"Socially unacceptable" special interests

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I also have a tendency to narrow in on things that are ridiculously obscure and specific. For example, when doing research for a character in Dungeons and Dragons, I happened upon the Far Realm infested stars (featured here), basically eldritch entities housed within astral bodies (actually nine stars and one nebula). My interest has broadened to include all of them, instead of only Gibbeth

I love role-playing, but don’t know many people to do it with. The people I play D&D with (my immediate family and my brother’s girlfriend and her family) are more into strategy than story-telling. My dad is always telling me how bad my character/skill/ability choices are and what would be more advantageous, that doesn’t go with the character I’m trying to make/play at all.

perhaps the OP meant less-social interests as well? in my case that is my perseveration [yes it can get to that point often enough] with audio and the finer points of its quality reproduction, recording and restoration.

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Extreme specialisation can be a lonely place to live in. Happens to me all the time.

^^nobody else seems to "get it."

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I remember having this depressing thought when I was a teenager, that everybody is into their own exclusive box so friendship can't possibly be the intimate thing I'd always hoped it could be. It seems we have to be content with a few scraps when interests happen to overlap. If we manage to consider the other person long enough to avoid unleashing unsolicited and unwanted data-dumping, and to stick to known areas of overlap, that's good, but there's still all this stuff that's screaming out to be shared but can't be.

Maybe everybody in the world should fill in a very long, detailed questionnaire to indicate everything they're interested in and how interested they are in talking and hearing about it, and then run it through a computer so we could all use the program to find the right ear for anything we wanted to share. I like to feel I'm unique, but I hate to feel I'm so unique that nobody knows or cares about what I do or say. It must be nice to be a mainstream NT who can just talk about football, clubbing, prime-time TV, parties, celebrities, fashion, or whatever other matters they have their heads stuffed with, and be confident in the knowledge that there's a huge crowd of stereotyped like-minds to lap up every word.

I can think of two different bands of "socially unacceptable" interests.

Morally repugnant, physically disgusting, dangerous, "inappropriate" for someone of your demographic group, ideologically controversial....

...or stuff that is considered "harmless but a bit odd" by the aggressively normal, who will mock you for it. Which is where most special interests fall.

(Oddly enough, an obsession with serial killers is downright mainstream.)

About the only ones I have which fit the first group - interest in insects and spiders, and me being a fan of an Italian classical composer who was literally a card-carrying Fascist.

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Well yes, there's often some overlap of the subjects, but I think a lot of ASD special interests tend to cone down on small parts of the parent subject. [/quote]

BINGO! Or as I say, "a component of a whole."

Example: I'm interested in fitness, as many people are. But don't get me started on why it's counterproductive to hold onto a treadmill while walking, as this alters natural biomechanics and disrupts the kinetic chain, plus can result in repetitive stress injuries in the hips due to their ballistic action to compensate for the locking up of the upper body while the walker holds onto the machine, and the calorie display is inflated because it's computed based on the machine's settings rather than somehow magically knowing the user's body composition and exertional metabolic rate...

Another example: viewing videos of immediate seizures from head trauma, but NO interest in viewing seizures from other causes like a brain tumor or drug overdose.

Another example: birds crashing into windows and dying, but not anything else pertaining to birds, or even other ways they die like getting hit by a car or pounced on by a cat.

Another terminology for this is "circumscribed interests." Another example of mine (really classic example): When I was 8, I became fascinated by any car trunk that curved up at the end, yet had NO interest in any other part of a car, or cars in general.

I just LOVE how the Autistic brain works!!