Line #56 BlessedWithSuck/RealLife


1	* There was a study in Russia of a man (left unnamed, referred to as Mr. S in the study) who had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia hyperthymesia]], meaning he was born [[PhotographicMemory without the ability to forget anything.]] Phone numbers, bank accounts, scripts and books, snippets of conversation, emotions both good and bad, sensations both good and bad... well, you get the picture. He was almost normal until his mid-20s, when [[MySkullRunnethOver the information overload started getting to him.]] He died of suicide at the age of 32.
2	** Jill Price is famous for having the same ability as the man above. Initially, the ability to remember everything in your life sounds tremendously useful. Teacher gives a lecture? Hey, no problem, you remember it! Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Jill's ability, as with most people who have this, is ''autobiographical memory only''. She can remember that on X date thirty years before she was sitting in a high-school class at 10:15 AM listening to a lecture on history. But she can't remember the lecture itself, she only remembers where she was, what she was doing, what she was wearing, etc. -- autobiographical information. Actual ''useful'' information? No.
3	** It doesn't even have to be a ''perfect'' memory to be this trope; even just a significantly above average memory can be a burden, simply because virtually everyone has moments in example past that they'd rather not recall, or at least not in vivid detail. For instance, most people wish they could forget their embarrassing moments, but a person with an exceptional memory won't merely recall that it happened; rather, they'll retain the memory in vivid detail even years later, such that if the memory is triggered, it can bring up the same emotional response as the original incident did in the moment. It's even worse when this extends to painful or traumatic memories. (And of course, the person with a merely above-average memory has even fewer advantages, as they ''can'' still forget important things, even if they're less likely to.)
4	* Cells in the body, for various reasons, can only divide a certain number of times; this is essentially why we age. But some cells are blessed with the ability to keep dividing forever! The downside? Well, they're called ''[[BodyHorror cancer cells]]''.
5	** Henrietta Lacks found a way to live forever -- as a spreading strain of ''immortal'' human cells! Now the [=HeLa=] cells are seen as more of a nuisance since they're apparently all over the place -- and they like to corrupt other samples of other cells.
6	*** And note that even the 'found' part was much less cheerful than it sounds. Namely, Lacks got cancer, doctors took her cells for diagnosis, but ended up using them for extensive biological testing- ''without her permission''. She died in poverty (of cancer), without ever knowing that her cell line was being used all around the world, often used to help develop very profitable drugs. Her family was denied compensation for more than 70 years after her death.
7	* Al Yageneh went from one storefront to a nationwide franchise when his delicious soups were featured in an episode of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}''. Unfortunately, because of that same episode, [[IAmNotSpock Al Yageneh will forever be known as the Soup Nazi]]. It's apparently turned him into a semi-recluse.
8	* Being famous in general can become this, especially if it's for bad reasons. See CelebrityIsOverrated.
9	* People with the rare condition CIPA: Congenital Insensibility to Pain with Anhidrosis, which essentially takes the form of a complete loss of the sense of touch. Can't feel heat or cold, aren't even slowed down by sucking chest wounds, pretty awesome crimefighting power right? Well, it would be if they [[RequiredSecondaryPowers also had a healing factor to go with it]]. As is, they risk permanently destroying their bodies at any time because they might not even notice injuries, or even notice that ''they're in the process of being injured at that moment'' (for example, not having the reflex to pull your hand away from a hot surface). Additionally, the insensitivity isn't limited to the sensations most people associate with the word "pain", but also extends to other body-to-brain signals that generally exist to tell people what their bodies need -- such as hunger or the need to use the bathroom. The disorder also affects ''involuntary'' responses that the body generally uses to protect itself; people with CIPA have been known to suffer heat-related medical complications from temperatures that most people would find moderately uncomfortable at worst because their body doesn't recognize the elevated temperature and employ basic mechanisms like sweating.
10	** There's an article on the NYT about [[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/magazine/ashlyn-blocker-feels-no-pain.html?hp&pagewanted=all a girl with CIPA]]. Imagine having a child who's chewed off part of her own tongue, or runs on broken ankles, or sits covered in biting ants. There's then an anecdote from an adult woman with CIPA whose pelvis ''shattered during childbirth'' and was bleeding internally, and only felt a kind of stiffness.
11	** Because of their lack of pain response, people with this condition also have reduced reflexes. One patient with CIPA, known as "Ms. C", mentioned that not only did she have no memory of experiencing pain, but she also had no memory of sneezing or coughing. ''Ever.''
12	* Blood type O–: the universal donor, the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Blood]] of medicine. With it, one can donate blood to anyone (barring the presence of extremely rare additional factors). Oh, and your body is only capable of receiving O– blood, nothing else, [[TooAwesomeToUse so hospitals can barely use the stuff in transfusions because they have to save it for O– patients.]] There is a ''small'' surplus of O– blood, thanks to generous O– donors who give more frequently and not so generous donors who realize it sells for more.
13	** On the other hand, blood plasma inverts the recipient/donor relationship. O– blood plasma can only be donated to other O– people and O– people can take blood plasma of any type. AB+ blood plasma becomes the universal donor and also can only take blood plasma from other AB+ donors. It's good to donate blood whatever your blood type is!
14	** Actually, there's an even ''more'' universal donor: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hh_blood_group hh–]], also known as Bombay blood because it was first discovered by a doctor in the city then known as [[UsefulNotes/{{Mumbai}} Bombay]]. An hh– person can donate red blood cells to ''anyone in the ABO blood system''—A, B, AB, or O, whether Rh positive or negative. Even hh+ people can donate red blood cells to any Rh-positive person with ABO blood. The flip side, of course, is that an hh person can only receive blood from another hh person. Only about 4 people in every million have hh blood; even in Mumbai, where it's far more common, the frequency is still only about 1 in 10,000. In 2017, the only person in Colombia known to have hh blood needed a transfusion, and blood had to be imported from Brazil.
15	* Savant syndrome, in some cases. The most notable case being Kim Peek (the "real-life" basis for the Film/RainMan).
16	* Having absolute pitch has a few downsides, leading some people to regard it like this. For example, having to play a piece in a different key than it was written in feels like being forced to paint a picture using all the wrong colors. One twentieth-century musicologist actually tried to get rid of it, by playing the developments of Beethoven piano sonatas over and over in all possible keys. You also constantly notice the pitch of random noises such as train whistles, and it’s really distracting.
17	** Relative pitch really helps when it comes to singing, especially from memory. However, if somebody else is singing even slightly off key, it quickly becomes annoying.
18	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Velasquez Lizzie Velasquez]] is a woman who suffers from a rare disease called neonatal progeroid syndrome (NPS). She consumes as much as 8,000 calories a day, yet is still extremely thin at only 56 lbs (25.4 kg or 4 stone).
19	** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Staniford Tom Staniford]] has a similar condition.
20	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Greenberg Brooke Greenberg]] may hold the secret to immortality, or the very least how aging works. She has stayed the same physical and mental age for years. That age? 9 months to 1 year old. Unfortunately, she passed away on October 23, 2013, due to a condition most common in newborn babies called bronchomalacia.
21	* There are genetic conditions which result in increased muscle mass in comparison to the general public. The downside? Your heart and lungs do not scale accordingly, putting constant increased stress on them, which guarantees a shorter life expectancy.
22	* Many animals experience this. Cheetahs are a particular example: [[FragileSpeedster They are extremely fast and agile but give up virtually all their endurance and physical toughness]], so while it's relatively easy for them to catch a meal, keeping it is problematic, and they have to eat a ''lot''.
23	** Conversely, anacondas and other large constrictors can swallow prey as big as they are, and go for months without eating. The catch? They ''need'' that downtime in order to regenerate their stomach lining, which tears itself apart with ulcers trying to digest its meal before it starts rotting inside the snake.
24	** Flying is generally considered awesome. Unfortunately for the birds, this requires extensive adaptation with hollow, fragile bones, extensive lungs, and a hyperactive diet to fuel everything (sparrows are said to eat twenty-five times their own weight each day, and some species of hummingbird are literally ''always starving''). They literally have no room for anything else but flying. Birds who have lost flying ability have not been known to have re-gained it.
25	** Some species of lizards and bugs can [[LifeOrLimbDecision break off their tails or limbs]] if they find themselves grabbed by predators to make a quick escape, safe in the knowledge that the limb will regrow in time. A few species of scorpions have this trait with their tails, but once they break off their tail, it will never grow back. The issues that arise afterward are twofold: not only does the lack of a tail rob a scorpion of its defenses and ability to hunt for food, but it also robs them of their ability to ''defecate'', due to the tail also forming the end of their digestive tract. Those scorpions who manage to survive being hunted after losing their tails are doomed to die in a matter of months from extreme constipation.
26	** Male peafowl, known as peacocks, get a double-dose of this trope. On one hand, their bright, extravagant plumage is what helps them attract mates. On the other hand, it makes them clumsy fliers and unlikely to escape predators that are ''also'' drawn to their plumage. But on the third hand, predators are more drawn to the male than the bland-colored female, allowing her to raise the chicks in peace and thus keep the species alive.
27	*** The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_principle handicap principle]] adds a ''fourth'' hand, suggesting that the disadvantage caused to the males by their plumage is precisely what makes it attractive to females, as they're essentially advertising "hey ladies, I'm flashy and have to drag this stupid tail around and I've still managed to avoid being eaten and to keep my ridiculous feathers in good condition, I must be a worthy mate".
28	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia Synesthesia]]. This is when peoples' senses are linked in intricate ways, like seeing a different colour every time you hear a different sound or associating a certain emotion with a number. The variations are possibly endless. Sounds cool at first, but it can also be negative. For example, you might taste chocolate every time you saw the colour brown, but what if you associated it with poop instead?
29	** It is usually helpful for remembering things, but there are times when it can work against you. For example, let's say that 3 and 4 are both shades of green, and since they are consecutive numbers they also appear in similar positions relative to other numbers. Remembering sequences containing these numbers is difficult because you are used to remembering numbers by their colour and position, so the ways in which non-synesthetes remember things are unintuitive. [[UselessWithoutPowers This puts you at a disadvantage compared to a normal person]].
30	** For a milder example, sometimes graphemes such as letters and numbers are assigned different colours, but the colours rarely correspond to how a grapheme-colour synesthete sees them. This makes the letters/numbers appear overwhelmingly wrong in a way that can't be explained, like a sort of mild SensoryAbuse. Ironically, this situation often occurs on sites explaining synesthesia. It's also not uncommon for synesthetes to get into unresolvable arguments about the way they perceive things where each side is absolutely convinced that they are right but has no way of proving it.
31	* On a cellular level, this is how Anxiety Disorder is formed in the brain. People with Anxiety genetically have brains that produce thoughts much faster than average, which makes Anxious people very intelligent as a whole. However, during times of stress, the brain is designed to produce thoughts even faster than normal. For Anxious people, this speed is simply too fast for thought receptors in the brain to recognize them, which causes a feeling of blank-mindedness on top of stress, leading to panic. This leads to anxious people who, despite being very smart, often feel stupid and useless at the worst possible moments. This is what causes the intense fear and avoidance of stressful situations that people without Anxiety are able to work in normally.
32	* Creator/LouisGossettJr said his Best Supporting Actor Academy Award (for ''Film/AnOfficerAndAGentleman'') ended up being this. Sure, an Oscar is a wonderful achievement for an actor, but Gossett said that it put him in acting limbo, since smaller productions didn't think they could afford him (since he's an Oscar winner) and big productions didn't think he could carry a movie on his own (since he won for ''Supporting'' Actor). A lot of Best Supporting Actor/Actress winners have trouble finding work afterward.
33	* Sir Creator/AlecGuinness's work in ''Film/ANewHope''. He was perhaps the only person associated with the film, aside from Creator/GeorgeLucas, who actually thought the film would be successful, but he never imagined it would become one of the biggest movies of all time, overshadowing the entire rest of his career to the point where he ended up equated in the popular consciousness exclusively with the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi. [[IAmNotSpock He was not happy about that bit.]]
34	* For some people, never having to sleep may sound like a sweet deal: imagine everything that you could accomplish if you didn't have to go to bed for a third of every day. Unfortunately, as anyone with insomnia can tell you, you really kinda ''need'' to sleep; going without sleep for a full 24 hours can lead to cognitive impairment equivalent to being shit-faced drunk, and staying up for even longer than that can lead to muscle spasms, headaches, and nightmarish hallucinations.[[note]]To be fair, when people fantasize about not having to sleep, what they're generally imagining is a scenario where their body ''doesn't'' require sleep, rather than just wishing for the ability to stay awake.[[/note]] Then there's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_insomnia fatal insomnia]], a very rare prion disorder that makes it so you can NeverSleepAgain; without sleep, the body and mind both begin to break down slowly and painfully, with symptoms growing increasingly worse and sufferers usually dying within a year of onset.
35	* As anyone with hypersensitivity will tell you: SuperSenses = SensoryOverload = this trope. Sensitive hearing, in particular, can make it very difficult to sleep.
36	* A lot of people with extremely high [=IQs=] or general intelligence suffer from depression because they don't have [[IntelligenceEqualsIsolation anybody on their level to talk to.]] This was first noted by intelligence researcher Leta Hollingworth, and he coined the concept of ''communication range'' - a range of IQ where meaningful communication is possible, and it is +/- 30 points to each direction. It doesn't sound too bad - unless you realize that if your IQ is over 150, your communication range is 120 to 180, restricting the number of people with which you can have any meaningful conversation to less than 8% of the society. On IQ 120 it would be 90 to 150 - enough to cover more than 80% of the society - and having IQ of 150 provides no real advantages over having IQ 120.
37	** Gifted children are especially vulnerable to this trope since they seem to be in a sort of lose-lose situation. Either they are encouraged to stimulate their intellectual capacities (meaning that they have to skip entire years of school and go directly to University at an early age, meaning they have to be in a completely foreign environment for them) or they are kept in their school year (which, while benefits them due to the fact that they can interact with children their age, can cause them to be problematic, since they are sitting in a class learning things they already know).
38	*** There's also the tendency of gifted kids to grow up with extreme motivation problems. They don't usually have to work very hard in school because the material is easy, and are rarely rewarded proportionally for it because they can't do better than "perfect" and "perfect" is their "average". This means that if they ever ''do'' find something difficult, they feel like failures because they're ''supposed'' to be smart enough to handle anything, or get put under such pressure to succeed that they run themselves ragged just to avoid the punishment that comes from being less than perfect. This usually ends with the gifted kid growing into an adult who shuts down when something doesn't come easily, either because they feel like a failure and are too ashamed to continue, or because they've been doing perfectly all their lives and have nothing to show for it except being eligible to be expected to be perfect somewhere else.
39	*** This is, unfortunately, the fate of a lot of gifted students in school. They're so good they never have to work for those A's or the praise, and as a consequence, they never learn how to work hard for what they want or how to handle failure or rejection. Once they get thrust out of school, either into the real world where hard work and handling failure are invaluable necessities, or into college and university [[OvershadowedByAwesome where gifted students are the norm]], they find themselves overwhelmed, unable to cope, and struggling immensely without the skills to handle it.
40	* A rare genetic condition called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbach-Wiethe_disease Urbach-Wiethe disease]] can, in some cases, cause damage to the amygdala, dampening or removing the victim's ability to feel fear. Which, on top of all the dermatological and neurological problems caused by Urbach-Wiethe diease, means you're not afraid of anything... including things that could be potentially dangerous. Even then, Urbach-Wiethe disease sufferers do have one weakness in their otherwise unfailing lack of fear: when exposed to higher-than-normal levels of carbon dioxide, [[https://www.nature.com/news/researchers-scare-fearless-patients-1.12350 those with the disease reported feeling nigh-crippling terror]]. Imagine living your entire life without fear, then experiencing it when exposed to high levels of [=CO2=], the sensation being completely foreign and, thus, all the more harrowing!
41	* Having a job that involves frequent travel. On the one hand, being able to visit all sorts of other places and having your employer pay for it all sounds great ...but this also will uproot you from home and your family quite a bit, makes scheduling your social life far more complicated and can make real vacations less enjoyable.
42	* Speaking of such jobs, being a member of the Armed Forces. Yes it's a job that pays decently, is a guaranteed steady paycheque, provides free health and dental care including ''mental'' health care which is prohibitively expensive civy-side, provides generous paid vacation leave, provides tons of training opportunities, and tends to be a fairly uncomplicated (if often physically demanding) job. This all comes at the cost of having next to no control over where you'll live or where you'll go, being put into dangerous situations, enduring tragic and even traumatizing events, physical breakdown in the form of permanent knee, back, ankle, hearing, and lung injuries, potentially having to take lives, and potentially being captured, permanently injured, or even killed. This also often makes it ''incredibly'' difficult to socialize since the things military members deal with, and their penchant for using [[BlackComedy wildly inappropriate and/or nihilistic dark humour]] to cope, often aren't understood or sympathized with by people outside of the organization. There's a reason that, even with free access to a myriad of mental health resources, people in the military are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_veteran_suicide#Background_information twice as likely to commit suicide]] as those in the civilian world.
43	* Some theorists of international relations have coined the term "resource curse". Sure, having a lot of natural resources (oil, gas, ores, you name it) may ''seem'' a huge advantage for a country, but it often leads to instability or fighting within the country over how to divide up the profits. Even where it doesn't, it has often lead to CripplingOverspecialization. Venezuela's exports are over 90% crude oil. That's good news if oil hovers at $100 a barrel, but what if oil drops to $30 a barrel? Even the countries that avoid all this can still fall victim to what economists call the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease Dutch disease]], where the economic boom caused by their resource exports causes their currency to become highly valued and thus renders every other export the country has uncompetitive in the global market place. This is what happened to the Netherlands after the discovery of the Groeningen natural gas field, hence the name.
44	* While having big breasts is a [[BuxomBeautyStandard beauty standard]] in fiction, in real life, [[DCupDistress it comes with a slew of a downsides]] including back pain, uncomfortable and expensive brassieres, difficulty finding comfortable clothes, excessive sweat, painful tugging at the chest during motion, not being able to lay on your belly (forget about back sun bathing or getting a normal back massage), etc., not to mention the fact that women with larger breasts are frequently sexualized when they're just trying to live their lives. That doesn't stop many women from desiring bigger breasts anyway as [[SkewedPriorities logic tends to take a backseat to sexuality.]]
45	** [[https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1534-5-nightmare-realities-having-absurdly-large-boobs.html This Cracked.com article]], written by a woman with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_hypertrophy breast hypertrophy]] (she had size-JJ breasts, the size of an adult's head each), details all the health problems her condition caused her, plus the horrific SlutShaming she received ''as a middle schooler''. She ended up getting a breast reduction at age 12 and never regretted it.
46	* Having a [[GagPenis long schlong]] is pretty desirable, [[BigPrickBigProblems if]] you can get past the discomfort of keeping it in your pants, having to deal with the occasional unwanted RagingStiffie, the problems of going to the bathroom sitting down, finding condoms that fit, and the common difficulty of lying down on your stomach, and that is '''if''' a large penis is even properly functional, because since the body can only provide so much blood, beyond a certain size the penis can no longer get erect in a way that it's meant to... thus making sex very difficult, if not downright impossible (as fitting into a partner can also become an issue). Yet, male enhancement is still going strong.
47	* To men who may not know any better, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapism priapism]] sounds like a good illness to have. After all, who wouldn't want wood that just won't quit? The answer to that question is "no one whatsoever"; after a few hours, erections begin to hurt ''a lot''. Worse still, the lack of oxygen to penile tissue from prolonged retention of deoxygenated blood can ultimately lead to erectile dysfunction. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking There's also the issue of going to the bathroom]]. That is to say ''nothing'' of some of the treatments needed to relieve priapism...
48	* Winning the lottery. On one hand, you and your family have won a large enough sum of money to have you set for life. On the other hand, your taxes spike up quickly, and a lot of trust issues are had with people you were once close with or even just knew, all because there's that prospect of [[GoldDigger money]] in the way. Some lottery winners have had some real horror stories over this, and some of the damage can be self-inflicted if [[AFoolAndHisNewMoneyAreSoonParted a person doesn't have an idea of how to properly use all that money]]. And then there are all those people who will do anything to you (or possibly your loved ones) to get ahold of that money.
49	* Certain teams consider leading a stage race in cycling, especially a [[EpicRace Grand Tour]], early on can be this a rider on said team is a contender for the win. While your rider is ''leading'' the race and is in the position you want to be in when the race is over, your team is expected to do a lot of work in the front of the pack, while the other teams can stay in cover for the wind. The teams with serious contenders usually don't mind leaving the jersey to a non-threatening rider for that reason, and non-threatening riders usually don't mind the jersey either, as it provides sponsor exposure for their teams. Some say that Phonak tried this during the 2006 edition of UsefulNotes/TourDeFrance, allowing the breakaway to gain almost 30 minutes on the pack and allowing Oscar Pereiro to take the yellow[[note]]by a margin of 1.29, he was quite far behind before the stage[[/note]]. Pereiro ended up winning the race after Phonak captain Floyd Landis got busted for doping. In 2009, Astana seemed fine having the yellow jersey on Rinaldo Nocentini of [=AG2R=] for some stages as well.
50	* Many kinds of drugs have properties that enhance the human body: steroids can aid in muscle growth, methamphetamine can give you energy to spare, alcohol can help you relax, and so forth. Unfortunately, there is a reason many declare that DrugsAreBad: improper use can result in addiction and nasty side effects. Steroids can play havoc on your body and make you prone to [[UncontrollableRage "roid rage"]], and [[PsychoSerum meth]] can play havoc on your mind, as can [[AlcoholInducedStupidity alcohol]].
51	* [[http://www.snopes.com/info/news/helpmeproveit.asp Alecia Faith Pennington]] was born to a conservative family on a large rural property in Texas. Her parents specifically avoided creating any paper trail for the family with the goal of avoiding government involvement: children were born at home, home-schooled, and rarely visited the nearest town. At 17 Faith decided to join society at large to discover that due to her parents' efforts to keep her off the grid, she had no birth certificate or social security number. She was unable to go to school, get a job, apply for a driver's license, or even open a bank account.
52	* Solar panels have been getting better and cheaper at an enormous rate in at recent years. It's a wonder why people aren't buying more of them. Well, turns out a big reason consumers won't invest in them is that they know solar panels become obsolete so quickly. Sure, you could buy a solar panel or you could save and wait five years and get a much better one.
53	** A few other technologies have also succumbed to "solar syndrome" like VR headsets and 3D printers. Potential buyers and investors see the potential and utility of both technologies but have little faith in any one brand or model because (slightly) better versions are coming out at a constant rate. Quadcopter drones experienced something similar for years until development hit a snag and people became reasonably confident their drones wouldn't be quickly made obsolete.
54	** Being on the bleeding edge of technology in general has this problem. Even assuming the stuff you buy doesn't go obsolete or replaced with something better within a year, if the adoption rate is slow you have all this high end gear that requires other high-end, niche, or specialist gear to make the most of it. Even then, the software you actually use may not even be able to take advantage of it.
55	* A non-human example: the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire Supermarine Spitfire]] was one of the most famous fighter aircraft of World War Two. It was fast and exceptionally agile, partly on account of its high degree of engine torque, which meant you could easily roll it. Not surprisingly, when Britain was suffering from night air raids from the Luftwaffe, the Royal Air Force developed a night-fighter variant of the Spitfire, which basically involved painting it black. It turned out to be a crappy night-fighter, precisely because it was so agile. Because night-fighter pilots couldn't see the horizon and had to rely on their not entirely satisfactory instruments, it was very difficult to keep a Spitfire under steady flight in night conditions; if you rolled it, which it would do at the drop of a hat, it was harder to get it back into level flight because you couldn't instantly tell which way up you were. It was easily outclassed as a night-fighter by the much less glamorous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant Boulton Paul Defiant]], which had been a not very good day fighter because it was relatively slow and clumsy, but which turned out to be a great night-fighter because it more or less ''wanted'' to fly in a straight line, and also because it was equipped with a turret, which enabled it to creep up on formations of German bombers and shoot them down from beneath.
56	* Having high-end headphones may seem like an obvious blessing, but sound issues such as [[LoudnessWar dynamic compression]] and the inherent drawbacks of lossy sound file formats such as [=MP3=] and OGG become more apparent when you use such headphones, particularly if you also have music with better dynamic range or in lossless formats such as WAV and FLAC. You'll still have better audio experienced than with $10 drugstore headphones using the same sources, but the variations in quality will stand out more.
57	* The gay male dating app Scruff has a "Global Men" feature that shows off handsome guys from all over the world. If a moderator likes your picture, you too can be a Global Man, and you'll receive profile visits and messages from countless beautiful men ...who almost all live thousands of miles away, so you're unlikely to actually meet any of them in person. So instead of making you feel sexy and putting you in contact with a world of men, it just becomes annoying after awhile. In fact, one feature of Premium membership is to ''remove'' yourself from the global listings.
58	* People with Sickle-Cell Disease possess a greater resistance to Malaria, as the ''Plasmodium'' needs red blood cells to propagate their numbers. Of course, that still means you have Sickle-Cell Disease and all the painful and debilitating symptoms that come with it. However, having one allele of Sickle-Cell Disease and one healthy one means you're healthy ''and'' you get a certain immunity against Malaria. The only downside is that you may pass on the Sickle-Cell allele to your offspring and if the other parent also has one, your child might get Sickle-Cell Disease. There's a reason the Sickle-Cell allele is rather common in Africa but rare in Europe.
59	* [[OlderThanTheyLook Looking young for one's age]] is often seen as a mark of beauty and great physical shape, and something that warrants a compliment. Unfortunately, that same physical youthfulness may also lead to people [[JustAKid not taking the person seriously because youthfulness also implies naivete and lack of wisdom in the eyes of many]]. It can also lead to someone being denied services they should be legally privileged to have, like purchasing alcohol, even if one ''does'' have a valid and legitimate photo ID (e.g. "nah, this ID must be fake, you can't be this old").
60	** Some medical conditions can slow the aging process, such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_syndrome Turner syndrome]], a chromosomal abnormality whose sufferers look younger than they may actually be. Unfortunately, this also comes with a wide array of other nasty symptoms, from hearing loss to physical deformities, from infertility to heart disorders.
61	* The old curse "May you live in interesting times" is supposed to imply this. Unlike the ''Webcomic/{{XKCD}}'' example listed in CursedWithAwesome, an "interesting" life doesn't always mean a fun or fulfilling one. As [[http://pervocracy.tumblr.com/post/164164353639/me-in-history-class-wow-humanity-has-been one quote]] on the internet put it:
62	--> '''Me in history class:''' Wow, humanity has been through some fascinating times! I wonder if I’ll ever live through major historical events!\
63	'''Me now:''' [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor NO NO NO NO NO I WANT TO GET OFF THIS RIDE]]
64	* Those with higher platelet count in their blood has thicker blood than average, allowing wounds to seal quickly like a ''very'' downplayed HealingFactor. However, such rapid coagulation also increases the chance of heart attacks and other arterial problems in later ages.
65	* Plastic is rated to take hundreds or even thousands of years to decompose. This would be great...for plastics that will be in use for that long. Plastic that ends up in landfills often tends to travel off to places of nature, where animals will mistake them for food, eat them, and subsequently die a horrible death, or end up in the ocean and disrupt oceanic ecosystems.
66	* Wish you could be as big as Wrestling/AndreTheGiant or Wrestling/BigShow? You could be with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acromegaly acromegaly]], a condition in which your body continuously produces growth hormones well into adulthood and beyond. Unfortunately, all those hormones play havoc on the human body, leading to nasty symptoms that range from headaches to vision problems, from liver fibrosis to diabetes, all the way up to cancer. This condition ultimately resulted in Andre's death due to heart failure, and could've also ended the Big Show's life if not for a surgery he had as a teenager to stop the constant flow of growth hormones.
67	** Even without the side effects, being a very large person has all sorts of other downsides; difficulty in buying clothes and shoes, fitting into cars and public transit, hitting your head on doorways, or even going to sleep, because your feet stick off the end of the bed.
68	* Being a big, muscular guy might seem like a great perk... but people assume you're stupid, regard you with wariness, and insecure (and often smaller) men are constantly messing with you just because they're jealous. Not helping is how being built like an ox makes people think you have the temperament of one too.
69	* The benefits of nuclear power plants are numerous: nuclear power sources are more efficient than fossil fuels, and less polluting thanks to the lack of toxic by-products being belched into the air. Such power, however, is not easy to maintain and requires all those working in nuclear power plants to remain constantly vigilant. The slightest mishap can lead to a meltdown that can render the plant and the surrounding area highly toxic with radiation. This can happen due to human error, as was the case with Chernobyl in 1986; or due to an act of nature, as was the case with Tohoku in 2011.
70	* Restaurants getting big-name coverage by journalists and awards can do wonders for their reputation and their revenue...but on the other hand, this can also mean a massive influx of new customers that the staff is not acclimated to, stressing them out from the abrupt increase in workloads (to say nothing of dealing with lots of rude customers), while customers (especially longtime regulars) can find themselves waiting upwards of a few hours just for a meal because tons of people, especially out-of-town tourists, had the same idea. This [[https://www.thrillist.com/eat/portland/stanichs-closed-will-it-reopen-burger-quest infamously happened to Stanich's in Oregon]] and was initially believed to be the reason it closed down (although later reports indicate that domestic violence played a major factor as well).
71	* Purebred dogs and cats are highly coveted and valuable, but many of them suffer from an array of health problems brought on through several years, if not decades or even ''centuries'', of inbreeding to accentuate the traits that make them sought after. Many of those traits are also linked to the health problems they suffer from: pugs, for example, are distinguished by their short and wrinkly faces, which also contributes to problems with their respiratory system, skin, and eyes.
72	* Being named the location of the next UsefulNotes/OlympicGames seems like it would be a great boon to a city, with all the attention, prestige, and profit that comes with it. For some cities, however, hosting the Olympics can be one of the ''worst'' things to ever happen. In particular, Rio de Janeiro was the location of the 2016 Olympics. Afterwards, [[https://gizmodo.com/rio-looks-apocalyptic-a-year-after-the-olympics-1797752593 the city fell into disrepair]] as a result of the exorbitant costs of hosting the Olympics, compounded by violence between police and organized criminal groups, government corruption, and an outbreak of the Zika virus, to name only a few issues. The site of the games, planned to be converted into housing developments, now sits abandoned and [[SceneryGorn looks like it was hit by the apocalypse]].
73	* Having a lot of empathy can be this, as while caring about people is a good thing [[BeingGoodSucks empathy can be a painful thing to have at times.]]
74	* [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny ADHDers]] can occasionally fall victim to (ironically named) Hyperfocus; in which something will catch the focus of the person 100%. Helpful if that can be willingly channeled to say, studying for a test. Bad when that focus is on something menial that really could wait but the brain won't turn away from it like a really good novel that can be read when the person is driving.
75	* Appearing on ''Series/AmericasNextTopModel'' may sound like a sweet deal, especially winning the season, but a sad reality is that modelling agencies often hesitate or outright refuse to hire past contestants. First, agencies don't like being told who the Next Big Thing is. Second, Tyra Banks, despite her best intentions (or desire for dramatic television), tends to pick contestants who will never get work in the modelling world for one superficial reason or another: too "old" for being over 22, too "fat" for being over 115 pounds for women or 170 for men, too "short" for being under 5'7, etc. Pretty much the only season winner to find success in their home country without changing their name was Cycle 22's Nyle [=DiMarco=], and even then, much of his post-show visibility has to do with his advocacy for the [[TwoferTokenMinority deaf and LGBT communities]].
76	* Having a SignificantBirthDate sounds cool to people who don't have one, but in reality it's just irritating. For bigger celebrations such as Christmas and Easter your birthday gets overlooked as people try to celebrate two occasions at once. Cheapskate relatives may try to palm you off with a joint present "for your birthday as well", not taking into account that they are only giving you half of what they would give to another person over the course of a year (this also applies to New Year's Eve/Day birthdays since they are so close to Christmas). Many celebrations occur on bank holidays so there's no chance of going out somewhere to celebrate (New Year's Day is particularly bad for this, you're lucky if you can even order a takeaway). For occasions with a strong theme then people may expect the theme to determine your personality, leading to a lot of NeverHeardThatOneBefore. Then there's the confusion arising from UsefulNotes/LeapDay over when exactly you should celebrate your birthday. Overall it's usually just more convenient for people to unofficially change their birthday to a less significant day.
77	--> "Those of us with birthdays in December know what the Three Wise Men said to Jesus: 'Now, this is both for your birthday and Christmas.'"
78	-->-- Bob Smith
79	** On a similar note, sharing your birthday with a historical figure sounds cool, right? After all, you could have been born on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. or Abraham Lincoln. Well, it's not so cool if you share a birthday with an ''infamous'' historical figure, such as '''''Hitler''''' [[note]]April 20.[[/note]] or '''''Stalin.''''' [[note]]December 18.[[/note]]
80	** Having a birthday on the anniversary of an infamous event, such as September 11 or December 7, has similar negative connotations.
81	* Similar to the birthday example above, sharing a name with a famous figure can be good... Except if that famous figure is famous for something infamous, such as names like Adolf[[note]]Hitler[[/note]], Jeffrey[[note]]Dahmer[[/note]] or Sadaam[[note]]Hussein[[/note]]. This includes fictional names, just think about what girls named [[Series/GameOfThrones Daenerys]] will think about their names after Season 8.
82	* Being an adrenaline junkie. Sure, being able to do (and enjoy) things like skydiving, motocross, SCUBA diving, horseback riding, mountaineering and other extreme sports is cool, but they also are dangerous and may end up in serious injury or death. Many extreme sports practitioners have serious and often impairing injuries, especially if they have been into the sports for a long time.
83	* Imagine being some poor guy who, in a dangerous situation, like having a deranged gunman pointing their weapon at them, instead of seeming to panic, actually grins, and laughs. On the one hand, the poor guy looks really brave, which actually might inspire some of the others to overcome their own fear, and take on the gunman, when in truth, they were just as scared as everyone else, and sometimes this might freak out whatever was putting them in danger in the first place. Also, on the other hand, the guy now looks like a weirdo for laughing in the face of danger, to say nothing about that grin.
84	* Legendary actress Creator/AudreyHepburn had a tall and slender frame at being 5'7" and weighing around 115 pounds, which made her have the ideal [[HollywoodThin beauty standards of Hollywood]] and led to becoming many fashion designers' dream muse. Sadly, her thinness stemmed from long stretches of starvation in her early teens during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. This ruined her metabolism and led to a host of lifelong health problems such as pregnancy complications, anemia, and eventually stomach cancer that led to an early death at 63.
85	* Being the subject of a viral internet meme can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you will be known far and wide across the world. On the other hand, if the meme is less than flattering, you could become "famous" for all the wrong reasons. One example of internet fame being more of a bane than a boon is Music/RebeccaBlack, whose internet-infamous music video "Friday" caused her to be the subject of harassment, up to and including threats of death and rape.
86	* People under the SoBeautifulItsACurse trope also fall under this. On one side, they're rather handsome and hot; on the other, they have difficulties finding love because most people think they're out of their league or they must already have a partner. That's without talking about [[GreenEyedMonster suffering the envy of others (especially from their own gender)]], and that some [[TrophyWife don't see them beyond their looks]]. There's a reason for the Spanish refrain that says "La suerte de la fea, la guapa la desea."[[note]]"The luck of the ugly woman is wished by the pretty woman."[[/note]]
87	* Being into underground music scenes or very esoteric styles of music can feel like this. On the one hand such people are often highly respected by more casual listeners considered to be "experts" on the field, often are able to brag about listening to artists who break out before that was the case, have a greater enjoyment of music and also can be part of a close-knit community based around listeners of that style. However it can also make discussing music without anyone NOT part of this incredibly small community to be very difficult, also make such people feel out of touch with mainstream pop culture, can make dating more difficult if you wish to find someone who would attend concerts with you, and often requires such commitment to keep following the scene that it's very difficult to spend much time on anything else. Furthermore since the artists one is likely to be into are nowhere near as big as mainstream ones, this means that they are more less likely to do big tours or continue to release records and often have much smaller outputs and it can be more difficult to see them in concert in the first place. Even if you can, this makes it difficult to share excitement, imagine being excited to see your favorite band and having most people in your social circle have no clue who they even are. It's not uncommon to hear such people despite often being stereotyped as "hipsters" or "music snobs" privately wish they had more "normie" tastes.
88	* Being ThePerfectionist. Sure, you can make things better than anyone else, but you’ll often be slower than everyone else, because you will redo everything until it’s exactly the way you want, and you’ll spend more time on details most will barely even glance over. You may never feel satisfied with your work, no matter how good you are, and you might nitpick at small imperfections instead of enjoying the bigger picture.
89	* Being "immune" to hangovers. Some people have the ability to metabolize alcohol faster than most, which means they can get as drunk as they want without having to worry about the morning. However, this does nothing to reduce liver damage, and actually increases the likelihood of a person getting addicted, since there is greater reward and less risk.
90	* Being very tall can be this when you're living in an environment designed for people who are on average shorter than you are. For instance, you are more likely to bang your head against higher obstacles, it's difficult to fit into a car or find a bed in which you can sleep comfortably, and you are likely to develop back problems from having to hunch regularly. Also, besides that, being very tall increases the risk of lung collapse, especially if you're also thin.
91	** Similarly, left-handed people had to live in an environment mostly designed for right-handed people.
92	* Hyperacusis is a rare (1 in 50,000) hearing disorder that greatly enhances your hearing. It sounds useful, and in fact it is sometimes, but more often than not it's a miserable disorder to have. Even the quietest sounds can be unbearable, while legitimately loud sounds such as a gunshot, a firework, or someone with NoIndoorVoice can cause ''physical pain.'' And if you have autism or some other disorder that makes you sensitive to stimuli, it becomes even worse. People who suffer from both autism and hyperacusis sometimes say they feel like they are ''drowning'' when they are in a loud environment.
93	* Having a hypersensitive immune system seems like it would be a blessing since you're less likely to get sick from harmful substances...but it actually means ''allergies''. In other words, developing reactions like rashes, sneezing, and coughing in response to stimuli that should be innately harmless. Certain types of allergies (the infamous peanut allergy comes to mind, for example) can even ''kill'', due to your immune system turning against your body to eliminate a falsely-perceived threat.

Context BlessedWithSuck / RealLife