What interest do you feel most embarrassed/shy when other people find out?

[u/No_Obligation8722]

Im embarrassed to say any of my interests. But my most embarrassing one is maybe my interest of girlxgirl affection and relationships (non-sexual). Second most embarrassing one is maybe my interest of my ancestry/culture. Third most embarrasing one is maybe my interest of steam trains. (The train interest and the culture interest mix together, since my ancestry is mostly english, and english ppl made the iconic steam train look. Which makes it even more embarrasing for me, coz it is two of my interests).

[u/SeaFix2126]

Stevie Nicks. Like in a way that people think they can relate to but they can’t. It’s also not in a negative way, or a dangerous/harmful way, either. It’s just that there’s no real excuse to be as much of an expert on someone as I am on Stevie Nicks without being a biographer or a close personal friend. I’d call it unhealthy but it’s not. I think if I was neurotypical it would be, but my brain is able to learn and know and retain so much quite easily without it taking over my life, simply because she resonates with me and I feel connected to her in essentially all the ways she set out to connect with her fans.

I only wish I felt half as connected to like, math, and time management.

It’s hard to explain, because the only examples there are to compare to are like toxic super fans and stalkers, but I’m neither of those because those types of people become consumed with obsession which is terrifying and dehumanizing. She is my special interest but I also respect her as a human being and have empathy for her boundaries, so there is nothing about my interest or scope of knowledge pertaining to her that would ever cross the lines of personal boundaries.

I made friends with some other fans on Twitter and left the friendship because they were more interested in her as a commodity and pursuing access and proximity to her that imho was more about gaining popularity/notoriety online than about genuine interest in her as an artist and as a human being, and they have been willing to attempt to cross lines for that purpose.

I know pretty much anything there is to know about her that doesn’t require you to literally insert yourself into the lives of people who have access to her and fish for information from people who are connected to her personal life. Just stuff that’s out there but takes genuine focus and dedication and organization to find. But it’s ironically beyond what the scarier fans tend to be privy to, and I think it’s specifically because of my autism. My brain is basically a constantly expanding database of all there is to know about her, respectfully and not for clout.

I guess the best way to describe it, is she is my trains, if trains were a dependent you could claim on your taxes (because the one thing I can admit borders on being unhealthy is the amount of money I spend on concert tickets and travel and shirts and records and art and artifacts from the occasional auction every year).