AS special interest v. NT hobby

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What's the difference between an Aspie's special interest and a mere NT who has a passion for their particular hobby?

I mean, for example, there must be gazillions of guys who get so heavily involved with a hobby that they threaten their marriages - it's a story as old as the hills. They can't all have autism can they?

So just what characterises this as Aspie behaviour?

It annoys me when people get the two of them mixed up. A few years ago, some woman that I know was calling my special interests in Routemasters a hobby. She was brushing it off as a bloody hobby.

A hobby is something that a person does with their hands, to pass the time. A special interest is an interest/obsession/fixation that's close to your heart, that no other person can destroy, no matter how hard they try.

Example 1:
A hobby of birdwatching would be done probably when the person is bored, on the weekends, and they occasionally look at their bird books to make an IQ.

When I was in high school, I said birdwatching was my hobby, but truthfully, I read that bird book and memorized it, drew birds on everything, tried to make school projects into something about birds, read a college level ornithology textbook in high school, hung out at the local nature center and helped the director count birds, kept a complex life list, and now trying to make birds my career.


Example 2:
Someone that had the hobby of playing Sonic games would do it when they were bored, maybe a couple hours a day, probably played other video games too.

With me... I play Sonic games every single chance I get, listen to Sonic games music, rarely play any other video game, draw Sonic characters, write unofficial guides for the game, write fanfiction, dress up as character for Halloween, post on messageboards, Played even the obscure tities, know tons of facts, etc...

There is one point in college where every single thing in my day revolved around either birds or Sonic.

I would expect that levels of interest or uninterest in different things would be much more exaggerated in the autistic/Aspergian brain than in the NT brain, just as the concept of multiple intelligences is more exaggerated on the spectrum. In both cases, I think that the reduced central processing would probably account for the exaggeration. It serves a definite purpose as the exaggerated interests, like the exaggerated faculties, can potentially be channelled into productive specialisms

I disagree that a hobby is something people do only to pass time, when they are bored. A hobby is something you can be very passionate about; it's your off-work/off-school occupation, a thing that you pursue for (usually) a form of self-development or even satisfaction, though diversion does play a major part in it, in a positive way.

I think that what we call 'special interests' - but are also called 'obsessions' with a more extreme word - are not hobbies in themselves, but can of course be and often are the source of our hobbies. The difference is how we approach our interests: we tend to let ourselves truly be absorbed by it, moreso than the average non-autistic would. I think this is because we want security, something solid, a sense of order, so we bury ourselves in our special interest and make it something we can retreat into a bit. At least this is from my personal experience. Finding that sense of comfort and safety was not the be-all and end-all of my special interests, there was of course genuine curiosity at its heart. But I think that's how autism coloured my interest.
Looking back on my younger days, I consider my special interests to have been my hobbies: pursuits in my spare time, for my enjoyment.

I'm going to disagree with most people and say because we're talking about a symptom of AS here, it can't be normal. It's narrow, of abnormally intense focus and encompassing. Often also disabling because it will dominate other thoughts and make doing normal stuff hard.

I don't know how many normal people folks here actually know, because my experiences are so vastly different from what users here say about normal people's hobbies/interests.

Most non-autistic people that I know spent many hours on their hobby or interests. They do sports several times a week and talk about it when they meet someone who is willing to talk about it. It's perfectly normal that they spent several hours a day on something they're interested in. They talk about their hobby/interests when they get the chance.

A special interests of AS is like people who carry their stuffed toy or something everywhere and will freak and resist if you try to separate it from them. Or people who won't do normal stuff because they can't stop doing their hobby/interest. That's abnormal. That's why it's an AS symptom.

Having normal hobbies/interests like the majority of normal people isn't a symptom of AS.

Like most\all symptoms of Autism, it goes in degrees. Probably in:

1) amount of interest - how long you'd spend on it
and
2) level? of interest - e.g. interested in your toy car vs. interested in your toy cars wheel only

In myself, I've noticed that I research my "hobbies" but don't actually do them. I have a garage full of woodworking tools, I've read every book, and watched every TV show and DVD, and could tell you the steps in making just about anything, but I don't actually ever get out there and make anything! The pursuit of the hobby is fulfilling enough for me... however, I should have stopped at the reading and watching... now I have a garage full of stuff that I don't use and paid a lot of money for!

But...

...if you ever need to make anything, you'll be able to. If there was an EMP strike, people would be coming to you for carpenting stuff.

If your garage is metal, you merely need a generator (it [garage] would act as a Faraday cage).

Then you could defend it all. As well as being safer in general from muggings.

An Aspie special interest goes beyond the scope of a mere hobby. Most NT's can have a hobby without being regarded as "obsessed." An Aspie special interest typically reaches the level of an obsession. I have my special interests, and I also have hobbies that are below the level of obsessions. They are very different.

I'll give everyone an example from my childhood of a special interest/fixation (childhood was when it was most focused and pronounced in my personality)
I was completely obsessed with horses. Constantly talked about them, thought about them, drew pictures of them, no matter how bad the drawings were (they improved with practice and time and started looking really good eventually but at first horrible looking with no artistic talent evident at all but a very strong will to spend hours drawing them and making up stories to go along with the drawings). I got to the point after years of drawing horses, all from the same profile. same angle, that if I made one mistake on the paper I would toss it and start all over on another paper. I had pages of papers with a curve on them and nothing else.
I did this at home, at school, at family's houses, everywhere I was I would eventually either begin talking about horses and asking for a piece of paper so I could draw some.
This was my main fixation with horse stories like Black Beauty being secondary. I was mostly fixated on drawing the horses and making up my own stories.
Another facet of my fixation was actually wanting a pet horse of my own. This is a typical conversation with my mother:

"Mom, can I have a horse?"

"I told you before, you cannot have a horse"

"Why?"

"I told you already we don't have the room to keep one nor the money for food."

"We do have the money I'll find a way to get the money just get me a horse."

and it would go from there to complete hysterics over being told I couldn't have a horse. The same kind of conversation happened over and over too, ending in hysterics.

I disagree with whoever started blasted off about normal and abnormal, not so much with the opinion but the definition of normal and abnormal as if they are two clean cut definitions.

Let's say that a 'normal interest' is sports. Let's say that an 'abnormal interest' is dinosaurs.

You could spend all day watching sports, thinking about sports statistics, working as a sports columnist, and drawing sports stars.
People would just call you a 'super fan', maybe a couple would say you're a little off. Nothing too major. But if you read about dinosaurs in your spare time, it would be a 'special interest' , an 'obsession', a 'problem'. But it has nothing to do with actually spending all your time with that interest, and everything to do with liking something 'normal' versus something 'strange'.

A lot of people seem to think that you can just label a whole area of study 'abnormal' or 'immature' just because it isn't the media stereotype of whatever age, gender, or race you are.

There is a normal interest, there is an abnormal one, but it isn't as simple as one or the other, and many are both. And it isn't about what you're interested in. And abnormal isn't wrong!8O