Special Interests: The life of your comment party
That is, if you let them. Plus how to respond to “special interest bombing”
There's a scene in The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon is dreaming about Santa. Sheldon closes his eyes when Santa says he has something special for him.
Sheldon says, "Oh, I hope it's a train."
Santa replies, "Oh, it's better than a train."
Sheldon's face drops, and with his eyes still closed, he says, "Two trains?!"1
Today I want to explore the nature of special interests as I've experienced them in life and in online spaces. And if you hang on for the whole ride, I'll also throw in some ideas for how you can respond if you suspect you're being "special interest bombed" (and why this matters if you're wanting to create a compassionate space in the comments section).
One "obvious" special interest
The first thing I'd like to establish is that special interests come in many shapes and sizes. In my experience, there's a difference between things I study and observe versus the things that infiltrate everything I do (and which are neurologically cataloged with fine detail). It's up to each person to define what level of commitment they give to their special interests, but in general, I've found the longer the special interest has been in my life, the larger my "special interest library.”
The example above with Sheldon and his trains is the easiest way to sum up my relationship with special interests as an Autistic person. I just want more and more, and then a little more, of the things that capture my mind's attention.
One of my most enduring special interests is a sprawling knowledge of I Love Lucy—the scripts, the episodes, the set changes, when Desi Arnaz exaggerated his Cuban accent for the sake of a laugh, the episodes where Lucille Ball was pregnant but hiding it and lots more. As a child, I used my Christmas money to buy and then tear apart an I Love Lucy calendar so I could tape the full-size pictures to my wall.2
So that I don't lose your attention, I'll move on now, but you can click that footnote to read more about my I Love Lucy adventures. I'm not sure when I reached a point of neurological saturation with the show and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in general, but the last 10 or 15 years or so I've shifted into a "fact checker" of anything new that's released around my special interest.
Are you Autistic? What special interests might surprise neurotypical readers?
Small talk, loneliness and finally: connection
In my 20s, when my peers were out at clubs and mingling with strangers, I was at home gladly living my life indoors with the things I enjoy, like a reasonable bedtime. (In one stretch of my life I lived next to a light rail station in Dallas, where I would, yes, watch the trains and people coming and going for hours at a time.) It never occurred to me that I ought to be socializing until some good friends asked why I wasn't having any fun.
The question genuinely puzzled me.
What is fun?
I could objectively compare my hobbies with those of my peers, and I could connect the dots (thanks to books and blogs I read) that staying home wasn't the way to meet someone to share my life with. But I also had enough in my own mind to keep me company, most of the time.
Eventually, though, the loneliness began to catch up, and I told a therapist that I didn't know how to speak casually with anyone. And she said, "Well, you've got to!" and then she tried role-playing these conversations with me where I (much to her chagrin) looped back around to questions about religion, politics or work. At the time I was many years away from even suspecting I was Autistic, or else I would've rejected this exercise and instead that small talk is panic-inducing and not valuable to my life.
By some measure of good luck, I met my now-husband about six years later. I'd love to be able to go back to her and point out that my disinterest in casual conversation is actually what made our connection obvious to him. We shared a passion for business and ideas and have been keeping each other company since 2015.
A surprising thing happened after about four years of being together as a couple: the inner chaos and loneliness I felt became even more amplified. Ever the researcher, I began watching lots of videos and asking a few friends who I knew were Autistic about their experience. I was deeply confused about why I felt like my insides were crumbling to pieces, even as I had painstakingly crafted the exact life I'd imagined as a child would keep me safe.
It wasn't until I watched this video by Dr. Tony Attwood3 that a light bulb went off: Autistic girls are "smarter and more creative ... in coping with their social confusion." He describes how social interactions for Autistic girls are not springing from a place of intuition, but of intellect. When some Autistic people have to interact with another person, they are relying on a constantly rolling script, self-editing and censoring based on all that their mind has gathered and organized.
In the clip below, Dr. Attwood describes how there's a third category that he’s observed in his long career diagnosing Autism Spectrum Disorder, a category that (as of this 2015 presentation) is not included in the criteria for diagnosing ASD. He says that in social settings young Autistic girls will seek to identify the popular girl in the group and adopt her speaking patterns and how she dresses. They will "observe, analyze and imitate to fake it 'til you make it."
Here are a few more ways Dr. Attwood goes on to describe Autistic girls:
They fly under the (diagnostic) radar by their coping and camouflaging mechanisms of observation and imitation
They’re pathologically afraid of getting something wrong and so will be on the “periphery of play,” but avidly watching what’s going on before they make a move to join in
They often use fiction to help evaluate and learn about the emotions and thoughts of others because it’s all right there on the page
They can also use “borrowed phrases” from television in the exact accent in which they heard the phrase
In solitary play, they often use dolls not to primarily engage in imaginary play, but to replay and decode the social events of the day or rehearse what to do or say tomorrow
After watching this video, my head was spinning. I could run rapidly through memories of annoying my friends by either copying their drawing ("You should draw with your own colors, Amanda.") or bossing them around when we played with Barbies ("Why can't we ever play what I want to?"). Even as a teenager, I was curiously disconnected: I was getting modest pink-and-white gel sets that I saw all the ladies wearing in church. And while my peers were wearing jean skirts and tops from Old Navy, I was copying the 30-something mother of the boys I babysat.
If you watch the whole presentation from Dr. Attwood, you'll hear him describe how these social coping skills are utterly exhausting and psychologically unmanageable. The keeping up of a “fake self” is a prescription for becoming depressed because “the amount of energy that goes into that fake person is going to destroy you...and also the feeling that the real me is that despicable [so] I gotta hide it.”
But what I also hear him pointing out is that observing and trying to copy human behaviors was my first, longest-running special interest. And that means that as an editor, I have some keen skills in “hearing” when, where and why a piece of writing sputters or stalls. The sum total of my interacting with humans comes to life when I read what someone has written down on paper.
Thanks to his presentation and countless other anecdotal stories from books, forums and fellow Autistic friends, I've come to see that special interests aren't developed because I dislike people, but because I don't interact with them on an instinctual level when we’re face to face. And this makes all forms of in-person socializing innately draining. Spending my days exploring an idea in my mind (or editing someone’s writing) is infinitely less tiring than, say, starting a casual conversation with a person in line at the grocery store.
Where I used to see my special interests as something that made me odd and unapproachable, I now see them as my mind's best attempt to relax and belong inside myself when the rest of the world feels generally uninviting. But you know where I’ve found a really lovely middle ground for human connection? The comments section on Substack.
So, are you being “special interest bombed?”
Have you ever read a comment that seems to miss the entire point of something you've written? It's possible that you've got a very enthusiastic reader on your hands who connected something you said to a special interest in their mind—and they've now jumped into Ultra Useful Power Ranger mode.
As I described in a recent post, my experience with social media and the Internet ultimately pointed out a harmful reality when I was formally diagnosed with Autism. Social media had become a place where I was banging my head against an invisible wall, trying my best to share genuinely with people who were not looking to do the same. But after a few months of professional lurking, I began to wonder if the writers and readers on Substack could have a place for someone like me.
While my special interests might be psychological efforts to relax and keep myself company, that's not how they land with most people in my life. Instead, they are the lucky recipients of my unfettered attempts to be useful. I've heard and observed the same with my Autistic friends: we love, love, love to be helpful.
See the screenshot below where I went off on an enthusiastic rabbit trail, and Ramona kindly (with
) said, “...my question today is really about…” I instantly felt embarrassed and wanted to crawl into a hole when she gently pointed out that I had not actually answered the question she asked in her Substack newsletter. But this is an area where I’m still learning: not to withdraw, hide and analyze but rather to own where I’ve gotten something “off” and try to course correct. I’ll also add that I felt so relieved when Ramona replied, saying that anything I’d like to share is fine. It was such a good experience for me in a setting that I have avoided for a long time.
If your problem (or the topic of a Substack essay) intersects even remotely with one of our special interests, we will jump in, heart, mind and soul. We'll outline, describe, throw factoid after factoid, and we will earnestly make ourselves available to answer anyone's questions. Because to us, this is how we create human connection: by letting you into the information libraries that we tend to every day in our minds.
Making space for Autistic superpowers and broad conversations with everyone in your comments section
Unfortunately, our delivery can be really off sometimes. We can sound condescending, annoying or like we didn't even read or hear what you said. In some instances, when we are "special interest bombing" we can sound like a relentless, self-promoting annoyance, in our attempts to re-explain something that doesn't seem to be landing.
But did you notice the hidden compliment in their misguided commenting? They're reading your work and they're enthusiastic about what you're sharing. So enthusiastic that they took a chance and shared something very meaningful to them. And if you’re interested in creating a space for Autistic people to share their neurological superpowers of hyper-attending for (sometimes) decades on end, here are a few things you might say in response to a confusing comment:
“I don’t know much about [name of topic], but it seems like you know a lot. Thanks for sharing and giving me something to think about!”
“It seems like you know a lot about [name of topic]. However, I’m struggling to see how it relates to the essay I wrote above. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d be glad to hear the connections you made while reading it.”
“I can see you’ve got a lot of enthusiasm for this. I might need some time to come back and consider what you’ve shared.”
One of the most surprising gifts of being on Substack is feeling like I’ve found a space where I don’t have to excessively fret about editing and re-reading posts so that I’m sure I don’t embarrass myself in the comments section. By virtue of being an editor, I think I’ll always read with a different level of intensity, but joining in feels much less daunting these days.
So if you’ve got a newsletter and you’re hoping to foster conversations in the comments section, keep an eye out for those of us in the neurodiverse crowd. The safer and more inclusive you can make those comments sections (or your Notes!), the more likely you are to find a growing crowd of some of the truest fans. This in turn, I believe, ultimately leads to more successful and flourishing spaces, which is a win for everyone involved.
Even though the show's creators never explicitly say whether Sheldon is Autistic, his enduring devotion to trains is the most accessible example I've seen in mainstream television of a special interest. Even in his dreams, Sheldon is asking for more of one of his special interests.
When I was in middle school, I gathered $50 for a CD-ROM of a "scrapbook" program that showed pictures of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's life in black-and-white (and some color) photography and silent movies. After bugging my parents for what I'm sure was a few years, they finally drove me over an hour away to this place called "Cathy's Closet," which happened to be the world's first-ever I Love Lucy store and was located east of Dallas. In 2001, there was a traveling exhibit that made a stop at the Texas State Fair, and here I took film pictures of the colorized sets from I Love Lucy, printed them (doubles) at Target and then taped them again to the walls of my room. I used my babysitting money to buy every Mattel Barbie doll, but of course I couldn't leave them in their boxes. If I had, I might have retired from auctioning just a few of them. I've seen and analyzed (read: edited, corrected) all of the major films made about Ball and Arnaz's lives, as well as read the biographies, Lucy's autobiography and more. The latest film, Being the Ricardos, came under a lot of scrutiny because they cast Nicole Kidman as Lucy, but I went to see it anyways. (This was during the pandemic and I was about seven months pregnant, so my husband rented a whole theatre out so we could see the movie without masks on.)
In this video, Dr. Attwood uses the terms Asperger’s and ASD interchangeably, which doesn't jive a whole lot in most Autistic communities.
Wow, thank you Amanda. I had never thought of my fascination with connotation vs denotation as a special interest, but I have the ouch of recognition. I have learned most other humans have less than zero interest in that, even among writer chums. In middle-age I have embraced ‘daggily earnest’ - a veiled snub I was handed a few years ago when I over-explained on socials.
I am sooo excited (and yes, obviously enthusiastic) about discovering your Substack! Small talk, periphery play, over-editing what I comment & post, loneliness, instinctive masking—YES. One of my earliest special interests also came out of my intuitive attempt to figure out social and interpersonal interaction. It not only morphed into writing fiction really young, but also character creation onstage through theater and dance. Those became my career. Being verrrry late to the Autistic Ah-Hah party (in my 40s) I only recently started understanding this was a special interest developed instinctually out of necessity, that morphed into my life’s longest enduring passions.
Thank you for putting all of this so clearly! OMGs “Ultra Useful Power Ranger Mode!!” 🤣🤣🤣🤣 YES. I’m dyin’ over here. The accidental special interest bombing—those are really great ways of (gently, compassionately) encouraging and inviting (with boundaries) while blaring the coded reminder that somebody else’s wall isn’t the best place to spin off into Special Interest Infodump Invitational.
I, um…I may have created an entire separate Substack publication for my special interests and then created a Section within that called Hyperfixator’s Haven just to corral when I reeeeeally go down the rabbit hole. Ahem. That way, i can Go OFF without feeling *insert the gamut of icky emotions here*, while subscribers can mute me if they’re not equally as obsessed with this stuff as I am but they still want all the creative process, art & nature stuff. 🤪🤓🙃
Gonna sit on my hands & face now. Because yup, you just pushed the big red button: Super Duper Star Eyes Mode after stumbling upon someone meeping and morping in MyLanguage. I look forward to reading more!