Fascinated with odd things ?

Post Reply New Topic

I've read that people with Asperger's & others on the autism spectrum often get fascinated by things like lights, etc. I've never been diagnosed, but am hoping to be tested not toooooo long from now & know I must have either Asperger's, PDD-NOS, or HFA.

Well.... the other day, I opened up a can of club soda & was just absolutely transfixed on what happened when I opened it. I'm really glad no one was around when I did, because I know I was behaving like a child, but I just couldn't stop staring in awe at all the bubbles. There were so many. It was completely different than when you open up something like Coke.... the bubbles were racing up to the top & popping & buzzing around, It was crazy & there were so many. I couldn't stop staring, & it made me so happy . It was so amazing! I just kept carrying the bottle around with me lol, & staring at it.
I took a drink & that made my excitement worse because it was so bubbly. It was like drinking bubbles.. I can't describe it. I've never had champagne & am afraid now to ever have it, because, if it's as bubbly (or bubblier) than club soda, I'm going to make an idiot out of myself. I'm really embarrassed about the way I reacted to all the bubbles, but I couldn't help it. I want to buy more just to see it happen again, but I'm afraid to because I might embarass myself if my mom were around to see or something... Plus, I just think it's plain wierd .

So, since people on the autism spectrum are supposed to get fascinated with things....
What are some of your fascinations, if any?
& have any of you ever been fascinated by anything as odd as bubbles in club soda? lol
I still get happy just thinking about it... & that was a couple weeks ago lol.

I become fascinated by certain patterns on walls and can stare at them for a long time, maps are also a thing that fascinates me, if I saw it on the wall of a bus or train or even while waiting in a store, I could stare at it for ages.

This reminds me of a beautiful passage from a piece of short speculative fiction about an autistic girl and her brother by Christopher Barzak called The Language of Moths:

I have had weird fascinations, especially as a young kid.

Some examples I remember:
Street light designs
Car wheel designs
Car registration numbers
Even accented letters I mean like á, ê, ñ, ç, ð, è, ù, è, ô, ö etc.

I have listened to a particularly fizzy can of pop for quite some time before. Sometimes, it just fizzes, and pops so loud that I just sit, and put it up to my ear to hear it. I also, like to smell things. Smell is my biggest sense. I can tell more by sniffing than using all of my other senses combined. This isn't something that I talk about often, because I feel like a real weirdo. and because I have been teased about it before, too.

I also get really, really euphoric when I see objects lined up in a certain way. Like, if I had a shelf, and everything was lined up on it in some kind of pattern that would make me happy. Some people assume that I have OCD, because I like things to be in a certain order, but I don't think it's the same. I just like things that a symmetrical, and organized. I used to spend long periods of time as a child lining objects up in different patterns.

i grew up in ugly 70's white block apartment, euro/soviet styled apartment blocks, ugly as hell.

then they renovated the outsides, and colored them. each floor, had two colors each, and all colors used was within the yellow/red spectre, so they were like red and white, white and red, white and yellow, yellow and white, yellow and orange, orange and brown, brown and red, red and white, brown and white, etc etc

mine was red and yellow, and i could just stare at it for hours

especially the brown and orange ones. the color, texture, combination, it almost looked edible to me, i couldnt get enough of it

<--- best pic i could find :/

When I was really little, around the age of 3 or so, if you put me in a room with a bunch of other kids and and a bunch of toys...I would ignore everyting else in the room besided the door hinge (the one near the floor because I was too little to really see the one in the middle at at the top). I'd push the door open and closed simply facinated by the design of the hinges. I could sit there for hours and just admire the hinges. I think a diagnosis was made soon after that....

Anyway, I constantly find myself facninated with random stuff. One night I was drinking with my fiance at his house, and I found a screw on the floor. I stopped whatever conversation we were attempting to have and just sat there on the floor of his living room turning the screw beteween my fingers....he eventually got board and went to go play some video games.....the next morning when he woke up I was still in the same spot, playing with the screw...I forgot to go to bed, because the screw was so facinating....

Not sure if these things are odd. But they do fascinate me.

I fixate on carpet/tile patterns on the floor, and popcorn/perforated ceilings..... variously interpreting the appearance of these things like one would do with clouds.

I am utterly lost within maps. They absorb me completely and I am THERE.

I could stare at a candle for hours. Watching every tiny little jump of the flame with intense interest.

Natural things fascinate me to no end. A bit more than admiring a pretty flower or the sway of the trees in the wind... I could analyze an acorn or the veins on a leaf for very long time. I try to discern the origin and path of every trail and footprint left in the dirt. Sit me in front of a lake, stream, or ocean and I will stare all day, just watching the swell and ripple of the water.

I think that all of these things are indicative of a broader mental phenomenon. I have always had a capacity to be amazed by ordinarily mundane things. I can derive immense pleasure from watching traffic pass by, or tracing paths through the ridges of oak tree bark, or observing the arrangement of grocery store shelves. I don't think most people do this. But I'm sure many of you all probably do.

I like odd cloths...very "artsy" fashion.

Oh I'm fascinated with lots of things! You might just say that I love things that are weird.

I have a little box with some of my favorite stuff in it including a fortune cookie wrapper that is empty but still sealed, a bag of neon gummi worms that completely melted in the sun and resolidified so now its a bag full of solid rainbowswirled goodness, an old thermostat that was taken off the wall to be replaced with a new one which I kept because it has a little capsule containing some mercury and I love the way it's liquid metal and how it doesn't cling to anything but stays in a little ball.

I forget what else I have in there...

You mean being fascinated by bubbles is weird? Gee, I think it's weird to NOT be fascinated by bubbles. What's the point of having human brain if you can't get enjoyment out of the world around you? (I don't mean you, Acacia, specifically. Obviously you do enjoy those things.) But really, I think that being unable to find fascination and joy from things like that is sad. If it's typical to NOT feel that way, I suppose that explains why the world is so full of hurrying and worrying.

I like to make French toast, because the ingredients do something neat. You crack two eggs and beat them a bit, pour in a little milk, and then pour a bit of vanilla extract into the egg-milk mixture. When you pour in the vanilla, it swirls, really fast all around, through the little channels where the egg is less thick (viscous?). It's almost like it has a kind of magical quality.

Making a root-beer float is neat like that, too (or Coke float), because the root=beer swirls all around the ice cream in a fascinating way.

There are a lot of things like that which I love to look at and watch, and in my experience, intelligent, interesting people also like to watch, if I show them. It's only the dull people who don't. Poor wretched things.

I'm fascinated with water. I can watch it or play with it for a long time. There's just something so fascinating about it. When it's still it's like a mirror, when it's moving it makes all kinds of interesting shapes, movements, sparkes and sounds.

I can spend hours playing with a water bottle, just moving it around and watching the water inside.

I just had to keep staring at the falling snow in the light of a street lamp a few days ago. Mind-blowing.

I love natural things.
If there is a rainbow I don't want to go inside until it has faded away. I want to look at one right now just thinking about it. I love meteor showers and also an eclipse of either sun or moon. I am fascinated by raindrops as they hit the windshield of a car and could stare at that forever (especially if it is night and lights are reflecting off the rain.). I like to watch dust float in sunlight.

My biggest fixation is hair; I can stare at the details for hours without a break. I don't let anyone see me do this.

Floor/ceiling tiles and patterns, maps, i like maps, out-of-the-ordinary architecture, Rain, when it rains i look at everything that surrounds me looking at the rain contrasting against the landscape, houses, and all objects, rain falling on cars, on the floor, on little rain pools on the road etc..