Jenna403 wrote:
I suppose my special interest is information gathering in general. If something piques my interests, I will obsessively gather information until there is none left to gather.
Ditto on the gathering information until there is none left. Of course, hitting that wall was more feasible before the availability of the Internet. I've had a series of special interests over my life time. Currently my main thing is photography; not only am I into taking photos obsessively, but I also enjoy studying up on and collecting vintage cameras. I'll talk people's ears off about it. I've been into photography off and on since high school, but it's really become an all-consuming thing for the past 8+ years, and there's no sign this is just a passing phase. Virtually every social interaction that lasts more than 10 minutes will end up with me "lecturing" someone on my favorite topic. Being older, though, I usually can tell figure out when people are disinterested and I'll curb my dissertation if their eyes seem to glaze over.
When I was younger (I'm 43 now), I was into coin collecting and read up on everything the local library had about the subject - until there was no more to be found in my rural area, at least. In my early teens, it was bodybuilding.
These days, if I have hours to spare, I can get lost on Wikipedia reading up on all kinds of obscure topics, especially history, archaeology, etymology... well, all kinds of stuff.