Special interests and the feeling of love.

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I am wondering if this is another one of these thoughts of mine where i think "if you mention it, they will just all say you're nuts", and then i get replies like "omg that's true! me too!" so i will put it out there, and see if i'm nuts or not.
It's a bit hard to express though, especially as i can't just find the right way to put things correctly in a decently short number of words.
My special interests come and go. They may last a few years, they may last a decade, but when they change and i move on to a new one, i am completely into the new one, and they get left behind. In the beginning of this transition phase, i sometimes have a reaction of reject towards the old special interest, feel disgusted by it, slightly, as if i've had an overdose of it and just can't think about it anymore. But if some years have passed and something comes up that is related to this old special interest, all sorts of memories come back to me, facts i've learnt about it, moments spent enjoying it, and i want to tell the person mentionning it: "oh, you're into that? i once was into it too". I think about my old special interests with the same kind of tenderness you might think about an ex you left long ago and can't quite remember why it didn't work out in the end, you know that moment when all you can remember are the good times you had and the good sides he had, and you vaguely think about calling him to catch up?
That kind of feeling.
The same kind of parallel can be made with my current special interest: noone knows it better than i do, it's a part of me, i couldn't live without it. Isn't it weird that i'm feeling exactly like i fall in love with my special interests? They don't have to be a person, i would understand the feeling if, say, i had a special interest in a singer or something, but i experienced the same feeling about artistic things, scientific facts, language or cultural studies...
can anyone relate to what i'm saying or was it :
1: too poorly expressed to be intelligible
2: just nuts?

Same with me and I couldn't express it any better. So if that is nuts, so am I

Yes, I know what you mean. While you're in it it's so awesome, there's so much to learn, there's so much new. Then something else comes along, and maybe you think about the old stuff 'gawd, how was I ever into that. I was soo immature back then unlike now with my new sophisticated grownup hobby'. Then a few years later you look at it and are like 'ooh, I used to love dinosaurs. I can't believe I stopped being into them, what was I thinking when I thought they were immature? They're pretty cool'. But the feeling isn't the same unless you fall for it again.

Like you call your old hobby up, and you meet for coffee for old times sakes. Usually it doesn't mean you're gonna get back together (although sometimes it does happen). But maybe occasionally you meet up casually to see how the hobby's been doing to reminisce. Maybe you catch the occasional movie and exchange Christmas cards, and now with some distance you can laugh about that time you got that one dinosaur name wrong on a quiz and how absolutely mortified you were. And it's just kind of.. nice. But it doesn't have that same intensity as a new interest has, it's more comfy and you don't have to prove yourself as much at the old interest because it's not your current 'love'.

I'm the same. Makes sense since the same sorts of feelings are being expressed.

I feel exactly the same way about my special interests. Good to know I'm not the only one!

When I first discover a new special interest, it feels like "love at first sight". Then, once I become dedicated to it, it feels like I got "married" to it. Being dedicated and still having a lot of passion for it is like a "honeymoon" phase, but after that, the dedication starts fading. Eventually it gets to a point where I've completely lost my passion for it and I'm only dedicated to it out of a fear of change. That's when I "break up" with my special interest and try to find a new one.

As in the dating world, sometimes a new love is waiting right around the corner, and sometimes I have to do a little searching. If I am "married" to one special interest and begin to feel interested in another one prematurely, I feel like I am "cheating" on it, even to the point of feeling actual guilt and having thoughts of "oh please don't leave me"!

As other posters have mentioned, previous special interests are like exes; I look back on some of them with feelings of fondness and nostalgia, remembering how special they were to me. I might spend a couple of hours online looking them up and seeing what's happened to them since I "broke up" with them. Then there are other former interests that I look back on with feelings of embarrassment, thinking "how could I have ever been into that!?" Sometimes I even leave them out when I am making lists of special interests!

I can relate to all of this...it happens a lot when someone mentions a past special interest of mine on WP........

I also experience the same feelings.