Special interests and obsessions

One thing that makes female Aspies different from males is that our special interests are more likely to change as we get older and go through stages.  This doesn't make us any less of Aspies, just different from the norm.

Special interests, also known as specialist subjects or obsessions, are a topic which an Aspie is particularly attached to.  They can really be anything, ranging from very general to very specific, socially acceptable to entirely repulsive, easily found or impossibly difficult.  I've known Aspies with interests in cats, video games, legos, trains, Egyptology, Photoshop, medical equipment and many more topics.

Boys tend to have a primary interest that dominates everything else.  Girls are more subtle and more commonly have several interests, though one is dominant.  Some of my interests through the years:

• Cooking
• Kelly dolls (the kid-version of Barbie)
• Wolves
• Autism
• Children with disabilities
• Star Wars
• Habbo Hotel
• Roleplaying
• Vampires (pre-Twilight)
• Harry Potter
• Alternative sexuality
• GLBT culture
• Second Life
• Blogging
• HTML

A difficulty with this is that it makes me unsure about getting into something fully because I never know when my interests are going to shift.  I don't want to invest a lot of money into a craft hobby when I could lose interest in it in the next few months.

This isn't to say that all interest in an old obsession is gone.  I still hold a place in my heart for each bygone era of interest.  Cooking, particularly baking, is still a hobby and I shiver when I see wolves.

While boys with AS can major in their interest and know that they'll probably be into it for the rest of their lives, I had to choose much more carefully.  I never know when I'm going to fall out of love with my interest and it would be a waste to spend four years at college just to hate what I'm doing when I get out.

Life is a journey.  I'm confident that I'll find something to stay in love with.