Can a person be a special interest?

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Twice in my life I have become obsessed with certain people. To me, it feels like being in love, however, even after rejection it continues and continues and continues. These are not famous unattainable people, but a classmate (the first time) or a colleague at work and friend (the second time). Other people dont seem to have this problem - if they get rejected they find someone else, but for me these two people have both seemed to be absolutely perfect for me and special and it is too hard to give them up, even when they ignore and hurt me. I want to spend all my time with them. I think about them constantly, I adopt some of their interests and habits. But both times it has lead to terrible, crushing depression. Really I dont think its good for me to feel like that about someone. However, other relationships (or I should say the only relationship I have had) seem weak and pointless in comparison and I cant stay with someone I dont feel like that about.

Does this count as a special interest? I feel a similar obsession with mountains, hiking and corsica at the moment and travelling around the world and my job in the past. However, these obsessions are managable - I travelled round the world, I do my job overtime, I go hiking in the mountains and I am planning a holiday to Corsica. Unfortunately with a person you cant have this type of control. Everything I read about AS though talks about intellectual interests and I have hardly ever had one of those despite being very intelligent and academically successful.

everything can be a special intrest. My GF was mine. A special intrest is something you want to know things off, things you like to do etc etc. I think it depends more on the person what can or cant become a special intrest. A language for example, will never EVER become my special intrest.

This has happened to me numerous times.

Tim

It happened to me once in a super hard-core way that lasted 5 years...It really sucked.

I have a special interest that dates back to 1994 (it was a classmate in high school).

Tim

now that I think of it, even NTs have persons as a special intrest. film stars, pop stars, models etc etc

I look for answers. Sometimes the person might have them.

It is true that NTs have famous people as interests. But I have never been interested in famous people at all. I never saw the attraction of someone you dont really know. And my interest in these people was not very sexual - it is more a fascination with their personality, although these two people are completely different - not even the same sex.

p.s. I think I may be borderline - less Aspie than most, but not NT enough to be accepted.

I am also borderline.

Tim

I do this all the time. I have one at the moment, who I've hardly spent enough time talking to to really know, but I haven't stopped thinking about him since last May. I do think sometimes that it stops me finding a happy real-life relationship. I wish i could find a way to stop doing it but I seem powerless to. I can distract myself but not for long.

hello,

i have that same tendancy toward fixation. it isn't something i do often but when i do it seems to last for aages! it is okay until i split up with said person. i think really though that when i am going out with someone it is the same factor that makes me want to be a good partner and to be faithful. they have my total attention.

so obsession could just be a natural function, 'perverted'?

don't think that you should think that you need to change your nature, but do keep yourself in check if that is your tendancy and do look after yourself.

l s

This may sound wierd, but in grade 3 and 4 or whereabouts, I was interested in this girl at my school named Tania P... at Bible camp I was interested in a girl named Sarah E... at school in grade 2 I was interested in a girl named Vaishali P. and at camp when I was about 8 I was interested in a girl who looked and acted like her; her name was Valoshni or something. It was mostly girls I got this curiosity and obsessions with... also black kids, in kindergarten and grade 1.

It's not a special interest. It's an addiction. A special interest is when you're interested in getting to know the subject better and learn, learn, learn about it, master it, make something productive about what you learned. An addiction is when you feel you can't live without them, you need them, though they hurt you.

That sounds like a purely academic question. Even if you had a definite answer to it, I can't see how this would help you or the other person.

In my opinion the point is this: how does this obsession (or addiction, or special interest, or whatever it may be) affect you? and how does it affect the other person? When you start answering that, maybe that will give you some clues as to how to deal with the problem. Bear in mind that, as an Aspie, you'll probably find it extremely difficult to figure out how it affects the other person.

im in the middle of this right now almost 2 yrs and running... i try dating other people, but literally have no tolerance for it... even makes me nauseous.

Same Here.

Tony Abbott described a form of special interest, that could involve an intense romantic/sexual focus on a person. I have had this interest myself, twice, the first in high school and the second when I was 22. Both women looked EXACTLY the same.

Such intense interests may start or stop suddenly (or gradually), by themselves or because of an event in life, can go dormant for a period, and may mellow in intensity with age, experience, or the right medication (I don't recommend medication just to specifically curtail this!).

I would not put any hopes on starting a relationship with someone while they're the focus of this special interest, as once the interest dies down the relationship will probably become banal. Only when you're already in a successful relationship with the person would such a special interest work in your favour. Friendship, maybe, but not relationship.

Also, some counselling to help with when you get depressed. That emotion comes from something within you in response to the situation, not from the situation itself.