I don't know if my hobbies and interests have changed, or just reset themselves? When I was really young I enjoyed things like creative writing, drawing, sewing, imaginative play and so on. Now my interests centre on socialising, shopping, style, creative writing, philosophy and social issues, equal rights, reading, pop music and whatever.
Not a huge change. What is odd, however, is that I used to be massively 'into' cars. Like I read all about them, I know how engines work and stuff like that. It was almost, for a time, a sort of monomania. I knew that I could talk to boys about cars! Except they used to go off topic: football or girls or fighting and I'd get totally lost. However I had sufficient depth of knowledge to keep a car conversation going for ages. Which is, like, to me now entirely boring. Yet in the classic 'man chat' scenario it's completely acceptable to sit there debating whether Audi is better than BMW. For three hours. I was there. I literally have almost zero interest in cars now. Apart from hot rods and stuff but only because I like the idea of it as a medium of self-expression. I wouldn't know what the latest Ferrari was if it ran me over!!!
Female conversation tends to be, in my experience, so much livelier. We're happy to flit between topics, on to one, back to another. It's a stereotype, but the intense granulation favoured by men doesn't happen with us. Seriously - as in this happened - I had to drive an ex-work colleague (I don't work there any more) somewhere and it was raining. He proceeded to talk at me, for over ten minutes, about the wipers on the car. I made a joke of asking why he was even talking about that. He realised and stopped boring me. Anyway men love microscopic analysis of things, as in inanimate objects. Women usually prefer talking about emotional responses and people; so finally I've got something to say.
Now I've lost the plot, again. What I meant was, admission and acceptance of the female self is the point where you'll pick up on any repressed interests, such as the shopping I mentioned above. You'll also shed any contrived male behaviours, such as my feigned interest in vehicles. The weird thing is that it felt real at the time, like really real. Looking back it doesn't. It just fell away from me as easily as a lace veil. Whatever, I'm glad to be free of it. The only downside is that I now find driving boring. Which is a problem as I have to use a car to get to work.
With that in mind, anything that's a genuine interest, i.e. from your actual personality rather than your presented male, should stay as Ms Grace and others said far more succinctly than me
. Anything you were putting on doesn't need to be put on, so you'll find yourself naturally stopping.
As for the male work colleagues mentioned originally, firstly you're not a walking encyclopaedia!! It doesn't matter if you don't know about the minutiae of whatever. And if it bothers them, they aren't friends at all, they're simply utilising you for personal gain. Which might leave you feeling rather empty or lost or disappointed. The longer term answer is to find, if you want, more female company. It's helpful on the basis that there's more common ground. Plus we don't tend to care if someone doesn't know the answer to a question.
In the short term just plead ignorance and move on. There have been times recently when people have pumped me for information about the latest whatever car, in remembrance of my former self. I just say "I don't know" and move on. You shouldn't feel self conscious about it, it's who you are. And you shouldn't let others make you do that either, although it's only natural to do so.
Hugs, be true to yourself because that's what others genuinely appreciate, and thanks for positing such an interesting (for me) question to think about.
