"Sometimes it seems like many others can make their way through by brute force, while I've always been far behind them in that regard. Instead, I've had to engineer every step, every action, and build all kinds of scaffolds along the way, knowing the exact amount of pressure that would make me collapse and avoiding it with surgical precision. System after system, refining for each task, refining for each phase of my condition. I've had to follow this shaky plan, with no references to consult, because it worked so obviously differently from anyone else's approach. But that 'difference' has long since become almost a daily routine - after all, if we were at least somewhat similar, they would have also noticed the silver net surrounding the city, shimmering in the summer sun for all those crazy years."
One thing has been bothering me lately.
I noticed this behavior some time ago: it's not very rare, but also not very common. Some people borrow the interests of those they're interacting with at the moment. This is an interesting trait. I would expect it to work the other way around - for a person to have interests and then naturally gravitate toward those with similar interests. Seeing this kind of shape-shifting has always felt strange to me.
So, I decided to figure out why it bothers me so much. The reason could be: they claim they're really into video games when they're around me, but then they're equally passionate about something else that another person likes when they're around them. This makes me doubt if they were ever truly into my interest (video games) to begin with. And if not, it feels like deception.
Another similar story happened regarding music interests - at first, I thought a person was really into the same music as me, only to discover later they weren't; they just pretended to like it for whatever reason.
This has always been very frustrating. It's fine to like different things. It's okay to be friends and have different interests. But if there are no real interests in common, why artificially try to build them and suffer in the process? I would prefer they not force themselves to listen to the same music I listen to, read the same books I read, or watch the same movies I watch, if they don't like any of this to begin with - or worse, if they actually think these things are nonsense or stupid. It's nice if they're interested in checking out my interests and recommendations at first, but it's totally fine if they don't like them.
It actually saves lots of time and effort.