Interest Lists

[lettered]

I have a whole bunch of comments to reply to and I also want to say, "hello seraphcelene, you're the bestest ever, more later but I thought you should know that today and every day."

Insomnia has squatting in my bed and now has declared residency; she steals the sheets and commandeers My Pillow Luke. The sad story is that, in a fit of anxiety after getting the ax at work, I lifted a corner of the coverlet and allowed Insomnia to snuggle in beside me, so we could giggle under the covers with a flashlight, reading Harry Potter fanfics, Contemplating My Future, discussing moral relativism. She has not left since then, and when I do get to sleep, I believe she beats me because I wake up with bruises everywhere. Seriously. Insomnia is interested in examining many parts of me at night (that kinky bitch!), and metatastically, she's interested in my interest list. In general. But specifically on my user info page, possibly because that is where I can draw a comparison with you all.

Generally, I have an obsession with quantifying things I like, somehow. What I mean is: ask me my favorite movie, favorite book, favorite food, favorite color, and I will have answers for you. Usually more than one answer, but in the form of lists. Some may be split into categories (favorite books according age level, genre; favorite foods according to group, meal, etc). Having these answers at the tip of my tongue is a compulsion, not something I like to do (I really like to write some lists, but it depends). If someone asks a question like that that I don't know the answer to, it freezes me. It boils down to, I think, a compulsion for absolutist self-definition, defining Who I Am from the littlest thing such as my favorite color, to the hugest thing, such as my Unified Theory Of Life And The Universe. It is a constant worry to me that I do not know the latter. In fact, my lack of ability to define my UTOLATU is best friends with Insomnia, who is cold comfort when Sleep, Unified Theories, Absolutism and Plato are mocking me from a corner.

This neurosis leaves me utterly incapable of understanding people who, when faced with the monumental question of "Hey, who's your favorite singer?", don't know, and don't really care about knowing the answer. Even more incomprehensible to me is the ones who say, "Oh, last month it was Tori Amos, but this month I'm really into Charlotte Martin." (Your apocalypse was fab for a girl who couldn't choose between a shower or a bath! That's kinda what I always though Amos was singing about.) CHANGING your mind, you will note, must be accompanied by monumental anxiety and stress that deals with Becoming A New Person, Utterly. Of course I am aware that the singer you like doesn't define who you are, but the feeling that it will and does, that not knowing denotes a pitiful lack of self-awareness (on my part), that changing equates to utter lack of integrity as a human being (on my part) is integral to my neurosis. So, I understand and accept that people who are not constantly stressing about deciding on their favorite sport, or What They Believe About God, are not in fact wishy-washy non-entities who mole about through life blindly, but I feel that way for myself.

Okay, specifically, this Compulsion For Absolute Self-Definition is what I think makes me totally wack about my interest list on the lj user info page. I worry about it like a small goldfish that I want to feed all the time because it looks so lonely, and then remember that obsessing over it completely is not actually one of My Life Goals. But I am still prone to read it and reread it, find the thing I can stand to take off to add the thing I have to have on there, angst about whether it should be a list of fannish interests, intellectual interests, abstract interests, superficial interests. I don't feel that a little list like that defines me, not at all, but at the same time I have illogical urges regarding it, a preternatural interest in it, and it bothers me a little, sometimes. For instance, the fact that I only get 150 makes me itchy, because how could I possibly narrow all my interests to 150--when of course, logically, I know that something as insignificant as my lj user info page is not meant to be Everything I Have Ever Cared Or Will Care About, Ever.

And because My Interest List interests me (...I need to find what to delete so I can put My Interest List on my interest list) I tend to be interested in your interest lists, and also the interest lists of lj people I see around, get linked to, or Find Randomly For No Reason At All. I read your interest lists, and Insomnia and I are good friends with them. I like it when you have things I don't know about, but sound interesting enough to make me find out what they are. I like it when your interests are bizarre and random (stoney321 has "hobit killing kiwis"), I like it when you have an interest I wouldn't've thought of as being an interest but is (femmenerd has "textual intimacy"), I like it when your interest is really specific and intricate. I like it when you have an interest no one else has, or when you have a Very Bizarre Interest you would think no one else should have, but other people do. (Interests No-one Else Has is an interest several people have.)

I like it especially when we have a lot of interests in common, though it bothers me exceedingly if I have "Guy Gaveril Kay" listed as an interest, and you have "Guy Kay"; if I have "Angel/Spike" and you have "Spike/Angel"--because then lj doesn't bold them and instantly seeing our Interests In Common takes longer. It bothers me particularly because (kind of chewing on my cuticles) I think, "SoAndSo probably won't even notice we have that interest in common, and isn't it a shame, because isn't it so cool and fun and exciting that someone I've never met can love something I do?"

And that's another part of the Interest List Obsession, I think. (I am aware that this Obsession is perhaps coming off as very no-lifeish of me, scary, stalkerish, or just really plain weird. You should know that I obsess over everything this way. Though we should be clear it is not anality. I am completely anal about some things! But I mean I don't Obsess over Staying Organized or Keeping My Surroundings Tidy. Just stuff like: how do I tag every entry for optimal cross-reference? How do I write to my stylistic strengths while still integrating Styles I Admire, how Draco Malfoy could be a focal point for a discussion of Morality In Fiction, and what is my exact, precise reason for liking sandwiches so much?)

The point of that paragraph was supposed to be I'm also obsessed with my interests list because the most important thing I feel I do online is getting to connect with people whose interests are similar to mine. I just don't know that many people irl interested in Jane Austen, for instance, but online I used to know hordes and still know quite a few. That sort of thing.

So, the interest list is built up in my mind not just as something self-defining, but representational of how and why I go spend time online, to interact with people with similar interests. Which I am perfectly aware is ridiculous also. I've met some cool people on lj whose interest lists don't have a single interest in common with mine, and I've shared other interests and/or connected in other ways with those people. But although I believe I am fairly stable and do not afford over-much importance to it logically, or even realistically time-wise, I have these feelings kinda cobwebbed up into the corners of my brain, and they're not ever going to go away, and the spiders in them will chat with Insomnia and say things like, "Stuff on your interest list on you tkp user info page will influence future social internet interaction to come! And you'll never be able to stop looking at it! Mwahahah! Mmm, bug." Spiders like bugs.

(I should note, the "bio" part rarely bugs me in this way. I find it utterly shrug worthy. I think because it is has nothing to do with quantification. Like, it's not a list, or anything definitive, and when people say, "Tell me Who You Are?" I have completely resigned to staring at said people as if they are lunatics asking me for cheese flavored naval lint. Because, for all my stress over self-definition, I know that, DUH, I could never tell you Who I Am in a single conversation, or in any number of conversations less than infinite, and even then I'm skeptical of my success. But ask me my favorite television show and I will regard you very seriously. More seriously than if you asked my Beliefs About God, which would also be very difficult to convey in single conversation [though if I cared for you, I would try. But only if I believed you were TRULY interested; in most instances I'd doubt that].)

Lastly, as with the people who don't know and don't care about not knowing about their favorite singers, I will be FOREVER flummoxed by people who have interest lists only fifteen, thirty, or a hundred things long. I think I am safe in assuming that such a list is not the full extent of your interest in Everything In The World, just as you would be in assuming that my list of 150 isn't, either. It's not that I don't understand why someone could care less what some internet thing says their interests are on this random thing they do online, for fun, to share smut and talk about fictional universes and post pictures of their water stained linoleum. I just don't, like, feel it. I look at your interest lists, you lists of fifteen, I bite my lip, which has begun to quiver, and try to think about how lucky you are that you're not as hopelessly neurotic as I am, I try to focus on how insane and scary I am for being bewildered by you and concerned about it at all, and instead I decide your an alien because you're Not Like Me and the only thing that really makes me feel better at that point is when Insomnia and I construct Plots To Send You To Your Homeland On Your Mothership.

So! Tell me about your interest list, how you came up with it, what you add to it, when you add to it, why, how you think of it as. Talk about some of your favorite interests or what you think some of your more interesting interests are. Talk about other people's lists, how you think of them, whether you look at them, what the most interesting lists you've seen are, and stuff. Talk or ask me about mine, tell me I'm a spaz, go off on something random, love me, fear me! Though I am perfectly aware about how much of a spaz I am.

Comments

[hannasus.livejournal.com]

Interests are so much fun! It's like John Cusack says in High Fidelity: "What really matters is what you like, not what you are like."

[femmenerd.livejournal.com]

Ack! I too have Insomnia huddling under my covers. It is a problem.

Ha! I also read over my interests list all the time. And contemplate it. For one thing--of course it is incomplete and largely a compilation of things I am likely to talk about in fannish LJ land. So some things get cut. Like, for example, various film directors that I like because if I list one I would have to list many and there just...isn't enough room. So instead I tell you that I like Film Theory, because that is true, and because I am less likely to talk about movies on LJ than I am to talk about TV.

I think, "SoAndSo probably won't even notice we have that interest in common, and isn't it a shame, because isn't it so cool and fun and exciting that someone I've never met can love something I do?"

Ah yes. I do that too.

But back to compression. I have to cut out ships most often--partially because I am multi-shippy. One example: Rather than list Spike/Buffy, Angel/Buffy and Spike/Angel, I just list Spike/Buffy/Angel. But then I think that people probably just think I'm interested in that threesome and turn it entirely sexual. I'm just interested in all points of that triangle (and the threesome too, of course).

Oh dear, I could talk about my interests list forever. I have a plan. You know that meme that's going around where someone asks you about three interests and three icons? If you wanna, ask me. And then if I'm procrastinating some time, I'll do it.

[frimfram.livejournal.com]

I bite my lip, which has begun to quiver, and try to think about how lucky you are that you're not as hopelessly neurotic as I am
You say this, but I have to have exactly one hundred interests. I fiddle with them often, but I am not allowed to have one more, or one fewer. Exactly one hundred. I've got your neurotic right here.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

You freak! That is awesome. Completely incomprehensible, but so is my whole deal. This makes me happy.

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm one of those who feels absolutely no need for labels or favourite colours etc. It drives my best friend bonkers. She's known, for example, that she was a lesbian since she was sixteen, and it's important that she can define herself thus, but when I talk about my sexuality, I say things like, "Oh, I don't know, straight? Eh. Except in the ways that I'm not. And no guarantees about next year." I think she would feel better if she could convince herself that I'm a sweet young rosebud trying to work myself up to coming out as bi, but unfortunately for her she knows me too well.

I am interested in lj interests, especially, as you say, the ones nobody else has. I can't understand why nobody but me has "primadonna on a moose" or "snowdinosaurs" or "night prowls." For a while I had the only "trans canada trail" and that amazed me because it's not something quirky and endearing, it's a frickin' national treasure. I'm always interested when someone else picks up one of my unique ones, like "hoary marmots," and want to know what they like about it. I like hoary marmots because of a particularly convoluted and nonsensical private joke between me and my sister.

You've made me want to expand my rather restrained list. But I like so many spiffy things I wouldn't know where to start!

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Damn. I knew there was someone on my flist whose interest list I found Most Compelling Of All, but the knowledge of who it was was somewhere over there with Sleep. (It was you, btw!)

I don't feel the need to label myself, unless you count the most difficult of ways. For instance, I wouldn't call myself straight, gay, or bi. I'd probably say "straight, except for in the ways I'm not", but if you really wanted to know, I could probably *define* the ways I'm not, and the ways I am. I may have...determined my standing on the Kinsey scale down to the hundredth decimal place and also...made a list of girls and boys I've been interested in and determined What It Said About My Sexuality. So it's important that I can define myself thus, but the "thus" might require...like, a seminar, with diagrams. Possibly illustrations. That...would be hot.

I couldn't make guarantees about who I might be attracted to next year, or even the percentage of women as relates to men, but that relies on circumstance, and I feel like I *can* make a guarantee like: in a given population, I'll more often prefer more men than women. *That* changing *would* shock me. Just as the whole, "sometimes I like girly looking men" has SHOCKED me in these past few years. And the whole "Characters like Draco Malfoy deserve my love too!" My world want OFF KILTER.

(Hey, were you ever going to give some fb about that D/H thingy? It's okay if you're not or not going to any time soon. redbrickrose said some very helpful things. Plus I am so unhappy with it it's been a real struggle not to just abandon it. But if you ever get around to it, I'm still interested.)

What surprises me are the 'ships I have that no one else has. No one has emma/mr. knightley, Stulti, and this depresses me. I don't have the first three you mention because they don't interest me! Hee! Night strolls, but not prowls. I don't know what a marmot is.

But I like so many spiffy things I wouldn't know where to start!

Dude. Exactly!

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

So it's important that I can define myself thus, but the "thus" might require...like, a seminar, with diagrams. Possibly illustrations. That...would be hot.

Hee hee! That would be me when questioned about religion. Just add a couple teetering stacks of books in several languages, possibly including Elvish, depending on your footnote tolerance, and subtract the...no, never mind, we can keep the illustrations there, too. Better make it a weekend retreat. :P

Hey, were you ever going to give some fb about that D/H thingy?

Yes! It was very bad manners to beg you for it and then...have a teaching practicum. I don't want to give you a date, but I do mean to take it up before too long. I have a, "Yay, I get to talk to tkp about writing!" in the back of my head. It was interesting to read with both critical and fannish faculties turned on: parts of it I found utterly fabulous, and other parts I couldn't stand!

Night strolls, but not prowls.

The night prowls are actually quite like strolls: it's a nostalgic word, because at uni we would often bang on each other's doors when we were restless for one reason or another and say something like, "There's a moon. I need to go prowl around outside for a while."

I don't know what a marmot is.

It's a silly sort of rodent that lives in the mountains.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

That is so funny because I was going to say the same about religion and then I said, "No, best to stick with Stulti's example an expound in terms of sexuality".

parts of it I found utterly fabulous, and other parts I couldn't stand!

I can't tell you how pleased I am to hear this, because I long, I ardently long, I positively ache to cut parts out. Naturally I like all the pieces (because I wrote them!), but I've come to abhor the thing as a whole and wish oh wish I could just take a large pair of shears to it. So! Don't worry about when, at all, but I'm so glad to hear you have some comments.

There's a moon. I need to go prowl around outside for a while."

Ah! Now that feeling, I know exactly, I feel. It is kind of a prowl-stroll. A very predatory hunt for solace, I would call it.

marmot: ha! It is *great*! I image googled.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

"primadonna on a moose" OMG, someone else must listen to CBC!!

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

*g* I'm enough of a nerd to own her CD. But yeah, I listen to CBC all the time. Bit of a crush on Tom Allen.

[rainkatt.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting about my list; sometimes I'll see something on another list, and think, "Oh! That applies to me!" and then I forget to add it, partly because I surf at work while eating lunch, or at home on the broken laptop, and it's a pain to go there and type. Or I'm supremely lazy. You pick.

I don't have a favorite color, and I fail at "best" and "worst" lists, because I love the gray areas in between, and I rarely hate all of something, or love all of something. You'd think I wouldn't be intense and passionate, but I am, sometimes to where I scare people. :-) But my lists are transient.

I decidedly don't suffer from insomnia; the annoying bellowing cat doesn't count. I don't often worry about the impression I'm making, if any, which could be a factor, as well, and I've changed very little about my interests list in a year or more. It's possible I'll change it drastically sometime soon, but not guaranteed.

How's that for a not-answer?

[lynnenne]

If I hadn't been awake until 2 a.m. last night, I would try to share intelligent thoughts on this. As it is, just reading it has left me exhausted. Insomnia BLOWS.

[ex-dovil323.livejournal.com]

You mean insomnia has been cheating on me with you?! The dirty tramp.

I have 10 interests, but I think that's more to do with laziness not bothering to list them all than anything. Plus I didn't think anybody read them, so hey, colour me wrong. And also purple, I like purple. *ponders putting that on my intersts list* :D

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I think I have the opposite tact when it comes to the interest list. I'm not sure I've updated it since I first joined LJ. Then again, I'm one of those those people who couldn't possibly list a favorite color or band or food. I mean, yeah, I like a and b and c, but my favorite one? That's not possible.

Also, when I think of interests, I think that it has to be something I'm really interested in and will go out of my way to find out more about and that's not true in most cases. I love The Magnetic Fields and I pimp their music out all the time, but I don't think of myself as a Magnetic Fields fangirl.

The again, some thing that I actually do have an interest in are just too narrow to share with the rest of the world. "Why is my husband incapable of closing the toothpaste" is something I've pondered, but I'm not sure I classify it as an interest.

I hope that wasn't enlightening in the least.

[my_daroga]

Interesting. I don't feel as anxious about it as you, though I have had thoughts about "what does this say about me? Who do I want to 'be' online?" In my case, I think my interests span my fannish and RL interests, without much regard for what it says--in the end, I want a rounded picture of me to present itself to the visitor, not just the sort of fanfic I write.

As a cataloger, I'm a very non-anal one. Many library catalogers have a "cataloging personality," or at least they're rumored to, and that means being a stickler for details. I sometimes wonder at my laziness in my online organization structures: does it mean I'm tired of organizing once I get off work, or am I actually an anti-cataloger? At work, I am not stuck on the rules very much; I'm much more concerned with patron accessibility. But there's a measure of subjectivity there. And online, I find myself interested in del.icio.us and LibraryThing and in my interest list--but I'm not sure I have as much drive to be complete about it all as maybe I should. Or one would think I should.

The interests we two share are fairly limited and general: battlestar galactica, bisexuality, buffy, erik/persian, fanfiction, firefly, joss whedon, neil young, phantom of the opera, spike, v for vendetta, writing. Nothing cute. I would agree that I'm interested in a few others of yours as well, but the ones I'd consider adding to my list are: fluid sexuality, jane austen, robin mckinley, wolverine/rogue. Especially the first one, and I might steal it.

I definitely look at peoples' interest list, and I am suspicious of those who have very few. I wonder what that means for their journal; what their criteria are for inclusion.

Also, I don't remember if I have any now, but I know I've doubled interests for those little variations in useage, like "Dorothy Sayers" vs. "Dorothy L. Sayers." Or vagaries in spacing T.E. Lawrence. That does annoy me--it's why libraries have a controlled vocabulary. In the metadata world, we're sort of against controlled vocabulary, because it would impose a centralized attitude on the interests/tags/whatever. It's one of those things we're rejecting that will most likely come back around again: at some point, we need to be able to find the data.

I am afraid I'm not making much sense, but I don't think I will.

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

This was too interesting (heh) for me not to respond to even though I know it's from last month and you might feel I am being a pest. (I've added you to my f'list of course! although I fear my journal tends to be rather boring and I have been thinking what to do about that ...)

Anyway, I change my interests list all the time. Tweaking it here and tweaking it there. I am not at all satisfied with it as it stands but my mind tends to go blank when I want it to focus ... ideas come up on me peripherally ... they sneak up and tap me on the shoulder when I'm doing something else. Then of course when I have time to focus, they've slipped away again. Annoying.

I did create an LJ interest years back when I joined ~ "pervy canadians." I had a bunch of pervy Canadian LJ friends and on a whim I got that started. I was also the second to list "butt dragons" (a friend of mine started this) which made it a linkable interest. ;~) It ultimately means "pet peeve" or "irritating annoyance" or "annoying irritation," and somewhere or other in memories I have the definition linked (I just realize it's to the friend's locked entry which reminds me I need to make a post in my own LJ with the definition so people can click on the tag and find out for themselves ... will have to do that tonight if I remember).

Also, I was the only one on LJ to have "eupraxsophy" listed, for the longest time. Finally one more person listed that, and now I believe there are several. I've lost my special unique snowflakeness there. ;)

I'm rambling. Anyway ... truth is I've actually been rather restrained about my interests list (103 as of this moment) thinking more length might put off people. I know I always look at interests lists and find them fascinating. Short ones disappoint me, too. I like a lot of interests!

This has given me more urge to tweak ... when I find the time!

[zibbycomix.livejournal.com]

Hm... I don't have an interest list or a Bio. Is that how a lot of people find blogs to read? I've always found journals and communities by looking at affiliates, seeing what people recommend, etc. Now I'm worried that I should edit it... but I wouldn't know what to write!
But I don't think that you're neurotic. I have a hard time defining myself as well. Usually I end up with something like "I'm like Hermione and Luna," and if people haven't read HP, they're like, "Huh?" I wonder if it's weird to define myself by fictional characters- I also tend to relate myself to Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Meg Murry from A Wrinkle in Time. Sometimes it helps me to define other people by relating them to fictional characters as well. I think I have a problem.... =P
But anyway, I do think it's hard to definite one's self and one's principles in so few words. So you're not alone.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Some people look at that stuff and some people don't. As one of the people who do look at them, I see a whole lot that say, "does anyone read these things?" somewhere in them--so no one really knows!

I love Belle. I define myself by fiction a lot too, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it.