Not being an expert on your special interest

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So, many of us have a special interest. But have you ever experienced that you are not an expert on your particular special interest?

As for me, I've had several interests, and I have never really been an expert on them. I'll spend lots and lots of time on them, for example on Indonesian culture and history, and yet when I'm among other people who are into the same subject, I'm always the one who knows the least about it somehow? I encounter this a lot. It's a little bit frustrating, because of the time I invest in my special interest and I feel as though it's kind of my 'territory of interest', and while I find it infinitely valuable and interesting to encounter people who can tell me a lot about it, I'm also surprised that my efforts have so little tangible result.

Has anyone ever felt the same way. Or am I just... INSANE??

I know what you mean. While I read a lot and learn a lot about the things I'm interested in, I have a terrible memory and can't retain facts, so therefore I'm incapable of doing that stereotypical AS thing of spewing facts about the special interest and knowing more about it than anyone else. For example, I love plants and classical music, but I can't converse about them very well because I can't memorise many names of species/pieces. I think this is because my mind works in a visual/tactile way so I can't hang onto words and numerical information. I am quite good at building and remembering skillsets and becoming good at things I'm interested in - like drawing for example - I'm just not good at talking about them!

Because my memory is so bad in that respect, I tend to feel quite intimidated by people who possess a lot of information about the subject. and feel stupid around them. So no, you're not insane.

One thing of interest to me is to make myself quite familiar with places where I would like to live. I'll read just about everything I can find on them.

While many things about the places make sense, I've found that not being there greatly limits my understanding of their politics. I may recognize the names of their prominent politicians, but when it comes to understanding the details of their politics, I am totally lost.

Is it because other people are good at talking about interests?

That's a very good point. Are you good at writing stuff about your interests?

I'm NT and at school I was very good at writing papers, but quite mediocre at colloquiums. I'm not good at replying wittely in real time

I think we share the same interests! Do you switch where you want to live a lot?

I am an expert on south park,
but maybe not as much as someone else.
it shouldn't matter if you know the least.
there are plenty of people that know more than me.
but it isn't important.
what is important is that you enjoy your interest.

Well... I'm overtly obsessed with Video Games but I'm certainly not an expert on them.
I am an obsessive professional practitioner of most things computers, I'm definitely not an expert in any field

I have secondary, milder special interests that are interests of mine that I enjoy, but they don't exhibit the intensity and obsessiveness of my primary, central special interests. For those secondary special interests, I know a lot about them, but I don't proclaim expert status. Because I don't care deeply enough to scour every last fact that's out there.

But for my handful of primary, ultra-intense special interests, I can't NOT be an expert. My passion and need for the knowledge drives me to expert status, and quickly. With I Love Lucy in particular, there are very few out there who know as much as I do. Lucy is the one area where I welcome people to challenge my knowledge. I've been an expert on the show since about 18 months after I discovered it. I hope to write a book someday, but I never have time to write.

Agreed

Every Salieri has his Mozart after all!

Not to mention that Mozart was probably not NT, unlike Salieri

Not too often. There are several places with different degrees of interest. Foremost would be the Isle of Man -- I've wanted to move there ever since I was a kid and read about their motorcycle races. Before the Internet became so common, it was really difficult to find much information about it so my interest was pretty limited.

In the US, the primary places I'd be interested in are Sitka, Alaska and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

How about you?

I believe the issues boils down to people like us being so reticent to 'blowing our own horn' as it were - I wouldn't necessarily say that others know more about an interest than being more readily recognized as being an expert.

I have sort of the opposite problem as OP; I'm currently getting the 'guru' tag on a subject that is tangential to a tertiary interest, that I care little about, that I know about as much as any knucklehead about, and I barely know what I'm doing in that area, but I'm too codependent to stay away from it.

Anyway FWIW, the word 'expert' itself is just a descriptive that one has at least an hour's experience on that subject

I'm an expert at fishing..... nothing makes me madder than when someone who clearly isn't, comes up to me and says 'you should be doing this or that'.... I'll politely nod and offer some token verbalisation and carry on as I was, then out-fish the pants off them!

I think that the point I'm trying to make is that everyone thinks they are an expert, but only a few can prove it.

I certainly understand what the OP means.

As btbnnyr suggested, I think some people are not good at verbally presenting their knowledge. Others are very good at that. So it may not be as it seems. For example, though this is not about my special interest, at my work some colleagues are very good at saying something (usually work-related matters) so authoritatively that I tended to simply believe them. But then I realize that they are often wrong and I actually know better than they do. I tend to try to be careful to say things accurately and often cannot say much because of that.

I also think in my case, my interests shift over time and cannot hold the same interests for a long enough period of time to be an "expert". Also, I'm sometimes interested in a particular aspect of a subject - an aspect that is rather useless on its own - and hence I can't even talk about it with others.

As someone else pointed out, as long as you enjoy your special interests, nothing else really matters, though I admit it can be fun to talk about something at the same level of expertise with someone else. If you want a career out of your special interest, then you do need to be particularly good at that.

I'm curious about why one would desire to be an expert on a special interest, can anyone explain? Is it passion or ego?

I don't have the time or desire to do such, but I'd be interested to hear the answer. I do enjoy learning as much as I can about everything useful, but nothing in particular has any type of importance to me since knowledge to me is a practical tool and it's usage is more important than it's possession.

While I am deeply passionate about my special interests (most of the time - it's complicated), I am by no means an expert on them. For example, even though I consider myself to be a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I have only seen up to episode 48 out of 63 total, so I do not consider myself to be a an expert. In fact, I actually consider myself to be a pretty bad fan for not keeping up with all the latest episodes - even though I'm not sure how badly I should feel, because from what I hear, most of the newer episodes have not been up to par with the older ones and some fans speculate that an upcoming episode may even be its "jumping the shark" moment.

And even though it's a well-known fact among my friends and family (and possibly on WP) that I am a huge fangirl for Johnny Depp, I actually know very little about him. Oh sure, I could spout off at least one piece of trivia for all of my favorite movies of his, but I couldn't tell you his date of birth or hometown, or significant events that have happened to him throughout his life. Oddly enough, I actually prefer not knowing every little detail about him; it creates an air of mystery about him and makes it easier for me to romanticize him and idolize him within my own mind. If I were to learn too much about the "real" Johnny Depp, it may affect how I enjoy his movies and his characters, and I don't want that to ever happen. I just hope that he will always be careful and not become involved in a scandal that would change the way I feel about him.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's an ego thing. If I don't believe myself to be an absolute expert at whatever my special interests are at a given time, then I will try not to talk about them with other people who share my interests, or when I do, I will try to be humble about what I do know so that I don't accidentally embarrass myself. I have embarrassed myself twice by thinking that I know more than I actually do: once in elementary school, I was very obsessed with Pokemon, and my mom (who worked as a playground supervisor) introduced me to a kid who claimed to be a Pokemon expert. I thought that there was no way that that kid could know more than I did, so when he asked me a seemingly straightforward question about the gameplay, I game him the obvious answer. Surprise, it turned out to be a trick question and he answered it in better detail than I could have. (I don't remember the exact question he posed, but it had something to do with types and move types). I was so embarrassed that I briskly walked away as fast as I could, red in the face from shame.

Somewhat more recently (as in, within the last couple of years), I made a post about Tim Burton movies (an interest that runs parallel to my Johnny Depp one, for obvious reasons - if two people have worked on 8 projects together and you're obsessed with one of them, chances are that you'll also become obsessed with the other one by proxy) and I mistakenly claimed that he had directed Batman Begins. Another fan swiftly corrected me and said that that movie was actually directed by Christopher Nolan. I had made the mistake of thinking that if there were two Batman movies called "Begins" and "Returns", and Tim Burton directed one (Returns), then it would make sense that he directed the other (Begins). Never again have I proclaimed to be an expert on Tim Burton after that embarrassment.