Your point about matching enthusiasm resonates with me. I am fortunate nowadays that many of my friends are neurodivergent, and we seem to enjoy each others’ enthusiasm. We have some shared interests, but I think in a context where I can just listen and learn and not necessarily be expected to be a part of a “regular conversation” (i.e. when the primary mode of conversation is neurodivergent), I really enjoy listening to my friends nerd out about things outside of my own interest, as well as sometimes explaining my things to other people.
Outside of that framework though, before I had my current friends, I often felt like it was a smarter social strategy to just not talk about my interests at all because tempering my enthusiasm was difficult and seemed to never been enough.
There’s this interesting balance within my MTG group where some guys are happy to devote a fair part of their life to learning all the individual cards by heart. They can go on tangents that are just rows of card names describing a turn (think if the F6 to G8 takes rook babble of chess people). I can’t be fucked, but I still love the hobby, so when we get together its trying to find the middle between all these levels of expertise that works. Overall that went well but there was one guy who flat out told me: “Maby if you would just dedicate a bigger part of your life to the game, we wouldn’t have to bother talking around you so much.” Yeah right. Not everyone makes their hobby into their profession.
That being said, its kinda heartbreaking so many people struggle with just letting their enthusiasm about a certain topic flow. If you’d rather not talk about something because you’re afraid you can’t reel it in, that sucks :(
Your point about matching enthusiasm resonates with me. I am fortunate nowadays that many of my friends are neurodivergent, and we seem to enjoy each others’ enthusiasm. We have some shared interests, but I think in a context where I can just listen and learn and not necessarily be expected to be a part of a “regular conversation” (i.e. when the primary mode of conversation is neurodivergent), I really enjoy listening to my friends nerd out about things outside of my own interest, as well as sometimes explaining my things to other people.
Outside of that framework though, before I had my current friends, I often felt like it was a smarter social strategy to just not talk about my interests at all because tempering my enthusiasm was difficult and seemed to never been enough.
There’s this interesting balance within my MTG group where some guys are happy to devote a fair part of their life to learning all the individual cards by heart. They can go on tangents that are just rows of card names describing a turn (think if the F6 to G8 takes rook babble of chess people). I can’t be fucked, but I still love the hobby, so when we get together its trying to find the middle between all these levels of expertise that works. Overall that went well but there was one guy who flat out told me: “Maby if you would just dedicate a bigger part of your life to the game, we wouldn’t have to bother talking around you so much.” Yeah right. Not everyone makes their hobby into their profession.
That being said, its kinda heartbreaking so many people struggle with just letting their enthusiasm about a certain topic flow. If you’d rather not talk about something because you’re afraid you can’t reel it in, that sucks :(