Nice people will sometimes ask me if I have a hobby. I feel a little awkward answering their kind inquiry because the short honest reply — ”no” — doesn’t do much to move conversation along.

I’m at a loss to answer the hobby question because while I genuinely respect and applaud the fun stuff my friends do to relax and entertain themselves, I have no similar habits.

Usually I end up sputtering out some lame fib, such as “I like to shop” or “cooking can be fun.”

I mean, my aunts used to spend hours making ravioli which were not then referred to as “home-made” because everything you ate in a house such as ours was “home-made” because nobody had any “money.” Nowadays pasta-making can actually count as a hobby, I suppose, because there are machines to replace the aunts and hours of preparation can go into the creation of these unique delicacies.

(Yet somehow I imagine it’s tough to put a ravioli under glass and show it around as a prized accomplishment. After a couple of hours ravioli start to look like they’re made out of Naugahyde. Can you imagine how they’d look after a couple of months, let alone years?)

But neither shopping nor cooking count as actual hobbies, like collecting stamps or building your own kayak out of rubber bands, because they are activities in which you have to engage anyhow — at least if you intend to, um, eat.

I do not collect Hummel figures.

I don’t ballroom dance.

When I hear a friend pronounce “Pilates” with that weird emphasis (“pill-lattes”), I have to remind myself that she’s not talking about putting medication in foamy coffee (which, when you think about it, probably could come under the heading of “really bad hobbies”). And I anticipate your question: Yes, exercise with carefully-pronounced monikers count as hobbies.

Throwing horseshoes is not for me. And I’ve never been on a horse, whether I or it were shod or barefoot.

Nobody has asked if I even want to try yodeling.

I do not believe that amassing a wide-array of Fiesta Ware and/or cheap reproductions of the same will bring me spiritual calm. I have been informed that amassing a wide array of some particular item defines a number of hobbies yet I remain unsure how amassing works.

For example, I like Barbie Dolls — that much is true. I have several. One is an “I Love Lucy” doll and one is a Marlo Thomas “That Girl!” doll. My fondness for these derives from watching the shows as a kid. Plus I like the cute accessories. Having the Barbies gives my office at UConn a little zing because they trigger those fun memories. But is nostalgia a hobby?

And yes, I do have several Snow White dolls because of the title of my first book. Snow Whites are fun because I can pretend I’m the Evil Stepmother — no, no, what I mean of course is that I can enjoy the complex layers of irony interweaving my writerly world and the prelapsarian world of fairy tales. Yeah, that’s what I meant.

But I won’t be able to regard the Barbies as a hobby until I can figure out what to do with them now that I no longer pop their heads off, chew their fingers, or color their clothes with Magic Markers. Until they unionize and start seeing there’s more to life than being decorative, I don’t think we’ll be having too much quality time together.

Squash is complicated and none of my business. (That applies both to the botanical and sports-related versions of the term.)

I can make a good martini but I don’t think that counts as a hobby. It’s tough enough to keep a cocktail in a glass long enough to have somebody else appreciate it, let alone keeping one under glass (as you would a ravioli…).

I used to have a lot of bad moods accompanied by lengthy spells of weeping and gnashing of teeth. As regular as these were, however, I don’t think I can count them as a hobby.

A hobby should be wonderfully satisfying, genuinely fulfilling, and not merely useful. Right? Out of the ordinary, removed from the quotidian, a hobby should reflect the acute pleasures and deepest wishes of one’s most essential self. Which means I should start worrying. It’s beginning to look like I’ve misplaced my essential self.

OK, so to engage in a hobby is like practicing an art. It’s done for the love of the thing itself. Sounds terrific.

Any suggestions?