How to answer what do you do for a living?

For someone who has never heard of forex trading, it can be really difficult to understand what it is and what a trader does to make money. Now that you have to tell someone about what you do, I think it should be up to the extent you will be able to make them understand. You can tell them about some good websites for their reference if they show more interest.

These replies made me realise that I am not the only one avoiding this question. Only my family knows that I trade currencies and they think of me as nothing more than a bit of a reputed gambler. Thank god I’ve another job so I just don’t need to tell anyone about my trading career.

You can also say you are a full-time trader or self-employed trader. Try to explain what you do with simple terms, so people unfamiliar with forex trading terminology can understand your job.

this is too abstract a question for me, because people have too different attitudes to all activities in life

Guess that you should answer the truth. If you earn money due to trading activity, then you have to say that you earn money due to trading. Don't pay attention to skeptical claims of those who would tell you that you do nothing and you're a lazy boy. Actually, those who ar skeptical towards trading will never be able even earning a penny, so just ignore such people.
If someone asks you to explain how to earn money due to trading, then also you would better not to describe your strategy in details, because the market doesn't like competitors.

Trading is easy to understand, most people invest in the stock market at least through their 401k, so they understand it already as a person trading another specific financial vehicle.

And there are many chats where traders post their thoughts on this matter.

I think that you shouldn't be closed when you are asked what do you do for a living. Trading is really considered to be a very spread profession nowadays and if you want to develop in this direction, they you have to answer the people that you're a trader. You can tell that you only began learning trading, even if they would smile in response, don't take it too close to you. They perhaps have no activity which they take seriously, that's why they might smile at you. However as far as I concerned, nowadays people earn money by ll the ways which are available to them, so there is nothing funny in trading activity. It's a very serious occupation.

Forex is a place where traders can speculate and earn money on price movement. Forex is a job absolutely the same as other jobs,

I would probably answer that I invest in different things. If they asked for more details, I'd make a joke about it being complicated and change the subject.

Forex trading is easy to explain, if you can't explain it well, it is an indicator that you have yet to truly understand it.