Why do we have immature interest?

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The first question is the topic title WHY do you think we have immature interest? (While family is busy with work etc. I'm excited about buying my nephew 2 toys for $10 regularly $40 and can't wait for Where The Wild Things Are coming to DVD March 2nd. Sadly family tend to shrug things off since they are busy. I was into playing with action figures into my teens not caring about Cosmo or Seventeen and girl magazines and don't see the point of makeup etc. Hell I usually go shirt/jeans. I rarely wear any girly shirts. Onto my 2nd question.

The DSM criteria mentions the following (Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level.) So I guess as a going on 24 female I should have dated by now and have plenty of friends right? LOL! Why do we not develop friendships? IMO alot of those with AS I hear the whole are shy issue but I remember a party I was so into my (interest) the new GBA I got I didn't bother playing with my friend. My main issue IMO is the whole "social skills/cues etc." and not recognizing warning signs that you are screwing up a relationship.


BTW I know these are totally opposite questions but they popped into my head and instead of making 2 different topics I thought I'd just put them into one sorry to confuse anybody.

The moment I saw this question I knew who it be by

To answer your question, I have no idea. I see it as my personality and interests. I don't keep up with fashion and I am not interested in people or friends, I don't wear make up, I like kid shows, Seventeen Magazines, Happy Meal toys. I like lot of childish stuff.

Last edited by League_Girl on 08 Feb 2010, 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Cool BTW I like your new avatar the girl with the bat.

Some aspies have very mature interests for their age. For example, I was interested in neurology at the age of 14. At 16 or 15, I was obsessed with The Tragedy of Julius Cæsar and imambic pentameter. We were learning it in English, but my obsession continued even after the class was over. I've also had immature interests :p. Some of the recent have been Pokémon and Legos. I think aspies are just interested in what they like, not what is popular with their life peers.

Well for me i have alot of immature interests because im abit of an excapist i love pokemon video games and manga. i love fantasy, sci fi movies an i think iron man and X-men are cool

i hate make up because it feels horrible an makes people look fake and odd looking in my opinion lol. i hate girls clothes because they're uncomfortable shirts and trousers ftw ^^



As for friend keeping I think its partly because in this society you have to do alot of lying to maintain friendships.

to much of which i dont see the point or why i should.
in maintenance of friendships you have to do alot of pretending to be at least mildly interested in what said friend is interested in and i dont seem to have the will power to make that last very long mainly i just want friends in which have alot in common with me and share my interests so thats why i dont have many friends lol >.> but i really hate false friendships so id rather have a few real friends than be friends with people i cant stand for the hell of it

A lot of my interests are childish, I must admit. And I don't like things like fashion or make up. Fashion is boring because not only is what people wear uncomfortable, but it is not even pretty. I don't like make up because it feels very heavy on my face.

Though I love cartoons, I like kid shoes, and apart from electronics and books, my favorite section in the store is always the one with all the barbies and kid stuff.

Because society deems it as so.

I don't know really, maybe some of us take longer to mature, thus we like what most people are age don't anymore.

I still like nerf guns and baseball cards. It use to bother me that I liked things meant for kid a decade or more younger, especialy when people would make comments. Now I just don't care. I'm not hurting anyone or anything and it makes me happy. I don't see a difference in my interest than a woman who likes to go out and by a pair of shoes or a skirt when she has a closet full of clothes. She likes shoes, I like cards. The only difference really is one is deemed more socially acceptable than the other.


and wow, March 2nd? I was hoping it would be out sooner.

I have a theory about this--and I've no evidence about it's validity rather than my own experiences and assumptions, so if it's horribly wrong, please tear me apart

Aspies are much more sensitive than most NT's, so we feel much more strongly about the hobbies we enjoy, and because our feelings are that strong, they're almost tangible, and not easy to let go of, no matter how silly they are. Example; my (aspie)girlfriend has a pair of shoes she loves, has had for many years, and despite the truth that they are completely falling apart and barely qualify as shoes anymore, she refuses to give them up. She even had one shoe of the pair missing for over 6 months, and lamented the loss pretty much every time she opened her closet, which I gently razzed her about. I razzed her about the shoes when she had both of them, picking the obvious problems with her refusal to let them go--THEY'RE FALLING APART. NOT SHOES ANYMORE. YOUR FEET GET WET. YOU WILL GET A FOOT INFECTION OR FROSTBITE. BUY. NEW. SHOES.

But she was persistent, and I learned to love them as much as she does. And she has another pair of shoes she wears for school, work, or rough weather, but for casual outings with people she loves, the magic shoes come along.

Regarding hobbies or interests--most NT's move from playing with legos and action figures to playing with pretend guns to playing with video games/sports because their friends do, too. Since aspies are more likely to be socially outcast anyway (you still sleep with stuffed animals?) we hold onto our feel good hobbies that much more, especially when we're criticized for having them by those who don't understand. And we retain the feelings of adoration for them that much longer.

Does anyone else try to hide their immature interests ? I have one friend, but I never talk about anime or manga around her. I was embarrassed when she saw my Naruto DVDs. Some professionals say that people with AS don't get embarrassed. I guess because we lack theory of mind (mind blindness). I can't say that's true for me. Doctors and their stereotypes

The two things are totally related. Aspies don't mesh with their deemed peer group primarily and aren't primarily oriented towards it. We don't pick up the same social cues, so we aren't constrained by them. I like physics and earth science (not popular with women my age), and I also have a very, very soft spot for animals and also enjoy some children's stories and seemingly babyish games like Loko Roko. I just didn't follow the herd, because it never occurred to me to do so.

I think most of us learned enough social rules to know when you are supposed to be embarrassed. On my job it is not a big problem to talk about certain interests, but I am not too open about my own life (so they will not get bored, too much).

Most of my interests can be explained as research for my volunteer work. And some of my earlier interests can be useful when talking to children in my volunteer work, I understand their enthusiasm that is seen as weird by most adults.

But probably a lot of people think I am some nut, and I can not get bothered by that. (that sounds AS).

Same here - I used to love Lego, and was obsessed with Pokemon - but I also felt that I hated anyone at around 12 years old... Whenever friends of my parents came to visit them, I came out and was very nice, though. I found it much easier to talk with older people. I used to talk to my parents and they said I needed a therapy, a few years later I found out I was just doing Nietzschean thinking on my own...

And still my mother always said I'm "childish" - I think it has to do about innocence, honesty and so-called naivity. I like small children when they're "pure", they just make me smile sometimes. Plus, since we don't seem to care about society - nothing contradicting about looking infantile when you're 30, and deadly serious when you're 10, I guess. And "lack of responsibility". You know, that "you'll get out of it, you're young" thing. Actually as I'm getting older I seem to romantice things and ideas even more...

Me last night *jumping up and down in my seat* : "The new episode of Ben 10 is on!! !

I think we have immature interests because emotionally we are stuck at a certain age. Basically I am 12 years old, it just feels like I have been alive for twice as long (I'm 24...12x2).

It could be because our poor social awareness makes us less susceptible to peer pressure, so that while everyone else moves onto interests that are common to their age group and thus seen as "age appropriate", we stay with what we like whether or not anyone of our age likes it or not.

Not sure, but I thought it was simply my personality. I completely agree with Omerik and I personally understand pensieve's post; I once concluded on my own that I felt "stuck." I also understand what SkittlesMcBingBing's girlfriend is going through because a lot of my wardrobe is like that.

Honestly, I hope it is not because of what Who_Am_I or Ladarzak describe. I don't like to think of it as poor social awareness; instead, it's our individual personalities and interests. I like to have fun!

Poor social awareness doesn't make someone a bad person, and I think that unique interests and less susceptibility to peer pressure are pretty cool side benefits of such.