Why is it that, by and large, men are more fanatically geeky about things? Comic books, music, computers, Star Trek, mathematics…each demographic has a population whose female participants are far outnumbered by the males. Do we obsess more? I have no shortage of male guitar geek friends, but I have no female guitar geek friends. That are heterosexual anyway (congratulations, Trina – you’ll always be exceptional). I do have two or three women with whom I exchange album recommendations regularly, but I can’t really have in-depth conversations about irrelevant minutiae with them. And really, I guess irrelevant minutiae is what I’m talking about. Trainspotting.
For those who don’t know, trainspotting is a hobby of many Brits who wander around UK train stations and keep track of train serial numbers in an effort to catalog the trains. I would imagine there’s a certain romance to this, although it’s not something I think I would find appealing. However I certainly relate to the collection of useless data. So the term "trainspotting" gets applied to any brand of hobby where the participants are obssessed with something.
Oh the tiny joys of irrelevant minutiae. Band member names, album credits, Ibanez catalogs….my brain is host to inumerable bits of information that I’ll likely never use. Sadly, there’s not even a trivia game worth watching or playing to which I can apply my vast stores of obscure knowledge. I think I get it from my father, who can tell you just about every tune that ever made the record charts pre-1965.