Mine is music. I can name dozens - maybe more - of songs that, under the right circumstances, can chill me to the bone, move me, make me smile without realizing it, or just make life perfect for a short while.
The wife? I doubt that she has even one she could cite. Music is simply not interesting to her.
I bothered me once upon a time, but I’ve come to accept it.
Genealogy. That my husband doesn’t care at all doesn’t bother me. When I find something really exciting, he will listen to me and smile, and that’s fine.
Old English novels. While he rather likes Great Expectations, the whole genre just puts him off. I read Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte and Austen over and over again, but he couldn’t care less about them.
On the other hand, he is devoted to World War II movies, and watches them obsessively. I like them okay, I guess, but 10 times is enough to watch The Great Escape or The Battle of the Bulge.
Name something you are passionate about in which your SO has ZERO interest. And does it bother you?
Me?
I’m joking, of course.
I actually can’t think of anything. First of all, I’m not passionate about that many things. Second, we have most of the same interests. She is passionate about gardening, and I have no interest in that. But I don’t think it bothers her. She enjoys it, I’m glad she’s happy.
Nothing, really. When we met, we already had a number of interests in common, and after 29 years the other interests have rubbed off on each other. There are some minor interests that only one of us has, but whatever we’re really passionate about is shared.
Hmmmm. He can watch any ghost show, UFO, Big Foot, demon possession, whatever. I not only don’t care. I don’t want to see them.
He loves skiing in a rather insane “if you’re not falling down, you’re not going fast enough way”. I get down black diamonds, but I do it in a controlled way, and I do not jones about hitting the slopes. We go skiing because he adores it. I would likely never go again without him. Truthfully, it can kind of scare me a little.
Similarly, I love scuba. He can have panic attacks about sharks. I have told him repeatedly that he doesn’t need to come, but he does. Like me and skiing, he has fun once he’s there, but wouldn’t go without me.
Things I do that he has zero interest in: dressage (horses) and gardening. I think he rode a horse at a birthday party when he was 9, and I competed for years, and years, and years. Gardening I love the end result, but sometimes hate the middle bits.
I don’t think either one of us is bothered that we have different interests.
I’m into old movies, old TV shows and old talk shows like Dick Cavett and Firing Line. She refuses to watch anything in black and white or anything produced before 1990. She will not watch anything that she’s seen before, even if she enjoyed it but doesn’t remember what it was about or what happened.
It works, though. I watch my stuff on my own time. And she’s got her own things that she enjoys that I’ll have nothing to do with.
Skiing and snowboarding, cycling, bicycle touring, running - she could care less. I went on a bike tour on the Oregon coast a couple years ago, and it came up in a conversation a couple months later - she did not know where I had gone. She just knew I was away.
She’s not interested in sweating or being uncomfortable in any way. For vacations, I want to be active - I cannot sit around. She would be contented to sit in bed or on the beach and read her kindle all day.
Yeah, I guess it does kinda bother me a little, but I should not complain. At least she is not bothered by me pursuing these things with others, so there’s that.
My husband and I have lots of divergent interests. Doesn’t bother me–I don’t think it bothers him. We have certain things we do together and certain things we do apart.
Um, is sub-zero interest included? E.g., I love being able to ID actors in shows. E.g., we’re starting watching Rectify and I go “Hey, that’s the school teacher Don Draper had an affair with* in Mad Men.” MrsFtG is not exactly thrilled when I do this. (And the Senator is the ****** from the incredibly crappy season 6 finale of Grey’s Anatomy.)
I know, the last qualifier is kind of redundant when it comes to women on that show.
Chess … and I had to quit … something about going four hours without a thought of her just made her go insane. In the middle of calculating four lines of play 8 moves deep and she asks “I hope I’m not interrupting …”
Spousal unit loves riding his Harley - I hate riding, and he’s finally quit bugging me to get a bike. I’ll go with him to bike shows on occasion, but it’s exhausting to fake interest.
There’s nothing I’m passionate about in the way he loves his bike, but I really like going on cruises for vacation, and he mostly tolerates them. He wants to get an RV, and I consider driving the least appealing mode of travel. Our tastes in movies have a few intersections, but not many. But by default, I’ve learned to recite lines from John Wayne movies.
We’re coming up on our 33rd anniversary, so I guess we do OK with compromising.