"Socially unacceptable" special interests

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I wouldn’t socialise with anyone that didn’t like Star Trek. I mean, what would you talk about over the cheese and port… heh!heh,

For me it depends which version you like. And which episodes.

Thank you for finding that out. I've been intrigued because her accent is English (at least I think so because she has a variety of accents in the show) and her looks are exotic.

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Star Trek is my favourite but in rl I tend to keep quiet about it because no one wants to talk about it with me. Except my housemate who runs Star Trek Adventures which I am a part of. I play a Bolian science officer.

When I first started watching DS9, my ex-boyfriend witnessed me being thrilled that the DVD box set I wanted had come in at KMart. He said it was not right for a girl like me to like Star Trek so much. I didn't get his reasoning. Oh well, I still like it just as much as I used to, so in your face, ex-boyfriend.

Anime, anime, anime, anime, anime, anime (gasp) anime.
Sonic the Hedgehog
My Little Pony
Disney
Harry Potter
Anything that was popular before the 1990s
RPG games
Comic Books
Manga, manga, manga, manga, manga, manga, (gasp) manga
Dolls

I have a special interest in the paranormal. I find it interesting how much fear and derision the existence of unexplained phenomenon causes erstwhile intelligent people and how quickly they dismiss available data on the basis of authority bias (under the guise of scientific skepticism)

Spock would call that "illogical"

Snakes, most people I talk to seem to find snakes scary, I personally don't.

I would LOVE to talk trekkie with you if we ever met in person! Though I don't consider ST a special interest (isn't half the world of NTs enthralled by the ST universe anyways?), I still have some insights and opinions. For example....WHY, in ALL the ST franchises, was there NEVER a Vulcan-Klingon hybrid? I googled for this and found nothing.

If Vulcans have 5x human strength, why was one human man able to restrain T'Pol -- especially while she was in a fit of rage -- in the episode where she contracts a neuro disease that impairs logic?

Why was Michael Westmore, who designed alien species, fixated on the forehead ridging? The majority of alients have some variation of this. In fact, whenever I was watching an episode in any of the franchises, and I knew a new alien would soon be entering the scene, I accurately predicted like 90 percent of the time that they'd have forehead ridging.

Why were B'Elanna's eyebrows toned down after the first season of "Voyager," making her appear one-quarter Klingon even though she was one-half Klingon?

Why was every single humanoid man of authority, in the original series, at least 65? Yet any WOMAN in authority usually appeared around 30, and was never older than mid 30s?

Why wasn't there ever hand-to-hand combat between a Klingon and Vulcan man? Doesn't matter if their species had friendly relations; on an individual level there could still be a fight, just like the U.S. is friendly with Canada, but this doesn't mean that an American and a Canadian can't get into a brawl. I would've also loved to have seen a fistfight between a human man and a female Klingon -- no weapons.

I would've like to have seen a half Ferengi, half human, and a half Ferengi, half Klingon.

Among my favorite franchise episodes are "Blink of an Eye" (not to be confused with the original series "Wink of an Eye," though THAT, TOO, is among my favorites. "Future Imperfect" ranks right up there, with its very surprise ending. Also thought the "Tuvix" one was great!

Perhaps the biggest enigma is when Edith Keeler gets hit by a car in "City on the Edge." She would've never gotten hit had she not seen Jim across the street. Yet, the true line of history was that she died young. So, had Jim never traveled back in time, what killed Edith???? This was a major continuity flaw.

Few people know that the study of snakes is called ophidiology. Most think it's herpetology (study of reptiles). A snake IS a reptile, but if one exclusively studies snakes, they are an ophidiologist.

I don't know about socially acceptable vs socially unacceptable special interests, but anything theoretical or academic it seems like is a conversation killer. Acceptable topics of conversation include sports, a TV show or some kind of skill related hobby like guitar, learning Spanish or cooking. No one wants to speculate or pontificate deeper about anything. And if you reveal you're really into say... ANTS and how ant colonies behave, etc, you get weird looks.

I suspect this would not be the case if I built a formicarium. Not as mainsteam as sports or whatever but if I told people I recently built a formicarium and described what I was doing with it, etc, now it's an active hobby and someone could say "hey how's your formicarium coming along?" and I could tell them what I feed them, etc. But they still wouldn't be as interested in ant facts or ants in general.

I feel like some things that are socially acceptable for kids, and are in fact praised because they show scientific interest (space, dinosaurs, etc) suddenly become weird or childish for adults to be into.

So true, so true. Adults dig up dinosaurs and give lectures on them, but unless one makes a living relating to dinos, it IS considered an odd interest. BTW, the study of ants is called myrmecology; toss THAT one out and see what kind of looks you get!

Yeah, also, very few people know that Ball Pythons and other constrictors have tiny, vestigial legs. However, thier genetics are screwed up, so the gene that's supposed to give them two legs instead gives them two penises.

(seen in this image is the vestigial legs of a constrictor snake)

Dep sea Tripod fish are all hermophrodites. They can mate with any other tripod fish which is useful cause it would by hard to find another tripod fish across thousands of miles of ocean floor.

The popular aquarium swordfish also are capable of sex change when the dominant male dies, one of the females becomes a male.

It's amusing how transphobic so many people are, yet sexual diversity is common in the animal kingdom.

Star Trek is extremely popular and there are a lot of fans so I don't think it's deemed socially unacceptable to be a fan of something that's so well-known.

Not me though, I can't stand anything like that. It's so boring and too science-fictional. I prefer dramas.

I have a sort of burp fetish which I am ashamed of and I don't tell anybody (except on here because I'm anonymous). It's not really a special interest though, just a sort of fetish. Harmless and innocent, but definitely socially unacceptable.

I was going to say, Star Trek is very very popular special interest of a lot people.

Healthy Skepticism.

I find it disheartening to observe how often willful ignorance props up belief in the alleged existence of "paranormal" phenomenon, how such belief exists in otherwise intelligent people, and how quickly those same people will dismiss real-world data on the basis of confirmation bias (under the guise of "research").

Yet, to express doubt in the unsupportable beliefs of others, and to question the validity of their alleged "facts" is tantamount to a declaration of war against the very core of their identities.