Meaning, Bostonian? I understand that you conform to your hypothesis quite nicely. However, any example which
disproves the hypothesis renders it invalid as a generality, yes?
My HG+ spouse is interested in dog training and cognition in animals, in apiculture, theater and in fine lathe-work. He's a regional authority in some of those sub-specialties, so his interest is pretty darned high there. He's also obsessive about his interest in popcorn consumption, but I hardly figure that this counts for much.
I am a gifted (female) adult interested in history, political science, economic theory, and several arcane areas of STEM, in addition to my more gender-normative pursuits (fiber arts, pharmacology, neuroscience, music). But in any case, I hardly consider that even meaningful anecdote given that this is an N of one, albeit it does disprove the theory that gender determines obsessive interest areas. I
have had any number of male-dominated interests in my life, and certainly spent much of my professional life in such settings without a lot of discomfiture that my interests were not supported, probably because my interests
are not gender-normative in many ways. Even my more gender-typical interests, I have noticed that I tend to focus on the technical or logic-driven side of things. I'm a scientist at heart, I think, and it colors the way that I interact with the world-- I was very definitely born this way.
I'd say that higher LOG correlates nicely with curiosity, which is probably more likely to result in an encounter that has the potential to be interesting enough to render it "obsessive" (at least it seems that way to others), long-term or otherwise. I also tend to believe (and studies that I have seen overwhelmingly bear this out) that being non-normative is relatively
freeing from gender-norms in terms of exploring interests. Who knows, if not for gender
norming and cultural pressures, perhaps non-gifted persons would explore more taboo interests more often, too. Instead, we get boys interested mostly in sports and first-person shooter games, and girls who want to cuddle horses and write i's with little hearts over them.
