How do your obsessions start?

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Half of my obsessions start because I had an obsession that was somehow related to it before. The other half of my obsessions start out as a joke.

my digital audio restoration obsession started with my aspie [typical] inability to "listen through" surface noise on my LP records.

I'll read up on something or listen to a record of a band. If I like what I see or hear, that subject matter or band becomes a special interest.

They can be related to my past interests or they can start out as being some random comment, joke, tv program or book that catches my attention.

Ie psychology to parapsychology or jigsaw puzzles to logic puzzles or cross stitching to tapestry or other forms of arts and crafts.

Geology, rocks and fossils started partly because of a joke about rock collecting and what would happen if I started doing such a thing (such as incessantly showing people my rock collection and giving lectures on it) and partly due to a geology class I took for a while as an add onto another subject I was studying (Archaeology).

An interest in sexual kinks once occurred as the result of reading the Encyclopedia of Unusual Sexual Practices

And my interest in sharks comes from spending too much time watching the documentary channel, my collection of cuddly stuffed penguins started after watching the criminal penguins clip on youtube from a David Attenborough documentary and my interest in evolution started due to a similar thing.

And so on...

^^^
people into languages are fascinating, not boring

it was about a personal obsession so i couldn't have been more on-topic.

Since all of my obsessions revolve around fictional characters, I simply watch whatever TV show/movie they're from and integrate them into my imagination as imaginary friends. Then I spend most of my time daydreaming about them, researching them, making avatars of them for use on forums (this one especially), and doing fanart of them (not necessarily in that order). My obsessions with fictional characters can last several months to several years, but I don't think about the same characters every day - I switch around a lot because I have so many of them in my imagination.

All of mine have been accidental. The first real obsession I got started in fifth grade and revolved around Garfield the cat. I was rummaging through my bookshelf and came across one of my mom's old Garfield books... I was hooked by the end of the day. My next obsession, Peanuts in seventh grade, started because my teacher loved Charlie Brown, and her walls were covered in posters of him and the gang. I was especially intrigued by the kid with the anthropomorphic blanket, and before I knew it, I was infatuated with Linus, and subsequently the rest of the Peanuts universe. After that came Star Trek in 12th grade. That started because one of my friends was completely and newly obsessed with it, so I invesigated, and by the end of the fifth episode of The Original Series, I was hooked on that too, and still am. My current "co-morbid" obsession with dinosaurs spawned after I hunted down an old video we had about prehistoric animals. My interest was piqued, and I funneled it into dinosaurs specifically and, well, here we are. Since fifth grade, I've never been without an obsession. I keep one until it gradually wanes of its own accord when I start becoming interested in something else. The Peanuts thing, which lasted five years, was the only one that was beginning to fade without anything to replace it in sight, when suddenly Star Trek swept in and saved the day.

Most thought provoking. My muscle related stims were (at least) influenced by a rather narcissistic fellow at boarding school who liked to flex his biceps. He reckoned that flexing them helped them to grow. Being a person with somewhat wiry physique, I treid his theory. I may have been stimming already (can't think that far back) but that interaction with the narcissist had an impact on me. That is now about 30 years ago so if I still remember it, it is surely significant.

No it didn't lol. Subsequent deleterious effects (pulled muscles mainly) have been a lifelong curse. No, I was never to be the Baywatch lifesaver sort. More likely, that strange fellow hobbling along the street with the obviously undersized underwashed superman outfit