What is something you love to do that doesn’t seem to make sense to those around you?
What are your niche hobbies or interests that you have a hard time explaining to your friends and family?
r/AskWomen
What is something you love to do that doesn’t seem to make sense to those around you?
Comments
Plane spotting and miniature making.
People are a little confused by my processing raw wool for spinning yarn. That’s always my “interesting fact” when I need one. Everything except sheering the sheep.
More recently, I have taken up learning Finnish. I have yet to have a person not ask why immediately after I say it.
No one is mean about it or anything, it just has absolutely zero appeal to them and sometimes I think my dad specifically wonders why anyone would want to do the thing, but he is also aware his child is a little strange.
Raising caterpillars.
People don’t really see the appeal, but despite that, many are asking often about updates.
I like video game music. Mostly bands who cover video game songs on live instruments.
If I tell someone this, they usually say something like “You mean like (imitates Super Mario Bros 1-1)?”
Yes and no, there are a whole lot of games out there with incredible soundtracks that have been covered all sorts of different ways. I guess the first few seconds of the first Super Mario Bros game is the song most people are familiar with, rather than Earthbound or something.
This will sound morbid but I know a lot about the AIDS crisis in the 80s in the US and when I start talking about it, I can get really angry and can’t stop and people generally have not much to say and just listen… I got to learn about it by proxy as I was really into New York in the 80s and 90s and it’s impossible to read about the city, even in the context of music and culture without coming across AIDS history.
Vinyl collecting, as well as aviation. If I wasn’t in healthcare, I wish I could be a commercial pilot.
Ninja Warrior is not a complicated sport to understand. It’s a gym where they set up obstacle courses similar to the ones on the Ninja Warrior show and you compete to run through them for time. But they really need a new name, because it is incredibly embarrassing to say to your adult friends “Oh I’m sorry, I can’t that night, I have Ninja practice.”
Fanfiction
Hot spring enthusiast
I enjoy cooking, but I also enjoy the equipment aspect of it. Like I love to clean, polish, season, sharpen all my equipment by hand.
This means admiring my own wok, my own skillet, and being weirdly interested by other people’s cookware. It means hand sharpening my own knives, borrowing my friend’s knives and then sharpening them for them. And other weird stuff like that.
So there’s this dumb card game called “Magic: the gathering”. Nobody (including me most of the time) understands how I can spend so much time and money on this dumb hobby 🙂
I love you guys so much for your weird obsessions!
Mine is listening to people being really passionate about things they love
Not necessarily a hard time but I definitely feel misunderstood when I talk about the book club I have with my girlfriends. They think it’s nerdy, and I guess it is, but I’ve never seen it as anything but wonderful.
Eurovision
Let it rain and I be on the street, without an umbrella, just feeling the rain 🌧️
Diamond painting 😭
I follow and study name trends and the history and meaning of names. I’ve done this for decades now, before I even had children to name. It’s just interesting to me to see what culture or pop culture happening made a name rise on the charts, and where a name began. My friends and family don’t really understand why this interests me, but they are a good listening audience when I speak on it
So not a hobby but more of an interest, but I really like to learn about US dialects and accents. Especially the South and Appalachia.
My current niche hobby is nonograms.
Succulents that bloom
Tabletop Roleplaying Games.
Some people might understand the part about “It’s like a mixture of impro theatre, telling a story together and throwing dice to determine if my character is successful with their action or not”, or “Like D&D, but more niche, less mainstream. Using other rules and settings.”, or “Imagine you’re playing a protagonist in your favourite horror or action movie, and now it’s your decision where to go and what to do, without limitations, but with consequences for all the choices you make!”.
It’s lovely. Most people who aren’t gamers at all won’t get it. But I’ve been doing that since I was 12 years old, it’s a great social hobby to have lots of fun with friends and explore the darker sides of humanity. That’s why we focus a lot on genres like horror, WW2, cyberpunk, postapocalypse or Sci-fi.
I collect uranium glass and always get “are you sure that’s safe” with the head tilt
The difference between cross stitching and embroidery, also bushwhacking with a large stick and not machete while also not CREATING a new trail, but making my own path.
I follow competitive e-sports for fighting video games (Street Fighter, Tekken, Virtua Fighter). My brother and mom also watch at least, lol.
That. Collect and show model horses
I’m pretty obsessed with Taylor Swift. I understand it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but she’s quite a big part of my life so I often bring her up in conversations. I try not to and dim it down, because I know not everyone cares, but I often can’t help myself when people talk about something that reminds me of her. My friends and family are amazing for not understanding but still putting up with me lol.
Mountain biking. Everyone thinks that it requires mountains or doing insane free riding like Red Bull Rampage, but it’s literally just riding a “mountain” bike on dirt trails through the woods.
I collect Uranium glass or Vaseline glass. It glows green and is so cool.
I also read a lot like 100 books a year. I just finished my 85th book today. I love collecting all the pretty stenciled edged ones.
-I love playing Minecraft, and more specifically building entire villages and castles in it.
-I love Chelsea football club and wear the jersey and chant every time they’re playing, cheering them on from my living room (I go to their games anytime I can but me being Canadian them being English football club is a tad hard on logistics so I do what I can.)
-I love designing clothes, I have a tufted mannequin who I drape with bits and pieces right now it’s a peacock assemble of rags from royal blue to teal in textures of sequins, crochet, silk and mesh and it’s coming together beautifully.
I know it’s not niche in the scheme of things…but try explain Dungeons & Dragons to a bunch of people not from your culture or age group lol.
I know a LOT about MANY aviation disasters. Thankfully, I’m OK with having few to no friends.
D&D.
Protesting lol
[removed]