Interests you can't share with other people

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GreenVelvetWorm
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10 Nov 2023, 5:48 am

Does anyone have any special interests/hyperfixations that you can't share with other people because it's embarrassing or people wouldn't understand it?

A weird one of mine is eating disorders. It popped up a couple years ago when I encountered a social media post about them, and I ended up doing a whole bunch of research, and finding it really interesting. The topic isn't relevant to my life or my other interests- I've never had an eating disorder, and I don't know anyone with one in real life (as far as I know). The only person I've told about this is my partner, because I occasionally infodump to him about different EDs and common misconceptions surrounding them. At first he was slightly concerned, but he's realized that it's just another random interest of mine.

If anyone else knew, they would probably think I either have an ED myself or that I'm very morbid and insensitive for fixating on the topic.



ToughDiamond
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10 Nov 2023, 9:34 am

Oh yes. Even with music, although many like my results, and some musicians aren't without appreciation for a small dose of my "how I did it and how I plan to do it better" tales, generally speaking I've learned that it's better to use a lot of restraint about showing my working. It's a lonely place to be. Even when I've found people who get heavily involved in the technology (usually "gear-heads"), the gear they want to talk about isn't much to do with the gear I want to talk about.



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10 Nov 2023, 1:08 pm

I think some of my interests would be considered distinctly uninteresting by most other people...and perhaps strange.


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autisticelders
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10 Nov 2023, 1:44 pm

some interests can be "socially unacceptable" and "off-putting" yes.
Somebody in my family loves to look at infected wounds/ boils, skin disease images, loves all aspects of vomit and videos of people vomiting.( I avoid those things)

There are big areas of social activity and behavior that have "no no no" attached.
I notice there are websites and videos, forums, etc especially for those with those sorts of interests, just as there are the same media for those with more "mainstream" interests. There is probably something out there for everybody.


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renaeden
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10 Nov 2023, 11:03 pm

That's really gross! I don't have a phobia about vomiting, but I do find it unpleasant!



It's pretty generic, but postage stamps. No one in my family is interested. My housemate isn't interested. The only thing is that I get stamps sometimes from the Salvos, where I volunteer. Once I scored a whole pile of New Zealand stamps. Quite a find.



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10 Nov 2023, 11:09 pm

I freely shared my special interests as a child but got in trouble for it. So now as an adult, I don't like to talk about my special interests unless it's with another person who also has that same topic as a special interests. I feel stupid talking about my special interests with my mother because she acts like she does not remember and then yells at me for making her feel stupid when it turns out she did remember. She also was not as supportive about my special intrests as she likes to think she was or tells people she was.

Writing a story about one but refuse to let her read it. She's never expressed any intrest anyway but if she did I probably wouldn't let her becuase she'd correct me about any grammar or spelling mistake instead of the story itself. This isn't a school assignment. If people bully me for my poor grammar or not making a paragraph "correctly", I think that says more about them than it does me. I'm writing this story for fun, not for someone with a fetish for perfect grammar.

Story is also based around a movie she refuses to watch becuase of "all that cussing". I guess she dosen't remember the time she told me I was acting like a "b***h" because I wasn't in the best of moods that day. I really didn't understand the context behind that word. It was just another one of those "words" I wasn't supposed to say.

But becuase of how people treated me for my special interests as a child, I'm reluctant to share them with just anyone. I also got bullied VERY badly online in fourms supposedly for my special intrests because I asked why they talked about other things and this was supposedly a fourm for Lion King. If they wanted to talk about Harry Potter, why couldn't they do so on a Harry Potter fourm? They're allowed to like the Lion King Broadway show, why do I get hate becuase I don't like it? Why do I get hate because Timon is my favorite character? I was accused of not liking the Broadway show beucase it's not a carbon copy of the cartoon. Actually, that was part of the problem, it WAS too much like the cartoon. Some characters were just carbon copies of their cartoon form....designed by someone tripping LSD. And the colors were too drab and borning. I'm told this is the best show on Broadway...why? There's nothing to look at. Just some guy standing up and singing with a drab boring background. And if I hated it becuase wasn't like the cartoon, how come I was one of the few people who LOVED the "live action" version? I went in expecting to hate it but I think I could love it even more than the cartoon.

But anyway, I don't talk to just anyone about my special intrests. I have to know the person is "safe" first AND that they will actually listen to me as well. Sometimes they can be "safe" and listen for real but I still don't feel comfortable talking about my special interests with them.


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10 Nov 2023, 11:44 pm

I technically "can".
Though I won't be talking much because it's not how I express sharing when it came to special interests.

I just refuse. :lol: The best I do is passively show it, and let anyone else make their own conclusions and commentary over that.


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Last edited by Edna3362 on 10 Nov 2023, 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

auntblabby
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10 Nov 2023, 11:44 pm

nobody seems to share my interest and enthusiasm for digital audio editing, and high fidelity audio equipment and high fidelity audio reproduction.



Mikurotoro92
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10 Nov 2023, 11:44 pm

I uh...have sexual fantasies about fictional characters...

This is most likely a coping mechanism for not being in a real romantic relationship and should resolve itself once I am married & having actual human sex!

My neighbors Anita and Glenn both say I need to see a therapist because of this since it could stop me from finding true love

I'm seeing a therapist now and we are creating a plan to move forward BTW



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10 Nov 2023, 11:56 pm

Mikurotoro92 wrote:
I uh...have sexual fantasies about fictional characters...

This is most likely a coping mechanism for not being in a real romantic relationship and should resolve itself once I am married & having actual human sex!

My neighbors Anita and Glenn both say I need to see a therapist because of this since it could stop me from finding true love

I'm seeing a therapist now and we are creating a plan to move forward BTW

With the quality of animation, and the depth of character that fictional characters show, I think a lot of people would have sexual fantasies about them. I know I have.



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10 Nov 2023, 11:57 pm

some people don't grok my fixation on things relating to the afterlife.



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11 Nov 2023, 12:01 am

auntblabby wrote:
some people don't grok my fixation on things relating to the afterlife.

Is Grok an American thing? The only place I ever remember seeing the word was in Robert.A. Heinlein’s book ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’



jamie0.0
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11 Nov 2023, 12:04 am

i'm not sure if it is a special interest.
but i do know a lot about serial killers, mass shooters and terrorists.

now, i'm a very calm man, not a finger i would lay on a butterfly. i don't know why but i find these cases very interesting.

once i info dumped on someone about a particular case, i wont make that mistake again. he never talked to me the same again.

i also know way too much about sexual fetishes. surprisingly, with the right people, this can be a good insightful topic of conversation. but i have to be selective about who i talk about it with.

i'm just really interested in the extreme cases of the brain, something that i think is wrong but someone thinks is right, i really want to know why they think the way that they do.



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11 Nov 2023, 12:08 am

DirkGently69 wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
some people don't grok my fixation on things relating to the afterlife.

Is Grok an American thing? The only place I ever remember seeing the word was in Robert.A. Heinlein’s book ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’

he seems to have invented the word back in 1961. it has slowly become loosened from its original meaning which had a quasi-psychic sense of empathizing with other's feelings to the point of becoming mentally one with them.



DirkGently69
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11 Nov 2023, 12:12 am

auntblabby wrote:
DirkGently69 wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
some people don't grok my fixation on things relating to the afterlife.

Is Grok an American thing? The only place I ever remember seeing the word was in Robert.A. Heinlein’s book ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’

he seems to have invented the word back in 1961. it has slowly become loosened from its original meaning which had a quasi-psychic sense of empathizing with other's feelings to the point of becoming mentally one with them.

That’s fascinating. I love his writing style. Thanks for letting me know.



DirkGently69
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11 Nov 2023, 12:18 am

jamie0.0 wrote:
i'm not sure if it is a special interest.
but i do know a lot about serial killers, mass shooters and terrorists.

now, i'm a very calm man, not a finger i would lay on a butterfly. i don't know why but i find these cases very interesting.

once i info dumped on someone about a particular case, i wont make that mistake again. he never talked to me the same again.

i also know way too much about sexual fetishes. surprisingly, with the right people, this can be a good insightful topic of conversation. but i have to be selective about who i talk about it with.

i'm just really interested in the extreme cases of the brain, something that i think is wrong but someone thinks is right, i really want to know why they think the way that they do.

I also know way too much about sexual fetishes, lol. I find it fascinating what people like and dislike. Whilst I only know a little about serial killers etc, it’s still an interesting subject. When I was a young teen, I was fascinated by the paranormal, particularly about spontaneous human combustion. I shared this knowledge with whoever would listen, until my grandmother told me to stop, as I was making other kids uncomfortable.