Forums » Smalltalk » Oddly specific interests.

"Find friends that share your interests" is really common (and good!) advice but what do you do when your sphere of interest is so narrow and/or esoteric that you are always having to choose between doing what you want and doing it alone, or opting to do things with other people and having to compromise so much that you're there more for the people than the activity?

I mean this in the sense that if we aren't doing exactly what I want, I feel like now I'm doing it for other people more than for myself. I try not to be a selfish person so I've put up with that a lot in recent years, but lately (and due to some... unfortunate and unrelated circumstances), I've found it much easier to just do things by myself because then I don't need to make sacrifices for the sake of other people and I don't need to feel guilty about how incapable I am of enjoying things other people like.

It's not for lack of trying. I've tried the games my friends like, I've let other people show me the board games they're into, I've consented to watch my best friend play through the entirety of the Halo games on the collection that released a few years ago (although that was partly to help him cope with losing someone important to him) and I won't say that I don't like things ABOUT that stuff. (Especially the Halo thing. I didn't realize how beautiful the environmental art was in those games, the Arbiter is a cool character, Reach has the best story, and the Engineer in ODST is really cute and I want a plushie of him) but especially the Halo thing was at the absolute limit of an ask for me. The board game stuff I absolutely tolerated and tried in good faith because I care about how my friends feel and I've at least learned to appreciate some video games my friends like even if I don't.

But then there's the unreasonable asks for me. I hate watching movies in general but my best friend wants to watch Back to the Future and those Sonic movies with me sometime and honestly I just really do not want to but they're so important to him. It doesn't help that BTTF fully uninterests me and those Sonic movies are yet another bad interpretation of a series I am very attached to with weird CGI (because god forbid people just make animated stuff today) and Jim Carrey, on top of being a comedy, which I despise. It's just a mix of things I don't like rolled into one ask. I don't have the heart to tell him I can't do it after I already said yes.

There are so many more examples but I don't really want to list them all here.

I haven't taken up new RPs in months because each time I would, I'd find myself burn out if a partner did something that wasn't how I expected it to go. That is absolutely a 'me' problem that I tried hard to power through because of how unfair it is to other people and after a while, I just accepted that I couldn't. A person might say "Well, just tell someone when something bothers you." And, yeah, sure, except I know that after a point, I might end up doing that every third post, which is the issue. I'd rather not put that kind of stress on someone else and make them navigate whatever my problem is. I've tried getting over it for 2 years. It hasn't worked. I'm at a loss.

If I describe several things I like, you'd easily see a common theme in them. I don't deviate much from it unprovoked. If I gain new interests, it's usually on my terms, pretty rare, and still tangentially related to something I already like. I also tend to know with pretty good accuracy if I'm going to like something or not from the outset and as a kid I resented hearing "You don't know if you like it until you try it." Yes, I do. I know exactly what I like and reject everything else unless there's an ulterior motive to engage with it. (Like making my friends happy.) Because I'm usually right about this, even when engaging with something in good faith, it's only been reinforced for me over my lifetime.

I know this isn't really normal. Other people are way more chill than I am about doing not exactly the thing they want to do. It's just me who wants to do only a few things I like and rejects everything else compulsively. Doing things with other people requires me to fight that compulsion and that takes a lot of my energy. I end up burning out on everything and it's left some friends confused. When I tell them this about me, it leaves them at a loss. I think it's too high an ask to ask people to put up with it and I have a pretty strong sense of fairness so I would never expect other people to but I wish I could meet them at a 'normal' level.

Group projects are absolute hell for me...
Anything in high school or college that required other people to participate was a godawful nightmare I did my best to survive. The thought of having to do something I don't like because other people agreed to it effectively for me (tyranny of the majority and all that) is one of the most anxiety inducing social situations I can imagine. It's worse when it's required for academic or career advancement.
Common complaint back in elementary school was "Does not play nice with the other children." This is very accurate...

My therapist seems at a loss. She says friendship is reciprocal. I seem unable to reciprocate without building burnout and resentment toward other people though, which is deeply unfair to them and guilt compounds it.

I think I'm the only person like this but I wanted to know if other people have ever struggled with a similar thing and how do you cope with it?

I relate with you about this to some degree. A lot of my friends are interested in things I personally don't like/don't have the energy to try to understand what that entails. I feel that my sphere of interest is both extremely broad and extremely specific at the same time, and it drives my friends crazy. I feel with you, and if there's anything else I can help with, or if you want to talk about anything, I'm here!

That's appreciated.

Really, I just wish other people understood how far I actually have to extend myself to do anything outside that sphere of interest because I think some of the people I hang out with just assume it should be easy, and maybe it is for them.