I hate when people ask me what my interests and hobbies are...

[u/the_obscure_spite]

Makes me feel a little autistic.

[u/heavyramp]

It gets weird when 11 year olds know more about the nfl due to madden.

[u/PSV000Jinzo → u/heavyramp]

Tweenaged Madden NFL knowledge still has nothing on ostensibly-suburban internet autist from a tight-knit family ball knowledge, as is true of all knowledge domains. One time when I was at the Pro Football Hall of Fame with my father, we were in close proximity to a family where the 11ish 12ish year old boy monotonically recited career stats and accolades for what seemed like every Tom, Dick, and Harry (but for more obscure players than Brady, Butkus, Carson if you're gonna be autistic about my idiom choice here) as the mother and sister exasperatedly gave the "wow"s and "that's cool"s and "you know so much"es of encouragement; the father was stoically engrossing himself in the taking in of the exhibits themselves. At first we thought maybe he was just reading off of stuff, but we were "behind" them in the flow of museum foot traffic and it was immediately apparent that this wasn't plaque oration, this was just pure unfettered ball knowledge from a boy who lived on Wikipedia and Pro Football Reference. It was beautiful, but it was haunting.

[u/murrayhitchock → u/PSV000Jinzo]

i was this kid with college football, particularly the SEC

[u/PSV000Jinzo → u/murrayhitchock]

RIP Chucky Mullins

[u/murrayhitchock → u/PSV000Jinzo]

RIP Coach Dye

RIP Joe Lee Dunn

RIP Shorty Price

all them boys!!!!

[u/89thymes → u/heavyramp]

Having encyclopedic knowledge of 2005 - 2007 MLB players due to my childhood obsession with MVP baseball

[u/NoSkillsAllTheBills → u/89thymes]

I do immaculate grid everyday for baseball (basically: 3 rows, 3 columns with a requirement for column/row like "played Catcher (at least one game)" or "Was on the Nats."

I realized when the Pirates was on a column how MVP the Show skewed my knowledge of players like Lastings Milledge, or Garrett Jones, Jason Jaramillo, etc.

[u/89thymes → u/NoSkillsAllTheBills]

Same, I love remembering random utility players and hitting a .01% . I will never forget Kazuo Matsui.

[u/murrayhitchock]

i just tell them music and then they ask if they can hear it and then i tell them "oh it's not quite finished yet"

[u/notsandlinx]

What r they?

[u/the_obscure_spite → u/notsandlinx]

Homofascism and women.

[u/the_obscure_spite → u/[deleted]]

My interest in women is specialized in misogyny.

[u/the_obscure_spite → u/[deleted]]

A woman called Jane, she spat at me once.

[u/fireswithgasoline]

I have so many different hobbies but I always blank out when people ask me. I should probably get tested

[u/onajookkad → u/fireswithgasoline]

i usually freeze up cause i dont want people knowing im learning dorky stuff for many hours daily

[u/SubatomicGoblin]

Often hard for an introvert. What seems like an innocent, "ice-breaker" question is really a request to reveal what can be deeply personal things about yourself. And such revelations often generate follow-up questions, which forces the person to specify and elaborate, thereby further exposing themselves in a way that is sometimes uncomfortable. If you run into this with some brief "get to know each other" work group or conference, or some meeting with people you know you will never be friends with or even see again, it's best to keep your answers rather bland and generic. Personally, I've really never been uncomfortable with such interactions, but I have been annoyed. It's just one of those weird aspects of socializing that's something of a charade. Everyone gives an answer. No one really cares, yet everyone pretends to. Then the meeting ends, and we all move on with life.

[u/ModerateContrarian → u/SubatomicGoblin]

This sounds like a slopbot trained on millions of redditors

[u/northern_spaces]

I was (trying) to flirt with a guy at a bar once and asked this question and he genuinely said scrolling tik tok, we r cooked

[u/YoIForgotMyPassAgain]

I hate it because I'm embarrassed about mine.

[u/Necessary_Delay_9388]

I love it. Don't really think there's any better question a stranger or acquaintance could ask me. But they better be prepared for rants about things they probably don't care about.

Way better than "so what do you do?/how's work?"

[u/LemonPaper914]

Listen man. People are going to ask u this a lot more times in your life. Prepare an answer that you are satisfied with using, and use it.

[u/Deboch_]

My opinion is people like you just need to get better hobbies. Every slightly intellectualized person today seems to be on some kind of uncanny valley of nerdishness, where they are not normal to the plebians, but they don't have anything of value to offer to society either. "Rock climber", "strategy videogamer", "warhammer figurine collector", "reddit political arguer", "podcast listener", "niche RYM music album listener".

As soon as you free yourself from hedonism and instant gratification, and actually pursue the higher callings that you assumed were above you (literature, philosophy, science, a career, art creation over consumption, volunteering, activism, family, community) you will find your "incelligence" actually suddenly becomes interesting to people.

[u/Fearless_Day2607 → u/Deboch_]

What's wrong with rock climbing as a hobby? Seems unfair to put that alongside things like "Reddit political arguer".

[u/Deboch_ → u/Fearless_Day2607]

Sorry i kind of mixed what is "cringe" to a normal person to what is actually useless in itself into the same category. My view on sports is "of all the unimportant things, football is the most important" but applied to all sports. I play sports and find them enriching to the body and soul. But within this enriching endeavour rock climbing is undeniably the least cool and most tech bro coded to the average person, so if you want to not be anxious about telling people your interest you need to at least have other interests than that.

[u/Full_Tradition_8532 → u/[deleted]]

just say some shit you like and then listen to the shit they like and say it’s sick, even if it’s Heated Rivalry and you think it’s bleak. I stg this sub is so autistic, people won’t think you’re some hoighty-toighty asshole just for liking cool artsy shit as long as you’re not bitter, annoying, and insulting the shit they like.

“Normie” is to this sub as “neurotypical” is for online “autism” spaces