Can you have a special interest and be not great at it?

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I'm trying to work out if I have a special interest. I like horses but trying to work out if it is a hobby or special interest. I am currently obsessed and spend most of the time thinking about it. I'm not that great a rider though and get anxious. Can it still be a special interest? I learnt a certain number of facts but I'm not an expert and not really great at memorising facts. If I start riding again I get obsessive, but after stopping for long enough I will stop thinking about it.
Could it just be an obsession? I did get obsessed about finding jobs and thought of nothing else and that just went and horses have taken over and could easily talk about nothing else but trying not to.

Special interests and obsessions are kind of the same thing. A passing interest is something you might be into for a few days or even a few hours and then get over it.

To me a special interest is something you always think about and spend a lot of time on. They're called special interests because doctors think it's abnormal behaviour. Only you can decide what it is because only you know how you feel about it.

I love astronomy but am very forgetful about certain terms and what constellation is where. And it's really hard to get a night to do some stargazing. I still really love it though and like to read about it or watch documentaries.

I think it's my ADHD side that forgets a lot of the facts I've learnt. It's like I can only know a lot about what interest I focus on the most, and I have a few.

I like to watch Doctor Who and Star Trek everyday. I have to record Star Trek if I won't get to watch it. There's also Jericho which I have to watch every time it's on. I was forced to record that too.

I can sort of put my special interests on hold and go abck to them at a later time if I have other priorities. It's like that with my story writing. But when I'm spending time on it I'm so absorbed I can forget to eat and forget where I am. I tend to forget where I am a lot.

Anyway, I'd say that horses are your special interest. there's no set of rules of what a special interests is and how intense you have to be into it. Some people are and some people can spend time on it when they like and then go do something else. I actually had to practice doing that because I would get so obsessed with one thing.

I definitely think a special interest is one you focus a lot of your attention on, like an obsessdin. For example, mine is the U.S. TV series Survivor. I love it and can never miss an episode. It's usually on at 8:30 Wednesdays here, but I don't get to watch it then, so I always watch it on the computer at 7:30 Saturday. I only got obsessed a few seasons ago, and I have been on Wikipedia reading about the seasons I didn't see pre-obsession. I know a lot about it. So yeah, a special interest in my opinion is one you spend a lot of time learning about and thinking about.

Only you know how you feel about horses. Only you know whether it's a special interest or a hobby.

I have a few special interests in decreasing orders of severity. Making and fixing things is #1. Everytime I see an object, I wonder how it was fabricated, how it's moving parts work. It distracts me from what I wanted to be doing. Left to my own devices, I will take anything apart to see how it works. Usually I can put it back together. I think about or participate in making/fixing for at least 40% of my waking hours.

Understanding individual people (NTs) may also qualifiy as a special interest, #5 or 6 on the list. However, as I tend to look for patterned and systematic behavior in unique individuals (who are more complex and paradoxical than definitive systems), I pretty much suck at it. I think about it every day, every time I observe a human or interact with one, and analyzing encounters afterwards. This occupies about 10-20% of my thoughts in a given day. This used to be priority #1 interest for 6 years.

To answer the question from the title.

Yes. It's possible to *not* be great at something one is obsessed with. At least it's been the story of my life.

I have been obsessed with getting a particular girl and yet failed at that. I was obsessed with basketball when I was younger and yet never made the school team in high school. I am obsessed with math but could not even get past trigonometry without going to tutoring on campus. And the list goes on and on...

One thing I am obsessed with and maybe great at.... complaining about the unfairness of life as an Aspie !

But seriously, as cliche' as it sounds, it's the enjoyment of the activity and not necessarily the outcome that matters. Whether one is great at it or not.

I suppose I think of the typical examples of interests of memorising train timetables where someone would be an expert on train timetables and wondered if it fell into the same category. The examples are things where the aspie would be able to recall facts no-one else can or find their own niche interest and I'm not an expert by any means and terrible at learning facts. I know a lot for a novice and got 99% on a beginners course but knew most of it before I took the course and it wasn't exactly rocket science I have a PhD! I learnt it when I was younger and did read more as could only go every fortnight and used to act out riding lessons with toys to an embarrassing age.

To answer the question that was asked in the thread title, the answer is "yes" because it's perfectly possible to get obsessed by something you're not particularly good at. At school I was bottom of the class in foreign languages and yet have learnt to read seventeen languages as an adult because at the age of 21 I found a way of more or less 'stimming' language skills into my head on my own rather than learning them the normal way. But I know I lack the special gift that you would expect someone to have who can read so many languages. I assume that getting so totally obsessed with foreign words and sentences is a pretty big "symptom" (of a narrowly focussed mind) but it certainly doesn't indicate a real "splinter talent". So, yes, you can have a special interest, even a lifelong obsession, in something you're not so good at.