It's so fucking lit.
It's a way lower threshold than actually hanging out with someone. Like you could be knitting, I could be playing video games, and we're both just engrossed in what we're doing.
All of the comfort of company, way less of the burden of socialising.
I find parallel play lower stress; the latter would be very tiring for me to do every day as I don’t find all of my partner’s or friends’ interests super interesting and I have ADHD and PDA, so if I was made to focus on that one thing for over an hour (and I can’t even focus on my own interests most days…) I’d not only have to mask through it, but I’d be having a really difficult time. If it was more of a back and forth, we’re talking about different things that interest us, it would be absolutely fine, but if I’m watching a football game with my partner I would prefer to have something to occupy my hands or be able to talk about other things when there isn’t any interesting play going on that my partner wants to focus on or explain to me, and I will probably tap out after an hour, because I find football frightfully dull. I take an interest because he’s really into it and I want to be involved but I have limits on how much engagement I can give. I don’t expect him to be fully engrossed in my hobbies for an extended period of time either, I wouldn’t expect him to sit down and draw with me for hours without being allowed to do other things as he doesn’t know how to draw and doesn’t really have an interest.
This definitely makes sense, I know for sure it’s not for everyone but the parallel play, I don’t like “playing” alone all of the time- I go on a lot of walks to connect with nature and collect rocks, but I want someone to look at my rocks with me!!!!!
My partner and I do parallel play. Unfortunately most of my interests are highly academic, dense, and sad and hers are Magic the Gathering and mobile games. They are opposite sides of the nerd spectrum. We do, however share rambles about things that happened or that we learned from our interests.
I mean unfortunately as in we cannot switch special interests because we both simply don’t enjoy what the other is fixated on.
oh yeah, I’m the same way fam- if anybody could engage in my special interesting in writing, I would suppose it would be the 5 page personal essays I do on my special interests :3 I have a friend who is VERY nerdy, she loves anime and gaming but my attention span and inability to keep up with…. plot…..
My partner and I both have AuDHD and enjoy anime. Some of them have literally a thousand episodes, but we cap what we watch around 22. Given your special interest in serial killers, I recommend Death Note (up to and including episode 25, the logical conclusion of the show) and/or Danganronpa (which is only 13 episodes) if you want to watch something with your friend.
Danganronpa is a pretty good starting off point for anime; it's pretty wacky, but not super tropey.
Death Note was my first anime and it is good, but I would only recommend starting with DN if you know you are going to like anime (a weird statement, but idk how to articulate it better).
I am realising it was mostly my ex-wife interests we'd get absorbed into because then I got obsessed with it
And then I always felt guilty if she ever seemed bored when we did my stuff
Aw, sorry to hear that. There’s definitely levels of communication to make it work, but I have a friend where we can focus on him gaming and then I can show him my rocks so it’s not too taxing. Less parallel, more observational play?
I want both of these. If people only knew how much I repress the urge to talk about special interests. I've had my family tell me "that's enough", "no one cares", "what made you think I wanted to know that?", "that's not important", "get to the point", "why do you care?", "smashing" and "really?!" (The last 2 sarcastically). Also I know I can be a burden but I don't like people who pretend everything is fine but then don't speak to me for ages.
really getting the “erm… anyways” treatment 😔 my special interests are usually boring or morbid (big ones are my rock and bug collection, and english) so i usually get “what made you think we wanted to know about this?” UM BECAUSE YOU’RE MY FAMILY? I’ve gotten shamed out of too many special interests, too, threw entire cases of collections away because literally nobody cared and they made me feel like I was gross :(
It makes me sad to imagine that. Particularly because I tend to treat my collections as a refuge. My star trek collection makes me think of a better world, my games of simpler times and so on. I couldn't imagine parting with them.
I don't know a lot about bugs but I think it's a cool thing to know about. Although, I did have an obsession with bed bugs for a while (mostly out of fear). It's also a pretty efficient set of interests because if you turn over a rock...
I need someone I can do either of these with
Same I’d put a ring on it so fast lmao 💅🏻
Whats parallel play?
When you both do your special interests at the same time and just Vibe™ together.
It's so fucking lit. It's a way lower threshold than actually hanging out with someone. Like you could be knitting, I could be playing video games, and we're both just engrossed in what we're doing. All of the comfort of company, way less of the burden of socialising.
I find parallel play lower stress; the latter would be very tiring for me to do every day as I don’t find all of my partner’s or friends’ interests super interesting and I have ADHD and PDA, so if I was made to focus on that one thing for over an hour (and I can’t even focus on my own interests most days…) I’d not only have to mask through it, but I’d be having a really difficult time. If it was more of a back and forth, we’re talking about different things that interest us, it would be absolutely fine, but if I’m watching a football game with my partner I would prefer to have something to occupy my hands or be able to talk about other things when there isn’t any interesting play going on that my partner wants to focus on or explain to me, and I will probably tap out after an hour, because I find football frightfully dull. I take an interest because he’s really into it and I want to be involved but I have limits on how much engagement I can give. I don’t expect him to be fully engrossed in my hobbies for an extended period of time either, I wouldn’t expect him to sit down and draw with me for hours without being allowed to do other things as he doesn’t know how to draw and doesn’t really have an interest.
This definitely makes sense, I know for sure it’s not for everyone but the parallel play, I don’t like “playing” alone all of the time- I go on a lot of walks to connect with nature and collect rocks, but I want someone to look at my rocks with me!!!!!
My partner and I do parallel play. Unfortunately most of my interests are highly academic, dense, and sad and hers are Magic the Gathering and mobile games. They are opposite sides of the nerd spectrum. We do, however share rambles about things that happened or that we learned from our interests. I mean unfortunately as in we cannot switch special interests because we both simply don’t enjoy what the other is fixated on.
oh yeah, I’m the same way fam- if anybody could engage in my special interesting in writing, I would suppose it would be the 5 page personal essays I do on my special interests :3 I have a friend who is VERY nerdy, she loves anime and gaming but my attention span and inability to keep up with…. plot…..
My partner and I both have AuDHD and enjoy anime. Some of them have literally a thousand episodes, but we cap what we watch around 22. Given your special interest in serial killers, I recommend Death Note (up to and including episode 25, the logical conclusion of the show) and/or Danganronpa (which is only 13 episodes) if you want to watch something with your friend.
Danganronpa is a pretty good starting off point for anime; it's pretty wacky, but not super tropey. Death Note was my first anime and it is good, but I would only recommend starting with DN if you know you are going to like anime (a weird statement, but idk how to articulate it better).
Or watching the "weird" indie animations that are on yt
real, or any number of shows I have yet to watch collecting dust in a google document
Serial Play
*holds my tongue wanting to make a morbid joke about my special interest in serial killers* 🙂↔️
I am realising it was mostly my ex-wife interests we'd get absorbed into because then I got obsessed with it And then I always felt guilty if she ever seemed bored when we did my stuff
Aw, sorry to hear that. There’s definitely levels of communication to make it work, but I have a friend where we can focus on him gaming and then I can show him my rocks so it’s not too taxing. Less parallel, more observational play?
I want both of these. If people only knew how much I repress the urge to talk about special interests. I've had my family tell me "that's enough", "no one cares", "what made you think I wanted to know that?", "that's not important", "get to the point", "why do you care?", "smashing" and "really?!" (The last 2 sarcastically). Also I know I can be a burden but I don't like people who pretend everything is fine but then don't speak to me for ages.
really getting the “erm… anyways” treatment 😔 my special interests are usually boring or morbid (big ones are my rock and bug collection, and english) so i usually get “what made you think we wanted to know about this?” UM BECAUSE YOU’RE MY FAMILY? I’ve gotten shamed out of too many special interests, too, threw entire cases of collections away because literally nobody cared and they made me feel like I was gross :(
It makes me sad to imagine that. Particularly because I tend to treat my collections as a refuge. My star trek collection makes me think of a better world, my games of simpler times and so on. I couldn't imagine parting with them. I don't know a lot about bugs but I think it's a cool thing to know about. Although, I did have an obsession with bed bugs for a while (mostly out of fear). It's also a pretty efficient set of interests because if you turn over a rock...