What do you consider "narrow interest?"

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As you know most Aspies have narrow interest not just interest. This is what sets us apart at times from others. Well I was thinking what do you see as a "narrow interest?" When I was growing up I was into Dodge Vipers (so a special kind of car not just cars would fit into the category) Also my interest of Psychology is specific behavior not the whole field.

I think almost any interest may be labelled as narrow, if it is the only interest a person has. If I am highly interested in, let's say, Greek mythology, and only that, I may be perceived as a person with narrow interests. Most commonly, people are interested in a variety of things at the same time, but to varying degrees, and in addition they are interested in other people and their doings.

All my interests are extremely narrow, I think. I like animals, but I LOVE cats and love to learn new things about them. I like cartoons, but I LOVE Ducktales, Batman TAS, and Batman Beyond. I have no interest in the comics, or anything else. Just the cartoon. I find out everything I can about it. And I don't like the other Disney afternoon ones, that much, either. I like books and science fiction, but I LOVE Asimov's science fiction. It's like I like one specific part of one specific thing.

I am not one who has narrow interests.. I tend to have one big interest with lots of little interests alongside it. I think what is important in my case is the desire, compulsion even, to spend hours marinating in the interests, particularly the big one.

Guess my "narrow interest" is Narrow Gauge Railroads.

Flatworms are quite a narrow interest, particularly when you look at them straight-on.

Which makes discussion of DNA and the human genome - even with other humans - an unsettling prospect, as they could be there listening and taking notes without your ever realizing that the paperclip you thought you saw in the corner might actually be attempting to clone you for some unknown nefarious purpose.

All things said and done, while Flatworms might be extremely interesting to some, especially an easily obsessed Aspie, they're best avoided for the sake of all mankind.

Narrow interest can be as simple as an obsession with something or someone. It doesn't have to be, "narrow" as in a specific cat breed. It can be narrow, meaning, when you see so and so all she talks about are cats. That would be an example of a narrow interest. She doesn't talk about her mom or dad, brothers or sisters, friends at school, what's going on in her life, neighbors, news events. She talks about cats and cats only.
You have a narrow interest when you are obsessed with one thing: cats, dogs, animals, television shows, math problems, writing, physics, fixing up a car, surfing, driving, trains, music, movies, movie stars or someone you know, art, artists, witchcraft, the bible... or it can be small, like stamps. It can be very specific, like breeds of cats or dogs, but it doesn't have to be to qualify as narrow interest. It can be an obession with animals in general. You talk about them all the time, read about them, etc, at the expense of everything else. You only seem to have interest in the one area and seem bored and disinterested when the subject changes. You might drift off into daydreaming about your narrow interest instead of paying attention.

I consider someone who has narrow interests a person who only has interests about one specific thing. For example a person could be interested in weather, even different things relating to weather, like how climate change is impacting it and then something completely different like storm chasing, but only weather.

In my case my love of the details of French Classical music from about 1870-1950s (Chabrier, Debussy, Faure, Poulenc, Ravel, Milhaud, etc.) with all the composers ' respective accomplishments and all the various types of instrumentation (piano pieces, orchestral, chamber, etc.) they were involved in, which forms they excelled at and what other musicians/artists each influenced - not just major composers but the minor ones as well - also the various competing concert venues, Universities, the notable critics and musicologist who wrote about all this, famous contemporary performers, other trends in the sister arts etc. ,would be a "narrow" interest J'en ai sur.

I have met about 4-5 people in the past 30 years that truly gave a damn to the same degree about all the above as me, and two of them were in my college days at the S.F. Conservatory - in fact a certain professor there told me I should be teaching the class about that subject instead of himself (and he was being dead serious not being sarcastic). Lonely at the top.

I'm rather the opposite, closer to a polymath than an Asperger.

I'm building my own custom digital multimedia library, filled with videos, ebooks, press content, images on topics that interest me, and God knows I've got a lot of interests in the social sciences. There is not one discipline in the field that doesn't interest me. And yeah I don't consider my interests to be 'scientific', I just love the verbal/nontechnical side of things. Hardly surprising since there is a big gap between my verbal and nonverbal abilities.

Cheers.

I think that, as far as Aspies go, every intense special interest is a "narrow interest." When something gets to the point that it's all you talk and think about, this cannot be denied as being a narrow interest. I know that, with me, when I'm going through the really intense/rambling period of a special interest, it preoccupies my entire mind and being. But within the Aspie community, a narrow "narrow interest" would be like zeldapsychology only being interested in a small subset of cars, not cars in general.
-OddDuckNash99-

A narrow interest, to me, is something that I'm interested in by far more than absolutely anything else. I don't really have one at the moment; I just have a lot of different interests I like about equally.

I don't like using the term "special interest" as I find it to be rather degrading imho.

When I was a girl, I was interested in Greek mythology. Not Roman or Norse mythology, just Greek. I was only marginally interested in Greek archaeology when it was tied to places mentioned in the myths. I wasn't interested in Greek histories, Greek philosophical writings or even all that much in learning to read Greek, I just wanted to read the myths over and over memorize the lists of Greek deities. That's what made my interest narrow. If I'd wanted to do any of the other things, I'd have been able to turn it into a career in Classics, but I just wasn't interested enough.

Now, I collect quilting patterns. I'll probably never actually complete a quilt, I just like the patterns.