Do you ever understand that your interests...

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...come across as obsessive and repetitive to other people online?

For instance, I run a Flickr photostream and I understand - although no-one has ever said anything to me about it - that my focusing on one particular region of the country and some of the subculture within it can come across as obsessive and boring and I feel that I need to become interested in other things.

Anyone else feel like that?

I get told I go on and on about my interests, or people will ask questions and not really attempt to understand when I explain.
I guess the same could be said for some NT's at work who insist on telling me about their fav tv show week after week when it doesn't interest me

Back in the 1990s, I was really obsessed with a series of roleplaying games and was a fairly visible presence on relevant mailing lists, in chat, etc.

I remember that the wife of one of the editors at the publisher started trying to harass and bully me, and tell me how everyone who worked there was supposedly mocking me behind my back (she insisted, but she also made it clear she hated me - others I spoke to her worked there, including those who hired me as a writer, said that no such ridicule was actually occurring). I suspect that maybe my interests appeared obsessive and repetitive to her, maybe. I don't really know what set her off, but in those days I seemed to set people off all the time. I'm better at not setting people off these days.

The silence says it all. Online is "better" in the sense that the person tiredly listening can simply switch off whereas in real life there's the obvious getaway to navigate. But, sure, of course. I never thought the "curse" was the special interest (per se; I could argue otherwise just as easily), nor the likelihood it was uninteresting or irritating for other people to hear about it repeatedly, but it was knowing this and being unable to cease with it anyway.

That's the thing. Due to the format of where I post, there is no real online silence in the traditional sense. If there was, it would be easy for me to navigate.

When I first got online I'd do things on mailing lists like reply about 20-50 times a day to stuff. People asked me to consolidate my replies, and I gave it my best shot.

A few years ago I was terrible about serial responses on forums. Guess I didn't get much better at it. I think I am better now, a bit. Not sure. After all, I had thousands of messages here within the first three months or so.

Yes. I'm pretty self-conscious about it, too.

I do, but I don't really care anymore. If people don't like my posts, they don't have to read them. I've gotten better at joining most of the conversations and talking about a wider variety of things over the years.

Even though no one has ever told me that I talk/post too much about my interests, I know that I do and understand that it must be tiresome to some people. But I continue to talk/post about them anyway, because I have to. I feel like I get pent-up energy or tension when I'm engaging in my special interests, and in order to release that tension, I have to talk about it. I've never gone a day without mentioning my interests to people either online or in real life, and if I did actually go a day without mentioning them to anyone, I'd likely have a meltdown.

My husband tells me I talk about Titanic and I will bring it into our topics or subjects. I don't even realize I am doing it but sometimes I catch myself. Makes me wonder if I do it to others. He shuts himself in our bedroom because me spending time with it drives him crazy and me talking about it so he stays in our room. I think I feel too comfortable with him so that is why I do it.

I used to talk about my obsessions a lot on here and it was pointed out to me I do but I think I have cut back on it when I decided to just keep it to myself.

Other people that talk about their interests, I just skip over their posts. My attention span runs out right when I see it. I don't understand the fuss some people make because how hard is it to just skip their posts? This isn't PM, email, IM, phone conversation, nor real life chat. This is a forum where you can read any post you like and you have the option to not read a thread or post. You are in control.

I agree with this. It bothers me when people complain that discussion about something they don't want to talk about happens instead of discussion about something they do want to talk about. Instead of just starting a new thread to discuss their topic, they'll leave complaints all over the threads they don't want to see. No idea why they can't just not read them and start their own threads.

I haven't seen this as much here, but I only read General, Members Only, and Video Games regularly, and more rarely Women and The Haven. For all I know this place could be a hotbed of such odd activity. I have seen it a lot on hobbyist forums. I remember a general gaming forum where people constantly complained that there was too much talk about a game they didn't like.