Hiding special interests

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Does anyone have any tips for hiding special interests? I often have special interests I'm ashamed of. I try to hide them by not talking about them, but that only works temporarily. I often pick one or two people to discuss my special interest with, but I think I annoy them because I probably talk too much about it. I often feel like I'm going to explode and I just feel like bursting out phrases related to my special interest. It's just so frustrating.

That's what WP is for. Here you can talk all you like about your esoteric interests. You may even find someone who shares one of them.

I would love to tell people at work that I write books as well as music, but they won't give a toss about it.

One of my special interests are my plushies, but I mostly keep them in my room, on my bed and shelves, and when people come in and notice them, I don't really make a big deal out of them (unless my guests ask me to introduce them to my favorites, in which case I'm off to the races! ) And when I take some of my smaller plushies places with me, I usually keep them in my big shoulder bag, and don't take them out.

I can relate in a way; I've become obsessed with wanting to play steel guitar which is a polar opposite of playing position and left hand technique from what I'm accustomed to playing standard guitar.

I don't think wanting to play accordion is stupid. It's a different skill set for me and I'm not even a casual listener but it shouldn't be discouraged.

I've seen used accordions go for $200 on average, it may be more economical to find a tabletop organ (reed organ, harmonium) that can be had for about $30, to familiarize yourself with chording and melody fingering.

Go for it

I've never had to hide mine in anyway, I feel comfortable sharing mine with people.

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Thats awesome and nothing to be ashamed of, of course I have had meny issues with this in the past however I think age is helping out with getting over it. Of course I have not told my dad about my newest special intrest as far is music becouse he will dis-approve I think and he does not have to know anyway, he does not live here. When I began building guitars myself only my mom knew what I was doing and being the artistic type herself she gave me moral support, I figured she would. My biggest fear and source of anxiety is disapproveal so I have to think of what would make my folks and friends disapprove of my given plains and actions and do I or should I ultimately care or need to care.

If you plan to pay for the accordion thats issue one over with, I'd maybe just say Mom, Dad I want to learn the accordion and my music teacher thinks its a great idea(if thats the case), dinner time is a great time for this, just pick your time carefully. If paying for lessions is an issue then just teach yourself how to play. It likely won't come as a surprise to them if you regularly fill the house or your room with accordion music. Face it, where are you going to hide an accordion and where are you going to practice? Perhaps you can drop hints like leaving a classified ad site like Kijiji with the accordion search open mid-page, I have did things like this in the past to worm people up to the idea of things and to make them ask the question, if they ask the question you can kind of gauge the responce they give and go from there. As a 17 year-old you can use that to your advantage aswell, You can do almost whatever you want.

Please don't give up on your special intrest becouse of this.

Hi pi_woman,

I have had a similar problem for much of my life. I was obsessed with Harry Potter books as a child and teenager. Like playing the accordion, being interested in Harry Potter is not really anything to be ashamed of, except that I instinctively knew that my intense interest was beyond normal, and I was always afraid that my family would think I was weird.

Two things that helped me were:
1. As I got older, I realized that I would never be truly happy if I was so concerned about what people thought that I hid who I truly was. That doesn't mean that I started telling everyone about my Harry Potter obsession, but it did help me open up in several other areas of my life.

2. In my late teens, my obsession shifted away from Harry Potter and towards linguistics and foreign languages and cultures. I ended up making my career in that field, so I am not ashamed of my interest in those subjects, although I still don't usually tell people about the more peculiar parts, like my obsession with particular writing systems. Having a practical application for a special interest makes it feel more like an asset and less like a quirky personality trait. Could you perhaps find some application for playing the accordion, like going to entertain people in a nursing home or playing for community events?

If you could get an accordion (maybe by asking for one for your birthday, Christmas, etc.), could you teach yourself to play it? It looks like there are some books available for teaching yourself accordion, and since you already play the violin, you should have a basic grasp on music that would make it easier.

I often find that when I'm in a situation where I have to hide special interests, having a conversation is very difficult. I often find I don't have anything to talk about or relate. I often end up feeling kind of stupid when talking to some people because it becomes readily apparent to me that I actually only really know stuff about things I'm interested in. It makes me wish I had more knowledge of just general everyday stuff that people seem to talk about most.

Regular people don't seem to know a lot about certain stuff, but they often seem to know a little about everything.

I did have some interests that were dark and I didn't talk about them much. I still managed to convince a girl to play "escape from concentration camp / nuclear holocaust" occasionally.

I do remember one attempt at making conversation with a girl in my class by showing her pictures of a young nuclear scientist who later died of radiation poisoning and trying to get her interested by pointing out that he was cute in the "before" picture...

I had other interests that were much more age appropriate and socially acceptable, including an interest in "Brit Pop" and "Big Beat" music in the mid to late Nineties, this forced me to be a bit more socially active and I met my first boyfriend through this interest.

Nowadays I have much better control over my interests in that I don't let them take over any more and am to a limited degree able to channel that energy into getting stuck into projects at work. I've also become more passive eg I listen to podcasts of people talking about my "hobby" eg not work related, interests (mostly Doctor Who and autism).