Do you ever try to tone down your special interests?

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Sometimes I do. I can surprise people by what I know at certain moments. Today someone asked me if this dog was a golden retriever (it was actually a yellow Labrador) so I told them that, and I ended up spewing random related facts about dog breeds, to the point where they just looked at me and asked "Um, how much have you researched all this exactly?".

At that point I caught myself, and tried not to spew anymore random facts, unless I was asked for more information. But yeah, ever since then they've been calling me obsessed. Whoops.

Anyone relate?

I try, but it doesn't always work !

Yes, but not because I'd be ashamed of them or anything (a lot of people with same kind of hobbies as mine are.) I just try to be considerate about other people around me and not to talk about my special interests even if a chance comes up if I feel like the people around me wouldn't be interested in getting really in to the subject. I (try to) follow the "treat people the way you'd like to be treated" here; I don't mind if someone brings up, say, ice hockey which is something that doesn't interest me in the slightest, but I don't want to end up listening a long explanation about the game's rules or about the players' personal information or something. I assume that most people feel this way about things that aren't really interesting in their eyes and try to tune it down, but I don't hold back when I figure out the person with me is also interested. Or well, I hold back enough to let the other person talk too, but listening something about an interesting subject is about as good as talking about it anyway.

I don't hide my special interests, but I'm perfectly content to talk about other things now that I at least have some regular things to talk about to other people.

Ah, you mean toning down talking about special interests, rather than toning down the special interests themselves. I've long since given up trying to share mine with anybody who doesn't happen to share my particular passion(s) - i.e. practically everybody - and have begun to learn how to give normal people a brief and accessible overview instead, e.g. "I've been recording another song, I got a technical hassle with the computer but I've nearly fixed it." Goes against the grain, but I know how it feels to get data-dumped.

Luckily my special interests don't completely eclipse everything else, and I seem able to think and talk intelligently about practically any subject, though I think slowly and it often takes me a while to take an interest in the exact thing another person mentions in a realtime conversation. I tend to find it easier to reply in depth at a tangent to what they've said. Surprisingly a lot of people don't seem to mind, and some of them seem to mean it. I'm currently trying to get it through my head that a proper reciprocal conversation is very different thing from me thinking aloud about whatever subjects my mental reverie happens to dream up.

Definitely. I attribute a lot of the bullying I had at school to me talking endlessly about stuff I liked, so I got the message that looking obsessed about something won't make you exactly popular. I still get obsessed about stuff though

Yes because nobody cares that much about the relationship between engine design and lubrication composition and additives.
But every time im in the car i gotta think about it. Lol
My interests shift slowly, months to years once i figure out everything i possibly can. Then i move on to the next logical, useful, thing and learn all i can about that lol

Almost nobody wants to talk about realistic space warfare so I don't try in meatspace. I could go on and on about it if I found someone who was genuinely interested though.

Sometimes a little bit, I certainly do have a habit of wanting to talk in depth about topics giving more info than a person really wanted...lol. I think it is kind of an autistic thing lol...but yeah sometimes I have to keep in mind my audience. I mean its not unusual for me to get to rambling a bit and then just kind of change the subject to more small talk type stuff if it seems I am overwhelming people or making them bored.

I do when I'm at work. I wear the most professional clothes that I can tolerate that are also androgynous. I'm also careful about the topics that I talk about with my coworkers. I have to be after my original boss got after me for talking to a woman I thought I could trust about everything about Germany. I've been taking my lunch at 11 instead of 12 for a year and a half because of memories of that incident. I'm now thinking that I'm ready to have the later lunchtime when there are other people in the lunch room.

Yes. Talking about Despicable Me in public is not the "adult" thing to do. At worst it makes me come across as a paedophile child groomer (which I am NOT, NEVER HAVE BEEN and NEVER WILL BE).