Enthusiasts

While we rant about spammers and telemarketers and duck the holy rollers knocking at the door, another social scourge flies just under the radar screen of outrage: enthusiasts. Not to be confused with enthusiastic people, enthusiasts are those whose hobby or favorite activity has consumed their lives. Everyone knows someone like this. You may even be one yourself.

Enthusiasts generally fall into one of three levels. The level one enthusiast is the novice. This person has either chosen a hobby based on actual interest or, due to social pressure, searched for a hobby because society says he or she must have one. Maybe he has a friend who is into fishing and adopts that, or maybe she likes the way she looks in polo shirts and decides she should be a golfer.

One of the first things the level one-er does is buy magazines. This soon leads to a subscription. For every hobby, there are two major competing magazines. There's Golf Magazine vs. Golf Digest, Runners World vs. Running Times, Bondagezine vs. Bound & Gagged and so on. During level one, only one subscription will be purchased, as it is important to have, and declare, your allegiance to one over the other. Of course, the second magazine will be purchased over the counter, just in case.

Level one can be very exciting because you get to buy stuff. Shiny stuff, colorful stuff, stuff with motors and moving parts, stuff with cool names like carabiner, GU and Hotspot Nymphs. These are the halcyon days of enthusiasm. For unmarried men in their 20s, level one also solves the problem of home decorating. One week the skier's apartment walls are empty; the next there is an inspiring quote beneath a photo of sweet powder on every wall.

While at level one, trips are taken, new friends are made and dreams are dreamt of competition, awards or the praise of family and friends.

Eventually, the level one enthusiast must make a subconscious choice: Step back or go forward? The consequences can be grave. Will the hobby be just a hobby, or will it take over the enthusiast's life and move the person into level two?

In level two, nothing purchased in level one is good enough anymore. The scuba gear that so recently seemed so cool is still passable, but only just. To be a real diver, only the best and latest will do. Now both magazines are subscribed to and all vacations incorporate the activity.

Worst of all, this is when the proselytizing begins. The level two-er incorporates his passion into every conversation, bragging, advising and trying to convert anyone within reach. Ask him how he's doing:

"Great! Couldn't be better. Got up early this morning, went blading — 10 miles, awesome! Do you blade?"

"Uh no, not really. I mean, I have Rollerblades, but I haven't been in a long time."

"Oh man, you really gotta get blading. Hey! You should come with me sometime…." And 20 minutes of your life disappear into the ether.

The litmus test for level two status is whether the hobby is used as a metaphor for life in actual human conversation, such as:

"Brewing beer is like life: You have to have a perfect balance of ingredients, and you have to have the patience to let its fullness be realized."

"When I'm sailing, with nothing but the sea and sky before me, I think about the pureness of the earth and our minor role on it."

"You can tell a lot about the character of a man by the way he plays golf."

For many of these enthusiasts, level two becomes a prison. I was at a coffee shop early one Saturday some months ago. A bicyclist glided to a stop in front of the shop. He was the complete level two-er — expensive bike, color-coordinated in red and blue from head to toe. He leaned his kickstand-less bike against a wall, came in and clomped his way to the counter in those hoof-like shoes. He ordered his coffee to go and clomped back outside. Like a shaking trapeze artist, he carefully mounted his bike, clipping his shoes into the pedals, being careful not to spill his coffee. He slowly pedaled away, trying to sip from the cup.

That guy is in jail. If he really wanted to go for a ride, he wouldn't have stopped for coffee. You can do one or the other, but you can't do both at the same time. Secretly, he's done with cycling but he can't get out. He's spent untold thousands of dollars and all his friends are cyclists; he can't just stop. He's claimed bicycling to be a metaphor for life, so what does it mean if he quits? And what will he replace all his wall hangings with?

I felt for him, this guy who just wanted to relax with a cup of coffee. I wanted to run to him, grab his handlebars, put my hand on his shoulder and tell him it's OK, that he could just let it go. I'd have invited him back to the coffee shop, sat him in an overstuffed chair and talked about getting out, about real life, about how riding a bike is really just riding a bike. But he was wearing those ridiculous clothes, and I would have been embarrassed to be seen sitting with him.

Sadly, this poor fellow will probably never get out. Much like being jumped out of a gang, he can't just drop his bike and walk away. There are only two directions for him to go. He can slowly ease out of cycling and move into another activity — triathlon, say — and begin all over again with something new, or he can stay the course and move into level three.

The level three enthusiast is a total freak. In most ways, this group is easier for the rest of us to tolerate because they cocoon themselves entirely within their hobbies, leaving us to our unenlightened existences. The only time we really have to deal with them is when they are in the news, quilting the world's largest quilt or being eaten by the very bears they spend all their time trying to save.

This is not a condemnation of hobbies; it's only to say that there are certain hobbyists who are insufferable. Level one-ers are perfectly tolerable. We've all been a level one-er at one time in our lives. And because people in level three exist outside normal society, they're no trouble at all. But the proselytizing level two-ers are just too much. They should make a decision for the benefit of the rest of society and either scale it back or jump ahead. It would be much appreciated.

— Patrick Quirk (pquirk@gmail.com)

— graphic by Rebecca Corrales (bekadan@hotmail)