How do your obsessions start?

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I have to add ... flexing his muscles obsessively as he goes

It'll usually be something that appeals to me, for instance.. I might find a new game engine I want to try out or API and read all the documentation on it, Download it, Download it's dependencies, spark inspiration for a creation using it, and start making prototypes.

Quite often mine are about things I am scared of or supposed to be scared of or things that are considered bad by society, so i guess quite often i have a fascination with things most people avoid as follows: sharks, spiders, snakes, mental illness, drugs. My interest extends way beyond just researching the topic eg my fear of sharks rendered me unable to swim in swimming pools as a teenager and now I scuba dive with them regularly. My fascination with drugs and mental health made me experiment with drugs to the point of completely loosing my mind just to see what it was really like and if I would be able to come back from the other side. My fascination with mental health then went to working with people severely effected by schizophrenia and considered "dangerous" among other conditions. My fear of spiders made it very difficult to sleep at night without obsessively checking my bed for spiders now when I see a spider I try to find out what kind it is, I often will touch it and play with it as well even venomous ones. I must say once you research a scary thing and understand how it works and why it is dangerous under which circumstances it certainly takes the fear out of it and replaces it with a healthy respect.

Quite often mine are about things I am scared of or supposed to be scared of or things that are considered bad by society, so i guess quite often i have a fascination with things most people avoid as follows: sharks, spiders, snakes, mental illness, drugs. My interest extends way beyond just researching the topic eg my fear of sharks rendered me unable to swim in swimming pools as a teenager and now I scuba dive with them regularly. My fascination with drugs and mental health made me experiment with drugs to the point of completely loosing my mind just to see what it was really like and if I would be able to come back from the other side. My fascination with mental health then went to working with people severely effected by schizophrenia and considered "dangerous" among other conditions. My fear of spiders made it very difficult to sleep at night without obsessively checking my bed for spiders now when I see a spider I try to find out what kind it is, I often will touch it and play with it as well even venomous ones. I must say once you research a scary thing and understand how it works and why it is dangerous under which circumstances it certainly takes the fear out of it and replaces it with a healthy respect.

I can think of how several obsessions started:

I have an obsession with dogs, mostly the many different dog breeds. This started about the summer before fifth grade. My grandma and grandpa were having a garage sale. They had a big shelf of books. One of the books was a old (probably from the 70s, it was an older book) AKC book of dog breeds. I was bored and for some reason I decided to check it out. I ended up looking at it for most of the day. My grandma let me have it at the end of the day. I don't think I have the book anymore though.

My obsession with cats started earlier. I don't really know how it started, probably just because I had cats all my life while with dogs I've only recently had them.

Dogs led me into being obsessed with other animals, a lot of which are canines. Like wolves, foxes, coyotes etc.

Most of my obsessions come out of nowhere and I will research it and read about it until I get bored or I find something else to get obsessed about.

My current "thing", making jewelry, came about because I wanted an expensive necklace and I couldn't afford to buy it. I wondered how hard it was to make one, and found that it wasn't difficult at all if one had the right tools. I had typical "girly" interests as a kid, but carried to an extreme degree.

My obsessions start because I become attracted to a certain object like a human becomes attracted to another human.
And my obsessions are really obsessions since they at times interfere with life causing me stress and depression, and not a passion.

it's not that my obsessions start out in any peculiar way, but what i think is remarkable for me is that i move on to the next thing quickly so i never really master anything. it's very grating and i wish that i could focus and get really good at one thing.

i like sonic because theres a lot of information behind his backstory

I... don't know, really. I've never thought about it.

I do know how some of the negative ones started, almost all started by some bad experience I have had in the past. Afraid that utilities will fail because the hot water heater did once burst a leak and start flooding my apartment, etc. things like that.

Positive 'special interest' stuff, no clue.

My obsessions usually happen out of nowhere. I could be watching a movie I've seen a million and suddenly take an interest in one of the actors. Or I could read a certain word or subject and suddenly want to know all about it. It becomes very important to me and is a very big part of my life.

I have the same problem a lot of the time. When I was eight and nine I got obsessed with web design. When I was twelve I lost interest in that. I thought I found my one lifelong obsession. When I was fourteen I got obsessed with learning Icelandic and then I got bored of it in a year. After that I studied related languages. Right now I'm interested in learning Finnish, but I don't think I'll stay interested for that long. I might even go back to studying Icelandic. Or just get a new random special interest.

Sounds like you have phobias rather than obsessions. I have a few phobias myself and one of them is having a doctor phobia.

I have an obvious talent and hunger for languages, too. though, i never really learn them well enough to be functional. I grew up in a household where Italian was spoken a lot between the adults, but not taught to the kids, but i still picked a bit up, and my hometown had a very high percentage of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans living there, so i picked up more Spanish than Italian because most of the kids at my schools were Spanish speaking.

i can wiggle my way through text and even understanding spoken languages, but i cannot speak them without fear of embarrassing myself. I try and learn languages, i have started to learn Mandarin, and i would really like to learn Russian and Finnish, but i just veer off-course and the desire dies. maybe i should fire up the old rosetta stone Mandarin again.

it's funny, though; i live in an area of SF that's very Chinese and Russian, and i can pick out when people are saying simple phrases like "no i don't have this" or "let's eat here".