wanted, and walking back home.
posted by potrzebie at 9:38 AM on February 24 [8 favorites]

Best answer: I got a pedicure yesterday, during which I did not look at my phone, nor read a magazine. I just sat there, enjoying the chair massage. I did nothing. It was great. I think we have forgotten how to just...sit there. like, just relax mindlessly. I recommend it. (ie., is this not exactly what "vegging out" is?) (so, to actually answer the question: maybe you just did nothing. like staring into space...)
posted by supermedusa at 9:43 AM on February 24 [7 favorites]

I'm 45 and my family were early internet adopters, so my time-spenders as a kid were largely what they were now, but with fewer pixels, plus lots of books and movie-watching. But there was also a lot of aimlessly riding my bike or scooter around the neighborhood with or without friends, playing computer games, reading magazines (my kids' magazines or my mom's Ladies' Home Journal-type magazines), drawing, writing stories, writing letters to pen pals, listening to music while intently scrutinizing the cassette tape lyric sheets, playing with my dog or cat.
posted by Stacey at 9:43 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Flipping through magazines/newspapers without really reading them, windows minesweeper/solitaire, pinball and arcade video games, crossword puzzles
posted by ManInSuit at 9:44 AM on February 24 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Newspapers and magazines certainly. Having read the parts that interested me, I'd go back to them and read the parts of less interest and then even those of no interest at all, and the small ads, and the picture captions, just to pass more of the time. Then I might still keep picking up the same magazine or newspaper, even though I'd already read every word in it at least once, and scan parts of it again, etc.
posted by misteraitch at 9:47 AM on February 24 [11 favorites]

Best answer: messing around on a musical instrument in a way that is not really practicing in any useful way nor playing... messing around with settings on the computer... getting high and staring at suff...
posted by ManInSuit at 9:50 AM on February 24 [6 favorites]

I’m 47. I got a Gameboy at the age of 14, so post-14 there was a lot of Tetris. I had a couple of early non-windows computers and played simple games on them.

Before that - when I had no access to electronic devices at all - I remember spending ages on the household landline phone talking to school friends. I would go to the library during the school holidays and come home with an armful of books and read for four or five hours straight. I watched a lot of TV - we only had four channels and no way to record so I ended up watching whatever happened to be on, which might have included bad sitcoms or really old movies just because that was what was on. I did some random stuff - I remember I found a book which was a compendium of card games and I taught myself poker solitaire and played that a lot (you shuffle the pack and turn up one card at a time which you can place on any free space in a five by five grid. Once you’ve filled the grid with 25 cards, you have ten poker hands, five horizontal and five vertical. Each type of hand gets a score - a flush is so many points etc - and the aim is to position the cards to maximise your total score).

I wrote fanfiction before I knew what fanfiction was (hello terrible Riker/Troi romance) and I knitted pretty well - I used to make soft toys and did a doll with several sets of clothes in my mid-teens.

Alas now I am middle aged and I have a job, a house and a small child and basically I work.
posted by damsel with a dulcimer at 10:03 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Best answer: (I’m 50.) Magazines but also looking at catalogs. Making and decorating mix tapes and CDs or decorating folders or book covers. Writing long notes or letters to friends. Crafts, like latch hook or sewing by hand or by machine. Doodling. I played with dolls and made dollhouse things for my friend’s dollhouse for a long time. When I was older, like in college or post-college I would walk endlessly.
posted by vunder at 10:10 AM on February 24 [7 favorites]

Oh yeah, loooong aimless walks around the neighborhood for sure.
posted by potrzebie at 10:19 AM on February 24 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I remember spending long weekend afternoons just lying on the couch and watching the sun climb the wall. Sometimes napping, other times just lying there in the quiet.

Also yeah, going on long walks was a thing. We lived in quite a rural place, so we'd just wander through the village and out into the fields and woods for most of a day. Not with any particular goal in mind, just hanging out by the river or climbing trees and things.
posted by fight or flight at 10:24 AM on February 24 [6 favorites]

Best answer: I recently saw something on twitter that was like, "8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for lying around in bed thinking about my little scenarios." I feel like that is actually how I used to spend a lot of my free time, just kind of putting on music and thinking about whatever. I also used to draw, not to any purpose.

...Now that I think about it it's not really any different these days. I will often just sit on the sofa and idly think about things I would do to renovate the room I'm in, or about clothes I'd like to wear, or just kind of think about cakes?

It doesn't always feel completely unproductive -- cake thoughts often lead to cake bakes, and I do actually sometimes come up with good ideas for my apartment. But also a lot of the time it's just idle zone-out.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:26 AM on February 24 [10 favorites]

Newspapers, magazines, PC games of all stripes starting from the late 80s. TV. My parents had a pool, so hanging out poolside. Going to the convenience store. Going to the store and not even going inside sometimes. Playing cards and dominos with my friends. Sometimes I’d cut class just to sit by the creek and do nothing. Walk the dog until he didn’t want to walk any more and lay down, then carry him home. Or just walk from here to there for any vaguely plausible reason. Listen to music. At that time you could just listen to music and talk, stare out the window, or daydream. In the evenings there were baseball games on the radio and I’d listen to those.
posted by shock muppet at 10:29 AM on February 24

when I was a teenager (in the 80s) I did all sorts of weird stuff, like, just rearrange my bedroom furniture, or make weird art to hang/decorate my room (and sometimes take it back down again right away). listening to music, doing weird art, yeah.

my family used to do this (in retrospect, weird to me) thing on weekends where we would go to housing developments and look at model homes. we weren't planning to move, it was just something to do (70s, 80s).
posted by supermedusa at 10:40 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]

Am 52

Listening to records.

Taking random things apart to see how they work, trying to put them back together again.

Reading cartoons.

Trying to do random things like put a canopy over my bed so that it's like a four poster in a story book.

Experiment with makeup.

Examine my acne and worry about it.

Go for long bicycle rides

Wander around the neighbourhood just looking at things and talking to the neighbourhood cats.

Visit the natural history museum.

Making recordings of things with my shoebox tape recorder, Eg songs on the radio, myself singing or reading stories out loud.

Make covers for tapes.

Swim.

Pick stuff up on the beach like shells and beach glass

Try to make things with the stuff I picked up on the beach.
posted by Zumbador at 10:42 AM on February 24 [4 favorites]

I did a LOT of reading, and I'm pretty sure that's what the Internet replaced; I still do a lot of reading, but not nearly as much. And I'm way choosier now about what actual books I spend my time on now.

As far as just zoning, though, I used to just get in my car and drive with music on. Gas was cheaper, and we hadn't really started hearing about climate impact then. Plus I was just so psyched to HAVE a car (junker that it was!) and to be able to spend time alone (big family).
posted by invincible summer at 10:50 AM on February 24

Best answer: I spent a lot of time staring into the middle distance. Out a window is nice, but not necessary. Some little scenarios, some unconscious thinking, maybe some non thinking. Pretty great.
posted by clew at 10:57 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]

Especially in middle school, I know I used to lie on my bed and daydream. Just literally play out stories in my head. I used to write stories, on paper, and I journaled. I’d talk on the phone with friends. I’d watch tv. I’d paint my nails. I’d play with makeup and hair.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:07 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

I did a lot of what people above have said - my (original 90s) Gameboy, music, TV, newspapers, hanging out with mates, etc. Plus I spent a lot of time having imaginary conversations with girls I liked where I was as suave as James Bond, only to find out that in real life I was about as suave as Mr Bean.

Fairly sure my wife would say that part of me hasn't improved.
posted by underclocked at 11:07 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Oh, and I’d make mix tapes sometimes.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:08 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

I'm 48. It was with friends, so you could count that as not wasting time, but for the activity itself, my small town in high school had a small-ish roundabout. I think it was about 10 feet across, maybe 15-20. We would be somewhere in town and while deciding what to do, we would drive to the roundabout and go around it, over and over in a circle. Like 40-50+ times. Easily an hour spent or more. Some nights that WAS our activity. What a huge waste of time, other than being with friends.
posted by Meldanthral at 11:12 AM on February 24 [4 favorites]

Almost every weekend, I plopped myself down and watched "Science Fiction Theater" (a locally-produced "monster movie of the week" program) or, in the same vein*, Elvira's Movie Macabre (hosted by Cassandra Peterson) or Seymour's Monster Rally (hosted by Larry Vincent).
----
*See what I did there?
posted by SPrintF at 11:19 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]

Am 51. Long walks with friends, walking and talking. Bike rides. Lots of reading including my parents' magazines. (Women's Day, Flying, The New England Journal of Medicine, woo!) Sooooo many hours long phone calls which I miss so much. Lots of lying around ideating. Lots of pointless drives to nowhere. Listening to music as an activity.
posted by shadygrove at 11:24 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Listening to music and nothing else—sometimes actively engaged, sometimes spacing out. As a teen I got into headbanging so I’d listen to music and vigorously damage my brain.

Bothering a sibling or my mom. By bothering I mean just going to whatever room they were in and hanging out, sometimes talking but often just doing nothing. Like my brother would be playing guitar or drawing and I’d flip through one of his books or something. Or my mom would be making shopping lists or cooking and I’d just kind of like…be there.

We had a lot of coffee table books and cookbooks and those were good for killing time. Also got weekly and monthly magazines.

Sitting outside with a cold drink was another great way to do nothing.
posted by kapers at 11:29 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I was a teen in the 60s and 70s. I spent a lot of time outside, reading books and gazing at clouds or watching bugs in the grass, studying bark on trees or watching the water in the creek. I did a lot of acid and spent hours and hours listening to records or playing guitar. In the summer I'd stay up all night listening to what was then called "underground radio" with bands like Cream or Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin and talk on the phone to the overnight DJ, who seemed delighted to talk to a lonely music obsessed teenager.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:29 AM on February 24 [9 favorites]

Board games, puzzles, going to the mall.
posted by Sukey Says at 11:30 AM on February 24

Talking to friends on the phone or hanging out, playing video games and watching tv, going to music stores/second hand stores/the library, giving people rides, going through old stuff in various relatives houses (a weird elegiac mood to be sure, not always joyful, but impossible to resist)
posted by elgee at 11:43 AM on February 24

Back before the internet, "watching television" or "playing video games" were definitive waste-of-time biz.

Music.

Tooling around on my bike.

Reading dumb little articles in the newspaper that ostensibly kept me "well informed," but not to any real end, or about subjects that tended to affect me. The funny pages and crossword.
posted by cupcakeninja at 11:51 AM on February 24 [2 favorites]

Being a high schooler in the 90s: reading books, rereading Calvin and Hobbes, Far Side, and Life is Hell collections and old issues of magazines, listening to the radio, having a radio station that was "your" station (107.7 The End) and listening to the top 10 they did every night either lying down or pacing around, looking through your junior high/high school yearbooks, journaling, talking on the phone, sitting on the floor and picking small pieces of lint out of the carpet, organizing your stuff in your room, using the home computer to dial up AOL, tweezing eyebrow and facial hairs.

Being a college student in the 90s: having time every day after class to take a long nap, then walk to check your mail with your friend and hang out for an hour, then in nice weather go on a solo walk around the dorms, read the weekly alternative paper cover-to-cover, listen to a full album, write in journal, go to the store for a snack.
posted by lizard music at 11:54 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I used to (and still do) plot elaborate novel-length stories in my head. I see them in my mind's eye, like watching a movie. I reimagine / rewrite important scenes over and over, tweaking them to make them better, and revisit favorite scenes just to run through them again.

When I try to write them down, I get something that's maybe 30% as good as the story in my head.
posted by BrashTech at 11:55 AM on February 24 [7 favorites]

Best answer: Yeah, full on fantasy world stuff too - dreaming about a fantasy life, things you wished you could buy, made up relationships, imagining different outcomes from past embarrassments. I probably also spent a lot of time lying down staring into space worrying about things.
posted by lizard music at 12:11 PM on February 24 [5 favorites]

I listened to the radio or my cassette tapes and worked jigsaw puzzles or knitted. I am 59.
posted by JanetLand at 12:28 PM on February 24

my family used to do this (in retrospect, weird to me) thing on weekends where we would go to housing developments and look at model homes. we weren't planning to move, it was just something to do (70s, 80s).

Yes, for me this was the 90s, but my parents would drag me to various open houses on the weekends. Not looking to buy, just sort of being nosy? I don't even know. I hated it.

As a teen, I feel like driving around listening to music, walking around the mall, sitting in cafes, those were ways that I killed time.
posted by litera scripta manet at 12:53 PM on February 24

Throughout my 20s, if I was riding a bus or waiting for a meeting to start, I was reading a newspaper, which for me was either the campus newspaper or a free weekly. They also had crossword puzzles and sudoku in them.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:28 PM on February 24

In my teens and my 20s ( this was in 80's, 90's), weather permitting , I use to walk around the garden and enjoy the flowers. On a rainy day, would sit near the window and enjoy the rain or do some puzzles in the daily newspaper. I never had a TV/internet at home till I finished college. I use to draw a lot in my free time which was very relaxing.
posted by SunPower at 1:50 PM on February 24

Best answer: Listening to the radio with your fingers on the Play & Record buttons on the cassette player so you can record a Good Song if it comes on. Listening to the song in tiny chunks to try and transcribe the lyrics. Copying by hand the lyrics a friend had written out. Compiling list of quotes you thought were funny or profound. Particularly on daily 1 hour bus journey to university: over the corner of journal pages, unfolding and folding in the other corner. Re-reading comfort book. Once there was a computer in the house, listening to the radio and playing solitaire or minesweeper. Making weird little concoctions in the microwave (improvised mug cakes or soggy cheese on white bread or baked potato)
posted by slightlybewildered at 1:59 PM on February 24 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I’m 53. I spent my entire first year at college getting baked, smoking Marlboro reds, listening to the White Album on repeat on my yellow Sony Walkman, and staring into a candle. Like, night after night after night….
posted by tristeza at 2:00 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I read anything that was approximately stationary. Cereal boxes, the local newspaper, readers digest, random books my family were reading, mail order catalogs that we never ever bought anything from but nonetheless showed up regularly, posters, graffiti, lost-_____ flyers, whatever. Walking to the store, even for no purpose. Laying around in the nearby woods. Elaborating on an imaginary daydreaming universe with a lot of characters and plot.
posted by janell at 2:29 PM on February 24 [16 favorites]

I had video games and tv shows, but echoing those who are saying they would actually sit and listen to music. I got back into records for this reason—it's a more mindful way of listening to me. But I think I'd also do a lot more creative stuff, which isn't really doing nothing, I guess, but it passed the time—doodling without any real intent, making up D&D-related stuff, noodling on my guitar...

Now that I'm thinking about it, it sounds like a much fulfilling way to spend my time than reloading Feedly / Reddit. :/
posted by synecdoche at 2:40 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

52. Socialized plenty but I don't know any more than I would if I were that age now. Read parts of 2-3 newspapers a day and 6-7 magazines a week, and read lots of books too. At least a few 20-30 minute phone calls with distant friends a week - texting and email did away with that. Any night I was home or was at a friend's house, there would always be between an hour and a few hours of television shows between 6 p.m. (start of Jeopardy) and 1:30 a.m. (end of David Letterman / Conan) you would sit down for.
posted by MattD at 2:45 PM on February 24

Best answer: Mid-50s checking in.

Listening to music. A LOT of music. Listening to music over and over again to figure out (and write down) the lyrics. Seriously, I had a notebook.

Doodling.

Watching and playing with dripping candle wax.

Walking with my (cassette) Walkman. I still remember the odd but song-specific screech of forwarding through the songs I didn’t like.

Playing scrabble when I could find someone to play with.

Hours on the phone with my best friend.
posted by 2 cats in the yard at 2:59 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

57, growing up in New Jersey and Oregon:

-Watching tv shows, so many tv shows (at some point recently I made a list and it was LONG), and movies, especially monster movies and sci-fi movies
-Browsing Sears Roebuck catalogs for outfits that I wished would make me feel not like myself
-Reading magazines were around the house, like Reader's Digest and Better Homes and Gardens
-Running around the woods behind our development
-If I was at my grandmother's house: rearranging the sideboard with all of her various porcelain figurines, picking through her books in the side room on the second floor, running down the street to the playground at the end of the block, or climbing the maple tree in her backyard
-Hanging out at the pool
-Riding my bike around
-Hanging out at the used bookstore, reading Starlog and just probably being a nuisance who never spent money
-Typing out whatever little writing project I had on our manual typewriter
-Staring at album artwork while listening to music
-Taping songs off the radio
-Watching my brother play video games
-Hanging out at the library
-Teaching myself to bake cookies from scratch
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 3:41 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Late 60's here. We played outside a lot, softball, kickball, even tag. We talked all the time about school and other people, boys and girls we liked and hated. listened to tons of music. I remembered when we had live DJ's on AM radio, it was so fun! We talked on the phone forever too. I rode my bike, swam at the Y, learned to knit in Girl Scouts, played with my dog. I sewed a lot too, I made some of my clothes. In college I partied every weekend, and at night lived on my headphones listening to cassettes or FM radio. We all had to have help getting our hair untangled from those headphones after sleeping in them all night drunk. We went shopping at drugstores and tried out makeup. We read a lot of magazines, all of them from Life and Look to Teen Beat and those lurid true romance ones. But free time was spent mostly hanging out with my friends and talking.
posted by chocolatetiara at 3:58 PM on February 24

10. Lying on the floor listening to entire albums and looking at the liner notes and memorizing lyrics.
9. Playing cool deep cuts for my friends.
8. Getting high and driving around aimlessly.
7. Hanging out on the porch talking.
6. Giving each other makeovers.
5. Talking on the phone for HOURS. Omg, I talked to my high school boyfriend for like 3-4 hours a night. Why can't I find a man I can talk to like that now??? Plus talking to all my girlfriends, my ear would literally hurt.
4. Playing pinball.
3. Lying out in the sun, yes with baby oil doctored with iodine, and homemade sun reflectors.
2. Reading magazines and, later, catalogs
Aaaannd 1. Hanging out after school at my friend Karen's house getting high and eating Entenmann's donuts and chocolate chip cookies.
posted by HotToddy at 4:29 PM on February 24 [3 favorites]

Talking on the phone with friends. Writing letters to friends who lived elsewhere. Reading the newspaper (corporate-ish daily and alternative weekly). Watching/listening to stuff I'd taped off TV (120 Minutes) or the radio (Hour of Slack) because it came on after I went to bed. Baking cookies and brownies. Rearranging my bedroom. Hanging out at bookstores. Hanging out at Denny's or IHOP. Driving places.
posted by unknowncommand at 4:31 PM on February 24 [2 favorites]

I honestly cannot comprehend how much time I spent talking on the phone with my friends and girlfriends in high school in the mid to late 80s. Like, I don't actually let myself believe how much time I spent doing that. Other than that, it was actually spending time with said people, walking or biking around aimlessly, reading lots of things, including the newspapers and my parents' magazines along with whatever SFF/nonfiction books I could get my hands on. As someone who was most definitely of the Atari 2600 generation, I also played video games on that system and the various pre-Windows computers I was fortunate enough to have access to. I guess I did homework and, later on, actually had a job at some point, but those memories don't really come to the forefront.
posted by mollweide at 5:31 PM on February 24 [2 favorites]

Oh, crap, I can't believe I forgot to add TV. So much bad, syndicated, worthless TV. When I think about how much time my now college-aged kid has spent on a screen, I try to remember that I was doing that in a much less directed and probably much less worthwhile way. I did watch PBS a lot because I was that kind of kid, but the sheer amount of quality science and tech stuff my kid has access to and watches is pretty mindblowing.
posted by mollweide at 5:35 PM on February 24 [2 favorites]

Mid 50s here, gonna tell a childhood horror story with a happy ending: when I was a kid I was under a weird behavior modification system that I didn't really need but my parents needed to figure out how to discipline me without hitting. I also had a "phobia of hypodermic needles" that would probably be rediagnosed today as medical PTSD.

When I was about 11, I refused a doctor's treatment because of my phobia/PTSD and the net result under the behavior modification system was that I had to sit "on the couch" for six weeks. No visits with friends, no TV, no leisure reading, just homework and chores all afternoon/evening on school nights and over the weekend. I read ahead in all my school books and did a lot of advance homework and still ran out of things to do. The upside to this incident is that I can still, with a little effort, just retreat completely inwards and write stories in my head. I spent a lot of time doing that kind of thing in college. And that's still what I do when I don't have my phone.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:23 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

77yo

After I quit working for other people, I spent most of my time in the backcountry of the Sierra Nevada mountains. When winter shut me out, I did all the chores you do when you have a half-dozen horses and mules to fool around with--scratching ears, rubbing bellies, trimming hooves. I spent part of one winter asking my Arabian mare to lie down on command. There was no valid reason; I was playing with my horse. On my rides, I took detailed trail notes, logged riding times and trail conditions, and rated the trails for their difficulty. I collected all kinds of data, valid for someone who wishes to spend an extended time in the high country without carrying feed. I still have those notebooks. They are useless now, so you could say they wasted time. I spent one season riding from southern Oregon to Kings Canyon, NP. I was headed for Mexico but met many people I knew along the way and got sidetracked. I got snowed out trying to cross Forrester Pass and had to follow the road back to Cedar Grove.

During one period, I wrote short stories and joined a chess club. I also went through a phase of writing letters to editors. Then I got on the internet, which let me get in touch with old friends in California and reconnect with some of the guys on my teams when I was in the army.

I also reconnected with my guitar--a Yamaha 360FG I'd had for twenty years. About twenty years ago, I bought a Martin D-15, then a Martin acoustic bass, then a Martin D-28. I played for Oregon Old Time Fiddlers for about fifteen years (I was the boom chuck guy in the back) and with a trio in Oregon for about five years (I was the frontman because nobody else wanted to do it). I played with the Idaho Old Time Fiddlers for a couple of years before we moved to New Mexico. No NMOTF clubs operate in my neck of the woods, so I went around to a couple of open mic venues until recently when health issues started to take up my time.

I have an excellent view to the east from my patio across the San Vicinte Arroyo, about three miles to the far ridge. About a mile north begins the Gila Mountains. The arroyo descends as it goes south and broadens out into the flats of the Chihuahua Desert. I can see Cooks Peak, 35 miles south, and the Three Sisters, on the other side of Deming, some forty miles away. I now waste my time watching the birds scatter a quail block under the large desert oak. I've also seen a wren, a pair of canyon towhees, spotted towhees, and the ubiquitous ravens and raucous dessert jays.

Looking back, I see lots of wasted time until I break it down. I wasted a lot of time at university because I quit during my last semester. I wasted a lot of time driving big trucks back and forth across the US. I wasted a lot of time pulling mules on high, rocky trails. I wasted a line of time learning chord intervals and playing the blues to myself between relationships. The only thing I did that wasn't a waste of time was to be a dad to my son. He's chasing 40 now and doing well. He's a self-designated DINK, living with his sweetheart and spouse in the Denver area.

Sooner than later, I'll be relegated to a comfy chair on the patio with a warm blanket over my knees, revisiting the better of my memories. The time you spend watching grass grow is not time wasted. Okay, I admit that many of those hours I spent on freeway onramps with my thumb in the wind were maybe a bit spare in content. Even so, many of the people who picked me up were a bit of an adventure.
posted by mule98J at 9:22 AM on February 25 [9 favorites]

48, and similar to many others..
* All-day movies at a multi-plex, buy a ticket, then just head into other movies when the first movie let out
* Late-night drives to nowhere, listening to music
* CD Stores
* Hours on dial-up downloading "warez" on various BBSs
* Basic Cable
posted by fignuts at 10:12 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I used to listen to a lot of music - mostly albums on my record player (later, 8-track tape), but sometimes the really good radio stations we had in Chicago. (WXRT is still going strong.)

While I was listening, I would play solitaire with a physical deck of cards, or I would color in a giant Doole Art poster.

I have also enjoyed lying down on a public park bench and watching the clouds, especially if there are twigs and branches overhead to watch them through.

This is a great question - I've loved reading all the answers. Thank you for asking it!
posted by kristi at 2:52 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks so much to everyone for these fabulous answers so far -- all of these really are great! I marked "best answer" to those that foregrounded what I was most trying to remember - the "space out" time of things like looking at shadows or dripping candle wax, or reading the back of a cereal box for the zillionth time, things that didn't seem to register in my memory in the same way as other wonderful non-goal oriented activities like socializing for its own sake, which I remembered more clearly in my own life, but which have been less totally replaced by my phone-oriented zone outs.
Keep them coming !
posted by ojocaliente at 4:16 PM on February 25

Best answer: Smoking cigarettes was the ultimate space out activity. That was their main function, as I recall. Something to do when you're doing nothing, taking a break, killing time, staring into space.

Also doodling. Something that really only happens in a world where you have a pen in your hand in ready mode but with nothing at the moment to write, which never, ever happens for me anymore and hasn't since about 1993.

Making stuff with paper--fans, airplanes, footballs, things made out of paper money or straw wrappers.
posted by HotToddy at 10:03 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog.]
posted by taz (staff) at 3:28 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]

I still do most of these things:

Making mixtapes
Alphabetizing books/records
Writing (often in longhand)
Reading
Smoking (quit 2009)
Talking on the phone for literally hours
Talking on the phone for literally hours while watching TV
Long walks with friends
Long walks while listening to music (Walkmen, then discmen, then . . .)
Drawing
Singing/Playing Piano/Guitar
Petting cats
Daydreaming
Staring at tree branches until they start looking like dragons
Stargazing
Taking baths
Driving around and deliberately getting myself lost
Taking pictures
Magazines. Lots of magazines.
Cooking
Talking to myself
Massages
posted by thivaia at 7:36 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]

My list (age 51) definitely included two things nobody seems to do anymore: talk on the phone and just...drop by people's places and chat.
posted by gottabefunky at 11:04 AM on February 27

Mid-60's here. I spent hours playing guitar or piano, listening to music, drawing or reading sci-fi or comics. And then I did all that while stoned.
posted by jabo at 7:47 PM on February 27 [1 favorite]

As a kid I played with Lego a lot, like, a lot. Often the TV would be on too, whatever the local channels were playing, and probably Dr Who and MASH most weeknights.
I spent time with the neighbourhood kids - on summer vacation we would ride bikes, build dams in the local creek, maybe visit a kid with a pool. Parents would often take us to the beach or similar low cost outing on a weekend, and if there was a seat int he car you could come too, or if it was your parents, bring a friend..
A bit older and I would hang at a friend's place on the way home from school, chatting, listening to music.
As a teen I would hang out with musical people, start bands, browse record stores, listen to new music. At home listen to the radio, read a lot, books, newspapers, magazines, catalogs.
A heap of time was wasted getting places, waiting for people to finish dance class, or sport or a teen job, then hanging out. I had various part time jobs too.
As a older teen and young adult lots of get togethers. The week had a rhythm with dollar drinks at a local nightclub on a Tuesday, pubnight on a Thursday, then maybe head out to see bands or movies or a party on the weekend.
We certainly drove around pretty aimlessly, but also would go down the coast for a night, sleeping in the car or on the beach, drinking beer etc.
A year or two before I left home we got a computer and I spent many late nights playing games, but also installing operating systems (Desqview, OS/2, later Linux, or trying to squeeze extra free memory out of a config.sys) and other weird software from magazine cover discs or downloaded from a BBS.

I think the difference was the abundance of time meant you were limited by resources - could you get access to deeper information, or specialist tools, or consumables. I spent a few years getting into black and white photography, but the costs of film and paper were a constant grind, let alone getting better gear. When I bought or borrowed an album it was certainly listened to again and again. Swapping tapes, books, videos was always happening with friends.
posted by bystander at 1:37 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]

From about age 12-16, I was really into collage. I cut photos out of magazines and stuck them all over my room, mostly of TV shows I liked. And then I started making collages, which I would give to friends. For my close friends' birthday gifts, I would collage a whole cardboard box - a small stiff box from a kettle or similar small appliance - with pictures and inside jokes - and then mod podge it to make a keepsake. Since I was 15 and had very little money, the box would be a huge and valued part of the gift.

I had a pen pal - a fellow teenager I met at a tournament and clicked with - so I would jot down a few lines when I was bored, like a diary, and then send the letter about once a week (letter and envelope both heavily decorated!)

I burned candles and used one of my dad's old scalpels to play with the wax, dripping it, scraping it, etc.

I was extremely connected with my friends. I lived kind of far from them so we talked on the phone, a lot! My best friend and I would talk on the phone for 1-3 hours a night and often fall asleep on the phone together.

I hung out with friends and we would go for walks, or sit on a playground and talk late at night about all kinds of things. Ideas we had about the world, books we liked, etc. Then sit in someone's mom's minivan eating junk food.

I read and read and read. Easily 1-2 books a week, in addition to schoolwork, and my family subscribed a ton of magazines (or bought them at Costco) - Seventeen Magazine, Shape, Self, National Geographic, Maxim, Chatelaine, Canadian Living, and Time, so I read tons of articles and pored over the photos.

I wrote poetry and songs and short stories, and did drawings, all the time. I practiced guitar. I made mix tapes off the radio or other tapes. I lament that level of effortless creativity, I now have the urge to monetize or perfect stuff like that.

I experimented with makeup. I cooked. I rearranged my room. I tried on outfits, or studied catalogues and planned clothing purchases. Lots of mall-rat time, too!

I listened to songs or watched movie scenes multiple times, rewinding the tape again and again, to memorize the dialogue or harmonies, then recited or sang along. I read the liner notes in my music, too. I pored over Colombia House catalogues and chose my free DVDs.

Sometimes I did VHS workout tapes! I occasionally went to a park and practiced shooting basketballs or hitting tennis balls against the wall. I rode my bike. I went for walks alone in the woods near my house and climbed trees, or even just sat and stared.

I miss it all.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 5:41 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]

Two things not listed here are beer and church.
posted by rebent at 3:58 PM on February 28

Two things not listed here are beer and church.

My maw took a cooler of brew to church last Sunday
And passed it around when swinging with the choir.
The preacher told the altos they were flat
They all replied to him that
They didn't think that they could get much higher

[there, FITY]
posted by mule98J at 11:10 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Six decades of procrastinating and daydreaming. If there was a doctorate in wasting time, I'd be head of the department.

Like many comments here, I often used to like:

- re-reading old magazines that I'd read before

- long unstructured walks around random neighbourhoods and countrysides

- listening intently to the entire album on the turntable

Like many people, in the 21st century Social Media has almost taken over for me as the biggest time-waster. And Yes, it's not as satisfying.
posted by ovvl at 11:39 AM on March 2