You need to widen your horizons

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Special interests, obsessions, passions, hyperfocus, whatever you want to call them have always been my strongest autistic trait. They've always been animal related in one way or another this species or that species, this animal character or that one or a carrier field related to them.

Meerkats have been my main special interest for decades. My RL nickname to anyone who knows me is "Meerkat Queen". One thing I've noticed over the years is no one is trying to force other non special interests onto me like they did when I was a child. "Oh you like meerkats so you should like this type of mongoose too!" Sorry mate, ain't the way it works. My other favorite animals tend to be fossas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossa_(animal) and large cats. Specifically jaguars since I have reoccurring dreams about them. But now that I'm an adult, and Rocket Raccoon is my newest special interest. His backstory I find relatable, someone forcing you against your will to be something you are not. And it seems like he's got quite the following of autistic people on Twitter. Maybe they feel the same way I do? Anyway, no one's pushing me to like real raccoons or any of the other GotG cast. I always had niche interests and now at 36 people are finally starting to respect that. It's so weird. I was constantly told I needed to widen my horizons but no one says that anymore. Maybe they gave up?

Wider horizons are not necessarily bad. If a person takes a leisure learning class like cooking, fencing, art, or scuba, one might find something that is a bad experience or one might find an unexpected new interest. As long as one is satisfied with what one is invested in, there may be no reason to go exploring. However, new horizons can also be rewarding.

It's like each ASD person could sponsor a Wikipedia page. If the web ever failed, I'd collect contact numbers for ASD folks and I'm pretty sure we'd have most subjects covered.

Narrow, restricted interests naturally pose a sharing problem. My interests are often pretty narrow, which probably helps explain why I don't have millions of friends. I guess it's a choice between the misery of loneliness and the misery of foregoing special interests and trying to take an interest in other stuff just to get more friends. I try to compromise, but not too much.

Nothing wrong with being deeply interested in an obscure topic.

However, it's good to branch out and find other things one is interested in. Even if you is not as passionate or deeply interested in those other subjects as your special interest, and don't spend as much time on them. A certain amount of personal diversification is healthy, can lead to finding new and interesting things, and is useful from a practical sense in terms of being able to relate better to others.

I never wanted to make friends. I was content to be alone and do my own thing. All my friendships I had as a child were usually heavily facilitated by my parents or school teachers. But I'm that stereotypical autistic antisocial loner. If I do have friends, they are almost always other autistic people who have the same interests as me...and weren't forced upon me. All of my friendships with other kids from school were forced. Usually with another child who didn't mind hearing about meerkats for hours on end.

"Hey, you know how Sally is new to this entire school and poor little Meerkat just sits there all by herself....because we forced her to be isolated from the other children but we'll pretend we didn't do that. Maybe if we sat them next to each other they will be friends?" "Sally" and I did become friends. BEST friends. But the next year my parents pulled me out to homeschool me and we didn't stay in contact. My mom said she planned ways for me and "Sally" to stay in contact but it just didn't work out. I found "Sally" on Facebook years later and she ended up moving away anyway. "Sally" kinda understood when I needed my alone time.

But if I had to give up or limit my special interests for friendships, I don't see the point in it. Same with marriage. But then why can't I just marry another autistic person who's also a veterinarian (veterinary medicine is my other special interest) and we can be a power couple? But there's more to life than romance and friendship. I don't really plan to get married. I made up my mind at four years old that when I grew up I was going to be a carrier woman and never have children or get married. Special interests are my life.

There's a big difference between "I'm really interested in meerkats" and "I'm interested in animals, especially meerkats."

Meeting someone interested in animals is quite likely. Lots of couples these days have pets instead of children.

Your attitude comes across to me as "you must be interested in the very specific things I'm interested in, but I will not try to reciprocate." That seems selfish.

Exactly.

So other people don't have requirements for friendships? Oh well, if the shoe fits I guess.

Most people are willing to compromise on 'requirements'.

For example, I really like racing (mostly stock cars, GTs and touring cars) but if I meet someone who only really likes open-wheelers (F1, Indy, etc) we should still be able to discuss our interests even if they hate NASCAR and I hate F1.

I wouldn't be unwilling to be friends with that person because they don't get the appeal of NASCAR, that would be a very shallow reason to not want to be their friend.

Now, if they constantly insisted on making gonna be real dumb and then ima gonna turn left some jokes I might lose interest in their friendship, but that's due to the other party's insistence on being rude and insulting, not because I'm unwilling to compromise.

Reciprocation is my BFF listens to me go on about myself, concerns or special interest for however long and then I listen to her go on about herself, concerns or special interest for however long. For all I know Meerkat appreciates a friend who's passionate about owls or reciprocates in other ways. Who made up the rule that reciprocation must be someone repressing their interest? Sure, I can mask and play that game but the demand is to the point of "selfless". It's selfish for folks to dismiss the interest of another within 2 minutes. It's selfish for folks to strictly insist on shallow chit-chat when the other person is clearly a deep thinker. It's selfish for folks to demand others reciprocate in a particular way. My BFF and are amazed at how often our sharing information is "selfish" when it's our way to connect, but it seems NTs connect on shared mundane experiences. My fairly non-verbal daughter will present a video of a yawning frog to everyone. It's clear to me that she's trying to connect in her way. Since NTs lack TOM they often misinterpret that as "selfish". There was an Autistic young man displaying his LEGO train set at the library the other day and I made sure to ask him about it, in detail. He was reluctant and I imagine he's been scolded for talking "too much" about it. That makes my heart hurt. When I clarified that I was a willing and happy audience he relaxed. So many interesting facts about LEGOs, so glad he finds joy in this difficult world.

I would LOVE to meet someone who felt the same way as owls or tigers that I do about meerkats. Not everyone has to love meerkats the same way I do and not everyone has to love meerkats. I just don't think I'd be very good friends with someone who hated them. My best friend's favorite animals are wolves and skunks and we get along.

I think what I'm trying to say is why was everyone when I was a child trying to FORCE other things on me? And telling me I needed to widen my horizons? My parents were never the type of "you'll never find a husband if you are like this!" My parents weren't like that and figured if I did get married it would be to that South African zoologist I was pen pals with or someone like him. But it was still constantly "you need to widen your horizons". I wonder why it stopped as an adult?

I can relate to the LEGO guy. I am always reluctant to share anything about special interests as adult because I was told off all the time as a child for it. I even feel guilt when doing something related to my special interests sometimes. People have asked me about meerkats in person a few times and I end up sounding like Jeff Goldbloom's character in Jurassic Park (Looking back I wonder if Ian Malcom was supposed to be autistic coded)