What's your special interest?

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^^Do you ever get an urge to go back to it sometimes? I haven't had any Lego of my own for over 30 years, but I still hanker for it occasionally, especially when I go to see my Brother's family - his lads are really into it, and I get totally engrossed straight away when I'm playing Lego with them.

My oldest special interest is animals (in particular turtles and canines). I am very interested in animal behavior, communication and psychology, and I don't care about anything as much as I do animal welfare and conservation.

I love the world of Pokemon (games and manga), and the worlds of a few other games (Fantasy Life, Rune Factory, Dragon Quest, Harvest Moon).

I love reading even though I'm pretty particular about what I like and only like some genres (pretty much horror, fantasy, dystopian, thrillers, the occasional other book). Not sure if I should list them as different special interests based on genre or fiction or just reading.

I am also so much into playing games (video, board, cards, dice) that it might count as special interests too.

Sometimes, but then I usually go back to the interests that I usually like. :/ Maybe I should break out my Legos one day and actually play with them, instead of leaving them in the drawer all the time.

Oh God I'm right there with you mate! If I had the money I would go to the nearest Lego store and buy all the Technic Lego that I could and I'd probably start playing with the other types of Lego as well. I've taken quite an interest to the City brand of Lego too, all of that looks really cool.

But alas, I haven't played with it for about 30 years and the only reason is a lack of money. Woe is me.

Right now I am kind of between special interests, but I don’t think that it will be long until I have a new one because my brain is just naturally inclined to be constantly fixated/obsessed with something. I actually had a person as my special interest for the past few months, and that kind of seems to be dying down. To be honest I prefer having an interest in a topic or thing rather than a person because I can’t constantly be around a person and people might get offended or something like that. Then again, I don’t really choose when my interests come back, so for now I’m just kind of waiting. I used to have special interests Stampy Cat, AGT, and autism, and I’m sure they’ll be back one day !

My interests change every time but my main interests are psychology, life in general and animals. Specifically wild animals.
But also plush animals xD

I've had hundreds of specific obsessions including:
Palm trees
Chinese mythology (foo dogs etc)
The brain
Mental disorders
The heart (organ)
Blood
Dinosaurs
Planets
Life/Death
Earth
Orcas
Tornados and weather
Christmas
Colours
Crystals and glittery things
Spotted hyenas

I could go on forever. It's basically anything that captures my attention at that moment. And each obsession last from weeks to months.

I would say in general these interests make me happy and fascinated, but they also bother me as I'm never fully satisfied, like not one of these are ever perfect enough which could also explain why I switch to another topic...

I forgot this part of the topic!

My special interests can bring me a lot of happiness, even euphoria, and enjoyable hyperfocus.

But at times they can also lead to frustration, rage and grief, because I love turtles and wolves and the situation for both is pretty dire. Poaching, loss of habitat, trigger happy idiots who'd rather shoot than take responsibility for their livestock, dumb politicians making dumb decisions.... None of that is any good at all and brings me down and more importantly is bad for the poor animals.
I love animals and would love to work with animals, it's the only thing that would be worthwhile, but my allergies stop me, and herpetological animals have been all out banned here (a law I hate with a vengeance), although slightly softened some months ago. So outer circumstances lead me to not spend nearly as much time as I would want on the topics I love the most because I can't focus on just the good about it when the reality of their existence is where it is, the bad is important and imminent.
The only part about reality that matters to me (outside my family) is endangered, and I am helpless in doing anything about it.

That's when I take refuge in fiction rather than merely enjoy it as I used to.

Currently the social sciences , especially political science . When I was younger I was interested in various breeds of dogs , now I am more so interested in studying people , and their social systems .

I don't know exactly what counts or not, how far it has to be to count in extent or abnormality etc.

But one of my colleagues did say that I always turn conversations back onto my interests. Oops. She was referring to the animal sex facts that I've been collecting for years.

Definitely cats. I know a lot about cats. Somewhat dogs. Also, genetics (including epigentics), certain Greek and roman myths, and (not sure if this counts but) I love creating made up animals, and I've been drawing the same made up animals since the last year of Primary school, and I still draw them, constantly improving them.

I have a paracosm, and I guess you could say that's a special interest, I've been adding stories, drawings, characters, ideas, ect. to it for most of my life to the point where I frequently dream of it, and could describe all the cultures and people there in detail.

....Don't judge me.

That seems really cool! I wish I had imagination like that.

If you think it counts, then it probably does.

Find someone to talk to, tell them about one of your interests, and see if they get bored and walk away from you =(

I've found tactics within a year ago that improves that somewhat. What I really want to give is a lecture (but I now understand that the non-responsiveness of my line manager meant lack of interest, when we were in a car for 2-3 hours and I explained everything he could want to know about arachnid mating habits...).

I used to monologue, and that's how I would rather communicate. But what I do now is headline. I tell my colleague about one or two animals, top-line and not in huge depth. Her reaction is then, "haha, Cratilla is at the animal sex tales again". I then cross off that animal from the list I keep on my desktop (avoid repetition to the same person), and wait a few weeks before telling her the next one on the list.

I think reactions are much better since I started headlining rather than monologuing.

Although I'm still learning to limit myself. It's a bit sad to really, as well, because monologuing about this and my hobby are kinda the only social interactions I do comfortably and at length.

Last edited by Cratilla on 20 Nov 2017, 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

It used to be thinking deeply and listening to information about environmental, social and political issues on NPR for a while. Kinda blew up in my face last year though. Now it just sucks. I live in a Trump town and really have to keep all my biggest opinions to myself in order to stay employed and not bring real hate on myself.

I have... pounds... pounds and pounds of Lego blocks in bags and drawers and boxes... I should measure them in cubic feet at this point... (probably ~20-30cf at this point)... I haven't had a place for them since I've become a grown up with a family... but I haven't stopped collecting them... a friend of my gifted my probably 25 of his sets in the last six months... and I just stack them up... eventually I'm going to have to face my wife's desire to free up all the space I use storing them... so far I've been able to stave that off by "sharing" my collection with my son...

One day I will just pour them all into a pile and swim around in them like Scrooge McDuck.