Jealousy when other people have access to your special interest?

[SchrodingersMeerkat]

Meerkats are my main special interest. I live in the United States where it is illegal to keep them as pets but in some countries such as Korea and the UK it is perfectly legal. I get so jealous when I see another person interacting with one I sometimes engage in self-harm such as cutting.

 

[Skittlebisquit]

If you were my sister i would get you wrist wraps, 10oz gloves and a heavy bag

 

[Hylian]

Sometimes I get a little bit jealous when people can engage in aspects of my special interest that I cant engage in. I don't self harm though. I don't really react to it besides for feeling guilty for having such a childish initial reaction.

Edit: I should clarify since after rereading that my response looks super rude, I'm not saying that reaction is in general childish. I just feel guilty for personally reacting like that because I know other people would say it's childish if I ever expressed that feeling.

 

[unperson]

There there dear.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

Meerkats are my main special interest. I live in the United States where it is illegal to keep them as pets but in some countries such as Korea and the UK it is perfectly legal. I get so jealous when I see another person interacting with one I sometimes engage in self-harm such as cutting.

Think of the people you see in the pictures as your noble representatives of your noble spiritual cause and that they are doing your noble work which you have nobly delegated to their capable calibre (freeing your time up for yet more special interests; I always thought we auties and aspies had lots of them?)

No it is not dead just because you're not looking in the box.

And being true to your name you would think it was cruel to take a sharp object to one and their noble chief at that, and not do it because of that.

I always thought lateral thinking was a strength in our type!

Do you write meerkat poems? Poems can create more & more of them out of thin air!

Then start on other species and artefacts too: you could always call them "honorary meerkats". You could be known as the Fountain Of Honorary Meerkatates. Steam engines could be the new meerkats! The pages of Dickens' novels are full of meerkats, of their special kind.

 

[theporgsnest]

I sometimes experience this, mildly, but I realised it's connected to my massive self-esteem issues that I'm currently having CBT for (just as you can be over-confident and think you're better than everyone else, you can be greatly unconfident to the point where anything you do that gives you a good feeling, e.g a skill or special interest - that is also someone's else skill or special interest or hobby, prompts a jealous feeling.)

I'm not sure if this is where your issue stated here stems from, but it's good to see these things as something you have in common, a shared experience that could potentially be a bridge, rather than a wall. Even though they do things regarding meerkats that you can't, maybe live through their experiences if you can. As regards the cutting, could you replace it with another less physical behaviour?

 

[SchrodingersMeerkat]

I sometimes experience this, mildly, but I realised it's connecting to my massive self-esteem issues that I'm currently having CBT for (just as you can be over-confident and think you're better than everyone else, you can be greatly unconfident to the point where anything you do that gives you a good feeling, e.g a skill or special interest - that is also someone's else skill or special interest or hobby, prompts a jealous feeling.)

I'm not sure if this is where your issue stated here stems from, but it's good to see these things as something you have in common, a shared experience that could potentially be a bridge, rather than a wall. Even though they do things regarding meerkats that you can't, maybe live through their experiences if you can. As regards the cutting, could you replace it with another less physical behaviour?

I don't actually cut, just feel like it.

 

[Markness]

Sometimes I get a little bit jealous when people can engage in aspects of my special interest that I cant engage in. I don't self harm though. I don't really react to it besides for feeling guilty for having such a childish initial reaction.

Edit: I should clarify since after rereading that my response looks super rude, I'm not saying that reaction is in general childish. I just feel guilty for personally reacting like that because I know other people would say it's childish if I ever expressed that feeling.

You aren’t alone. I really like music and I have a guitar but I don’t have any of my own songs and I can only play the guitar in a limited capacity. I can play the power chords to some songs but the guitar solos? It’s like my fingers become paralyzed when I try to play them and so many songs associated with the guitar have solos in them. When I see someone play what I can’t and make it look so easy, it feels like a punch to the gut.

In certain musician circles like classic rock and virtuoso player gatekeepers, they tend to frown upon guitarists who don’t solo and generally prefer rhythm guitar, especially punk rock guitarists.
In response, I’ve seen some punks regard classic rock as “dinosaur rock” and virtuoso playing as self-indulgent or prideful.
The elitism in music can make the environment really toxic at times.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

Chords with internal harmonies and harmonies to those before and after (sometimes surprising ones) can be played:

- at wittily varying rhythms

- by somewhow splaying out the strings within one chord (I'm not describing that well)

- invent variations on the harmonies?

If "delicate" isn't your style you could still probably achieve that less "delicately"?

I gave up the guitar a lifetime ago but I've noticed people doing these things.

Music is given us to adapt it to US.

Do you like Haydn who used silences as notes in themselves? The Jam?

 

[Booknerd515]

The most jealous that I get over someone having another pet that I would like to have is somewhat jealous (not quite to that extent, though I'm typically depressed), so I feel your pain. As someone who doesn't have any pets, seeing someone with a pet that is a special interest and a pet I'd really want to have can be extremely hard to deal with. The few times I've actually managed to see a stranger in real life a few feet away from me with a dog that was a Dalmatian (which has been one of my special interests for over a decade), I freaked out so much I couldn't speak or think of anything else for more than a few minutes.

Meerkats are really interesting animals. It is sad to hear that they're not allowed to have as pets in your country. I send virtual hugs.

 

[Hylian]

The most jealous that I get over someone having another pet that I would like to have is somewhat jealous (not quite to that extent, though I'm typically depressed), so I feel your pain. As someone who doesn't have any pets, seeing someone with a pet that is a special interest and a pet I'd really want to have can be extremely hard to deal with. The few times I've actually managed to see a stranger in real life a few feet away from me with a dog that was a Dalmatian (which has been one of my special interests for over a decade), I freaked out so much I couldn't speak or think of anything else for more than a few minutes.

Meerkats are really interesting animals. It is sad to hear that they're not allowed to have as pets in your country. I send virtual hugs.

I also get a bit jealous when I see other people with dogs because I miss having one. Besides for rodents, dogs are my favourite pet to have and one of the animals I'm interested in a lot.

 

[Judge]

I enjoy it when I can share one of my special interests with another. Though usually what happens is the other person is taken back by my enthusiasm, so things quickly fall apart.

For whatever reason, I simply don't experience jealousy or envy. Though on occasion I can sense it from others.

 

[Thinx]

I rarely feel jealous, but I did feel it a bit when my friend got a vaccination appointment sooner than expected and sooner than me. Vaccine envy.

It maybe that we feel jealous or envious when the issue is outside of our ability to control? I can't get my vaccination until it's my turn, and as you say, the meercats can't be kept as pets in your country. Would they tend to go native and colonise, btw? Is that why they can't be pets?

 

[SchrodingersMeerkat]

I rarely feel jealous, but I did feel it a bit when my friend got a vaccination appointment sooner than expected and sooner than me. Vaccine envy.

It maybe that we feel jealous or envious when the issue is outside of our ability to control? I can't get my vaccination until it's my turn, and as you say, the meercats can't be kept as pets in your country. Would they tend to go native and colonise, btw? Is that why they can't be pets?

I think it's because they are considered destructive. Like if one got out it could create a disaster because they like to tunnel. But prairie dogs do the same exact thing in their legal as pets here.

 

[SchrodingersMeerkat]

I thought America was the land of the free. That's a lie. There is a lady who was an immigrant from Russia. She used to keep tigers in Russia and when she came to America and tried to keep them and people wanted to take them away from her she said the exact same thing "I thought this was the land of the free. I might as well just go back to Russia". I might as well go to Russia too you can keep meerkats there. they're trying to make it illegal in South Africa to keep them because meerkats live wild in South Africa and you don't know if you got one that was kidnapped. But if you lived in a place like the us or Canada, Europe or Asia they would most likely be captive bread. And how come zoos are allowed to have them but not someone who knows everything there is to know about them? I get about four of them and have several. Convert my house into a meerkat Disneyland. Animals in zoos are very depressed, but I see tigers and lions that live in people's houses on YouTube and they just seem so happy. Everything needs interaction. You can't just plop it in a cage because it's "wild" and charge people to come gauk at it. Most so-called wild animals in zoos are not wild anymore. Their family line was bred in captivity for generations. And besides humans are most dangerous creature that it exists. I would trust tiger before I would trust a human being I did not know. And if I had a meerkat I would expect it to bite me a few times as it was getting used to me.