What is your weird obsession?

The smell of gasoline and paint. Not sure how weird it is.

Right up there with the smell of Sharpies
- come to think of it, I love that too 👀
Fairly common quirk because some of those carcinogens smell sweet.
- ah, sweet, didn’t know that! now I know what to expect down the line …

Gotta smell the inside of a cup or bowl when taking it out of the pantry. If it smells wrong, I have to wash it first. I don't know why.

I do this too, sometimes it just smells like its festering with bacteria and first must be scortched.
What does a bad one smell like?
- Like...stale or just...weird? I don't know how to describe it. If it only smells like glass or cleaning such, it's good. Anything else is bad.
I have to smell the black pepper shaker any time I use it. Not because I'm worried that there's something wrong with it, but because black pepper smells good.

Hey, that smell doesn't last forever after you first buy it. 👀
- Eventually it starts smelling again, like old book smell. I love that one too. I'm not as much a fan of the smell from glossy paper nor newspaper paper, but I don't hate it either.

I haven’t shared this with more than like 5-6 people IRL, but I have OCD. Not self diagnosed (sucks that I have to state that). My obsessions are death/mortality/morbid thoughts in general. It’s awful and I truly would never wish this disorder on anyone.

I've been looking at this comment for a couple of minutes now, and I can't let it go.
I sometimes (at least once a day) am very aware of my mortality, the fact that I'm over half, what's the use etc. No death wish, don't get me wrong. It HAS and IS seriously influencing my day to day life, up to the point I made life decisions based on these feelings.
I had no idea it could be related to ocd...
- It’s possible! Another key component is these thoughts will also cause mild to severe anxiety. I would go talk to someone if I were you, medications have helped me immensely in taking back my life from OCD.

I plan out every bite of my meal. If I have different items/sides I’ll make sure that I have enough for one last bite of everything together

I thought most people do this. I do. When I was a young’un, I couldn’t have any food touching any other food and ate them one by one. I get called a freak less often with the latter habit.
- I’m honestly not sure how common it is, but I don’t know anyone personally that does the same thing. It’s so normal to me but people who I don’t usually eat with will comment when they notice I have 5-6 different piles of food on my plate all containing every side ready to be eaten one by one lol

It may not be an obsession but i do have a box called "The Morgue" which just contains dead stink bugs wrapped in tissues and tape, I'm upwards of 120 now

Edit: fixed a word >-> damn typos

This is awesome.
And I’m sorry autocorrect did that to you.
- I didn't even notice that, it's fixed now lmao

My weird obsession is weird obsessions.

Ever seen My Strange Addictions? Hilarious show.
- I haven't. Share one of the good ones.
- Oh, mine are more just niche hobbies

Kpop, I suppose. I'm a guy in my early 40's so not exactly the target audience, but I love the sound (Dreamcatcher is my favorite). I started as a casual listener, but by now I'm familiar with 1st gen to current gen (4th), I've read about the history of kpop from its earliest origins in the late 1800's with the introduction of gospel-like music to Korea. It's fun, it's visual, it's aural, it's kinetic. It's great.

Almost 40 and I'm into Kpop as well! My current favorite is Dreamnote. Dreamcatcher actually came through here back in March but it was before I was listening to Kpop.
- Nice! I'm not familiar with Dreamnote, but I'm adding their mvs to my watchlist! I'd love to see Dreamcatcher live someday!

I wash my hands a lot.; it’s just something I do habitually.

Prepped the dog food? Wash my hands. Prepped the cat food? Wash my hands. Do both? Wash my hands in-between tasks because my formed habit is to wash my hands after each of those actions.

I also feel like they each deserve a clean set of hands preparing their food, so maybe I chose the wrong example.

Sniffing the side of my wife’s face. It smells good af

My thing is I have to scrape my fingernails against everything and if a surface is rough I hate it and don’t want to be around it.

I collect collections.

cars (at it's 'height' 13, with 1 of each variant of the Toyota Celica RWD ones)
chess sets (including a 3 player one, still haven't played a game with it)
music bearers(?), records (missing 16 rpm), cassette (incl dcc, dat, 8-track), tape,... alas no wax-role
stereo/sound equipment to be able to listen to the formats.
music instuments (synthesizers and mudules, guitars (bass, electric, acoustic), trompet, french horn, clarinet and a violin somewhere)
watches
...

To many interests and I want to know how everything works and be able to use it. Get at least a tone out of the instuments, pref be able to play it)

To be honest, I like everything apart from RL humans. (Especially crowds, with >5 counting as a crowd for me) Internet was a safe place, but RL entered as well. (Reddit can take it's time to die, but it looks like it won't)

I know pretty much everything about late 80s to early 90s Mercedes models. The W124 series in particular. It's an unhealthy obsession though, you can spend an infinite amount of money on these cars and still end up with things to fix.

Totally understandable, I just managed to break free from my car hobby, a but. Down to only 6 hobby cars. Toyota Celica and Volvl 700/900 series were the issue here. I managed to get a wire and loads of pets, no time anymore for extensive car hobby. (So down to 2 Celicas, 2 Volvo 340s and 2 780s)
- Sounds like a impressive collection still :D
  Im down to two cars at the moment, but that's mostly because of limited space.

I collect special interests, usually related generally to weird history and hobbies. Currently my obsessions are M/M historical romance novels (I've read/listened to ~60 this year so far), knitting lace shawls, and succulents, but only two specific genuses (Haworthia and Crassula). These things take up all my non-work waking hours and most of my waking thoughts.

Buying different game controllers when I only use one regularly.