Sharing Your Interests?

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When I get interested in something I tend to go to everyone around me that I think might be even remotely interested to talk and/or get them involved. If nobody's interested in it I happily engage in it on my own. If I'm having a conversation with someone and there's a possibility I can work in a topic of interest I do it.

Are you content to be alone with your interests or do you feel the desire to share them with others and get other people involved?

Depends. I like to work out alone, but if I like a movie very much, I sometimes watch it with other people.

My friends would probably tell you I am too eager to share. I can go on for ages, and I get frusterated if the topic changes. Lucky for me two of my best friends are exactly the same way, and I share a few fixations with them.

As for actual projects, I have a hard time working towards someone else's vision, and most people expect to have some say in its eventual outcome. Except for very rare occasions, I usually prefer to work alone.

Reodor,

I have a hard time with that too. When someone has enlisted me to help them on their project I have to constantly guard myself against feeling like I own some piece of it. I just do what I was brought in for and keep my nose out of everything else.

What I meant by getting others involved, I think, is for example I was intensely learning a katana combat system in Second Life, spending sometimes as much as eight hours a day practicing. During that time I was encouraging people around me to purchase a katana, offering to cover some of the costs for them. If they did join I generally spent very little time sparring with them due to their not being at my skill level. The same thing happened with simboarding. When it's an intellectual interest like Jung's teleological model of the psyche or Ken Wilber's integral philosophy I just tend to talk about it a lot.

There are some people that I share my interests with and others that I keep them from.

I get really excited when someone shares one of my interests, but I'm often disappointed because they don't like them to the same degree I do (as I tend to obsess.) When someone loves a show I love, since TV is my main obsession, I want to talk about it forever and go on and on. Some of my more dorky obsessions, like fanfiction, I don't share with friends.

I have learned to basically shut up about my obsessions.

Every once in a while I let out a long spiel about something that really excites me to my brother. At least he shares really similar interests as I do. I am so much more comfortable with him that I tend to let loose and ramble for a while only to turn around and notice that he is just coming back into the room with a cup of tea from upstairs.

It keeps me from boring others to death, but it hampers my ability to talk about other things. I learned the describe the basics or give a general picture of what I like to do when people ask about my hobbies or interests. I never can encapsulate my hobby well enough that I am satisfied that it accurately describes it, but have come to terms that I can only give a glimpse at a part of the hobby.

But I have not progressed much past that point when dealing with the general populace. With other people who share my interests I am able to talk about that subject and give and take a bit in the conversation, but I have no skill in transitioning to other topics, like getting to know and befriend the person.

I usually covet my interests too much to have them 'polluted' by other people's mutual interest. If someone does become intersted in it it seems to damage it for me in some way and I eventually abandon it completely.

I definitely covet my juggling, GrendelUlf, and after I learned all the basic tricks on the internet, I completely shut out all outside influence. I tried going to a circus/juggling club, but I saw no point to the suggestions I recieved. So I continued on my own, happily.

I also did this with pool, and despite my immense progress, I still never use the closed bridge, which is usually considered essential.

I think the risks of "pollution" outweigh the benefits I get from input. But I also think a tad too much.

Me too. I opened up for a while when my girlfriend at the time encouraged me to tell her all about what I was interested in at the time. Eventually (2-3 months later) she flipped out and had a go at me for being so obsessed about it.

Now I try to hide my obsessions (again), with some success. As soon as I even touch on my obsessive-topic-of-the-month with anyone though, it tends to be quite evident. I don't think I'm good at hiding excitement about what I'm interested in...

I used to share my obsessions with people, but they would often laugh and condemn me for being a louse. Now i never share what i am working on with people.

I do share some of my interests however i do keep some of dem 2 myself as some of dem r my fetishes.