Do you have any "abnormal" interests?

Post Reply New Topic

i am a turntable junkie
i love to scratch records but have no interest in becoming a dj

*edited

As a child I was a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Now a days, I really like Ren & Stimpy and Spongebob Squarepants...
Unfortunately, here in Holland there was a very capitalistic tv-producer who re-organized the cartoon channel on which R&S was shown.
But I also have less childisch 'abnormal' interests.
For instance, I like to read about serial killers and genius persons -some will call this a tautology -:
How is it possible that someone like William James Sidis is capable to learn so many languages at such a young age?
Where serial killers born as psychopates or made by the environment? -compare to the Abu Graib prison accidents-
I also have the 'weird' habit to write down all unknown words and surch for their definitions.
When reading, I often ''get stucked'' on this words: I just want to know the whole story and that includes the meaning of these words.

I have a real interest in mental illnesses (parents gave me a copy of the DSM-IV for christmas once)I also love to study the treatments for them such as medications and different types of therapies for them. i also sometimes look up medical diagnosises as my mom gave me a copy of the physcians desk refeerence.

i am also fascinated with different GUIs of different operating system as well as different tweaks and themes. Right now I use a program called "flyakite OS X" and "objectdock" that makes my machine look like OS X even though its running windows. i have always been atttracted to things that are really bright and colorful in general though.I also have a general sort of intersest in computers. Thats why I am about to finish up a degree in information technology.

I also love american road signs,maps, and highways in general. i love how their;s actual patterns to the interstate numbers and US route numbers. It's really upsetting to me that their are couple routes here in PA are that are out of alignment. My favorite road signs are the guide signs, and the signs that tell you what restaraunts and gas stations are off that exit. i also love driving routes just to see where they go. And i love driving through the countryside cause it;s just so beautiful.

I am really interested in music with really cool beats, like hip hop, techno, ambient, or house. i like alot of rock too.

I don't think my interests are that abnormal but we'll see shall we?

Firstly I'm fascinated by illness, mental and physical, mild, chronic or acute. What fascinates me is how the illness affects an individual at a cellular or molecular level and then you apply that to the whole organism. I also love studying normal functions of the body which I guess is very helpful if I want to grasp in detail how an illness messes up the natural balance if you like within the body.

Secondly, I love food and eat lots and lots of it, sod diets, sod actually listening to beauty and fashion magazines with their little faddy diets in that become popular because someone big says that you should do them, lets live a little shall we? We only get one life, why be so anal? So long as your diet is reasonably balanced and you look after yourself, then why not have so called forbidden foods?

Thirdly I like watching things explode or I like fire, especially if its a big huge building (provided there is no one in it of course).

OK, let's see!

When I was around the age of... I guess between 5 and 7, it was apparent that I had extremely strong, focused interests in:

- Numbers, mathematics, and anything to do with numbers or mathematics. This included things like clocks, watches and other timepieces. And things like measuring scales and calculators.

- Indices and lists of any sort, e.g. telephone directories.

- Dictionaries.

Around the age of 7, I was in care, and care workers and social workers made determined attempts to discourage my interests in mathematics and dictionaries, because they considered them abnormal interests for a little boy.

Worse still, when I was placed with foster parents aged 7 or 8, they were absolutely militant in trying to discourage my interest in numbers. They would rant and rave and verbally abuse me for showing any interest at all in numbers. If I even said 2, or 3, or any number, even in normal speech about any topic, I was strongly, rudely, stingingly rebuked. No, I'm not joking.

I now realise that there was nothing wrong with my interests, that people were effectively trying to kill a part of me. And that to discourage, indeed virtually declare war on my interests like my foster parents did, was extremely wrong and detrimental to my development. If I was growing up today, my pattern of interests as well as other factors would have almost certainly meant I was diagnosed as an autistic kid, rather than just labelled as an abnormality. Life would have been so different.

I have to say, my interest in numbers/maths was absolutely killed off and didn't survive my early years. I was then adopted at the age of 8. By this time I was strongly interested in maps (another interest my foster parents had tried to vigorously fight against), and also went through a phase of being interested in astronomy. My adoptive parents sometimes told me that being interested in things like that was strange, and not ordinary for a little boy, though it was nowhere near as bad as my foster parents' reaction.

I became embarrassed and defensive about some of my interests, even now, because of the horrid reactions I got in my early years. I feel emotional now and it's starting to feel strange and depressing writing this, but all the above is absolutely true.

Anyway, will try to lighten this up a bit. Soccer became my next big interest, for once an interest that people considered normal. However... while most kids my age supported Celtic, Rangers or one or two other teams, I became absolutely intrigued by Telford United, a minor league English team based nowhere near where we lived. I was teased at school for the interest I showed in Telford United, but that was teasing, not nasty. I still support them and have started travelling to Telford matches only in the past year and have now seen them play several times.

I'm very interested in languages, and about the age of 13 I became obsessed with the German language. I loved to speak German to classmates, a language none of them could speak or understand, but one in which I reached a near fluent level very quickly when I started learning it. Then around 15 or so, I became intrigued with the Dutch language and tried to pick up as much Dutch as possible. Which was easy because I could speak and understand German. I think if anything, other school pupils respected my interest in German and Dutch instead of teasing it. I was also able to speak French, and later picked up Spanish, Portuguese and a little (not much) Italian. This intrigued a lot of people who always asked me how to say obscure things in Portuguese or whatever, and I was able to tell them every time.

I left school 14 years ago. Even in spite of people's attempts to quash interests in my early years (as I say my interest in maths was killed off), I'm still interested in dictionaries - to the extent that I ordered a copy of the very first Webster's dictionary from 1828 and it's a prized possession. Likewise I'm still interested in maps, especially roads and road networks.

AS people sometimes have passing interests, however, some interests are just phases at times, and I realise that's why I've now lost interest in all of the languages mentioned above, and can't actually speak them now. When it comes to languages these days, I'm mostly interested in English, and in particular the etymologies of English words.

Before Kindergarden, I went through probably an interest a year.

First, it was owls. I don't remember much about owls by now, but I have pictures from when I went to halloween in a homemade snowy owl costume.

Then it was trains. Anyone remember the BRIO train playsets? I collected brios. One of the proudest achievements of my young life was saving up $25 from my 3/week allowance to buy a brio trainset that had the big red & green engine as a part of it.

About kindergarden age, I got interested in dinosaurs. Very interested. I could spell "Tyrannosaurus" before my classmates could spell your average 2 syllable word. My dinosaur interest lasted several years, and finally died off when I reached a kind of knowledge cutoff. There's the big books with pictures and dinosaur names etc... and then there's the thick, text laden books. And as a child I had nowhere near the patience to read a textbook.

After dinosaurs, it was Karate. A few of my friends started taking karate. And so I begged to start, and did, and I did pretty well at first. I did Kenpo Karate, and got up to a kids green belt. But my interest died off after I realized that what I was learning wasn't teaching me how to fight - when the kids sparred, they wore heavy protective gear, and great care was taken to keep them from hurting each other. Also, when I hit puberty, my metabolism slowed waaaaay down, and I started disliking motion in general.

My next big interest was pro wrestling. You might remember how big Wrestling was during the late 90s and early 2000s. I got into that stuff, wore my nWo Wolfpac T-shirt, bought a red and black flannel shirt to go with it... and because wrestling was so big, that actually made me cool. Can I get a hell yeah? Um... anyway I'm still interested in wrestling. It's just that since WCW closed and WWF/E's been terrible for years, I now look for smaller independent feds, and Japanese-style pro wrestling (puroresu).

Pro wrestling also helped me find my current occupation - a game called efedding. The gist of efedding is that you have a wrestler character you create, and then you write roleplays. The guy who runs the efed makes matches, and you have to write better roleplays than your opponent. At the upper levels of the game there's some seriously good writers. Also, efedding taught me organizational skills that all through middle school and high school I could never learn... the only bad thing about efedding is that I have a lot of trouble (or, more accurately, a complete inability) to moderate the amount of time I spend at it.

I'm also mildly interested in cryptozoology. Never got teased for that either. I got caught by a girl reading it in class. She asked what it was, I told her, she said "oh, cool". I said, "Nah, it's really not, but thanks for saying so". She laughed, and said something about it being better than football.

I'm also very interested in Hackney Carriages, more commonly known as The Black London Taxi. I think that Hackney Carrages are adorable. The look like oversized Black Beetles with Wheels. I pray that Ken Livingstone doesn't scrap the Hackney Carriage, like he did the Routemaster. If the Hackney Carriage goes, than I'll go, as well.

Where do I begin? Oh, wow ok let's see here...

Younger me:

TY Beanie Babies: I was infatuated with beanie babies and still am. I had and still have a beanie baby named Dotty that I was somehow amazed by.

Bugs: Whenever I was playing in the field during softball, I would constantly chase bugs (which usually lost us the game ). I was strange little girl who hated barbies but loved listening to the velcro on the small clothes.

Me now:
I like taking things apart and putting them back together again. Like if a brake a glass and no one is home I will actually try and find every piece. Then, I will put the pieces back together and then throw the glass away.

I love watching the density of liquids like oil and water for instance. If I'm drinking a glass of milk then I will have to have a glass of water because I enjoy dropping drops of milk into the water. I enjoy watching the milk spread throughout the water.

I don't know if it's because I play piano but when I listen to a song I don't just listen to the lyrics and interpret them (which is another obssesion of mine) I listen the instruments playing as well. I am constantly asking people: What instrument was that? They sorta give me a strange look and shrug.

Dictionaries- I sometimes read the dictionary when I get bored. I'm on B I think; I've been too busy lately to read it.


I think that's all..

I am a little ubsessed with my forks. The shape and design has to be right, or I wouldn't feel right eating with it. I have two forks that are like this, and I want to get some more.

I don't have AS either, I think I'm just OCD at times. I've been picked on at school and by my parents because I can't stand eating with a fork that isn't the shape I like. But I eat anyway. I really don't care if I get picked on, because its just some habbits that sets me apart from other people. I like being odd. I guess that's why my boyfriend and I get along so well. He's the one that has AS, but I actually have some weirder habbits than he does.

I also like looking at colors and making them into elements. Like when I see blue, I think of water or ice. Red is fire, and so on. Me and my boyfriend share this habbit.

I also organize the trash on my tray at school before I throw it away. I can't stand it when someone puts a messy tray in front of me. I just start to organize it. Even if it's not mine.

I fix things. Yes, I do have the skills and ability to repair most things you see everyday, but acutally doing so - mending and bringing back to full functionality a great multitude of devices - brings me a form of great pleasure that I have yet to compare to other activities. I seem to have an instinct as to know how to fix things during the process of dismantling them. Other people see this as odd, as I myself spend almost all of my free time repairing misc. items and not interacting with other people, which for reasons beyond me make other people see me as strange. I see it as the only usefull aspect of myself.

lunatix, hey im into fixing things too. but me its doors taht are my favorite to repair i seem to do a better job on hinged swinging then pros at times when it comes to commercial settings. im in nj and female and 21,. i found it very useful to know about fixing things made me feel useful and helpful to most people.