To think the hilarity just wasn’t necessary?

This isn’t very nice or helpful. The OP has said she’s feeling embarrassed after her family laughed at her. To her credit, she has been very open and honest about what happened to prompt her family to laugh at her and about her interest as well.

Your posts seem to be mocking her further, by suggesting she’s acting performatively and exaggeratedly to get attention. In fact, it seems to me - and quite a few other posters on here - that the OP was just expressing a genuine interest and reaction to the topic she was talking about with her family. They then reacted to that with surprise, she was upset/embarrassed by their reaction and she’s now come on here to try and canvas opinions to try and make sense of it all.

Yet you’re carrying on the jokey, mocking side of the situation, which suggests you don’t seem to care about how she might be feeling. It’s easy to do on the Internet, especially when you’re just an anonymous poster, but it’s not nice.

Personally, I don't think any individual people need to be ashamed as such, but the British state has much to be ashamed of in its history - and top of the list IMO is how ignorant its population is of that. Living in NI it's the ignorance I'm more likely to find offensive in individuals than any lack of shame. If that makes any sense.

Yes I do. Obviously there's good and bad as with all things. But the fact that schools here only seems to teach how wonderful the empire was is shameful. If people knew the damage that was wreaked across the countries they colonised (including genocide) then they would (should) be ashamed. However as the saying goes..."history is written by the victors" (Churchill...ironically 😔)

Maybe she 'wailed'?

Id be so upset if my family mocked me like that

Ah, the triumphalism of the mentally challenged ! Laugh at what you don’t understand, it will make you feel cosy and safe…l.

Have you looked online at the free courses now available? There’s loads of options here https://www.onlinecourses.ed.ac.uk for example, or search online mooc in your preferred topic area.

I am fascinated by history, @DonnySue - medieval Europe, the Plantagenets, the Wars of the Roses, and the Tudors, particularly - but I know that not everyone shares my interest, and that the conversation can’t stay on my particular interest. It is great to talk history for a while, but if other people want to change the subject, I respect that.

And whilst I do enjoy thinking about history, I wouldn’t keep trying to force the conversation back to my favourite topic, if it had moved on. Other people have different interests to me, and it is only polite and fair to let them enjoy talking about their interests too.

I don’t think you’re weird op, but then I’m autistic (too?). I’d have laughed (in a kind way) just as I’d laugh at myself.

And lord knows I'm on that list - very rude to act on it though.

Genuine question, do you think those who were born in Britain should be ashamed of their history? I've heard comments like this before and it really makes me stop & think.

I've studied very little of history of any country (I don't find it at all interesting) and my interest in British history begins at the end of the Second World War. After 1945, I'm a sponge for it. Before that, not a glimmer of interest.

Some people do sometimes prefer their thoughts to other people’s conversation.

YABU to "love British history". Personally, I believe that British history is more shameful than beloved but then I'm not British and didn't study the sanitised version of events that is taught here.
Agree with PPs...the post screams of the sistine chapel...pun intended.

No one is surprised by you being interested in history - or anything else for that matter. Stepping away from the conversation because it's moved on for everyone else but you want to finish it out in your head is what's unusual.

As others have said, teasing is pretty normal in families - and it's not a bad thing either. You've learned now that this behaviour is not the norm and hopefully will be able to avoid offending people who don't know you as well in the future.

Yes, very much so. I find it fascinating. OP, do look for history evening classes, and groups, online or IRL, of people who share your interests.

I do sympathise OP, my family used to roar with laughter when I read encyclopaedias as a child. But your behaviour does sound a bit obsessive - reordering photos as you have described is pretty bonkers. I love history too and I get teased but …. People don’t know what to do when they are confronted with behaviour that isn’t particularly mainstream and …. You aren’t . Just laugh back and say yeah. I know, ….. that’s what I do

Totally agree.

So many bitchy posters on here. They were probably the insecure bullies at school who would make fun of the “weird” kids or the “geeks/nerds”.

I don't think you're weird, so I hope you don't mind me answering your question anyway.

I have very, very little interest in the lives of the family I have who are still living, let alone those from way back when. My family is very fragmented, due to the broad physical locations of where they all lived, some not having transport, all having their own lives to lead, and large age gaps between the cousins when they were children.

Both my parents died this last 12 months, six months apart. Their respective funerals were the most I have seen of the family in the last thirty years. On the plus side, there's never a cross word between any of us, outside of our immediate units at least. Even among siblings we're not close.

I exist because of something my parents once did. That's as much as I need to know. I'm never having children, I'm just moving through this life that I was brought into. I'm not uncaring in the same way you're not weird; I'm just not that "sold" on life.

My family was like that, OP. Whatever I did that they didn't do themselves (which was a lot, because as I grew older I realised I had loads of ASD traits) they would howl with laughter, and then remind me of that behaviour for years, with more laughter. They would tell other people and laugh at me openly, in front and behind me. About things that I did that were completely benign and didn't affect them in the slightest. But for them they were "odd", and the only reaction they had been educated to have was to laugh at it. I anctually ended up pitying them.

Now I live my own life, have loads of friedns who are similar to me, and most of those family members have never seen me or heard of me in years. The majority of them are actually quite unhappy, not that I wish that to them. But let's say, they have very limited minds and very simple lives. My musing and reflecting has taken me to a fascinating job and 2 careers I'm really good and happy at. And the people I mix with now would never laugh openly at another person no matter how odd their behaviours are.

Just remove yourself from thick, toxic people and look for your own tribe. Believe me, there are people there closer to you and how your mind works, and you'll be happier among them.

I do, yes. But I don't need to leave in the middle of a social event to sit on my own and digest it.

Anyway - ''All history is more or less bunk'' - Henry Ford.

I get what you mean, OP. I’m not from the UK and I’m sad that my parents and my grandparents history and memories and stories will end with us, as most are now dead. Some of the stories are heart breaking, some are funny and some just incredible.

I feel like they need someone skilled enough to write a book in them, sadly none of us siblings are particularly literary.

British history you say?!!

(Waves from the Republic of Ireland 🤣🤣)

@DonnySue no love you're not being weird or anything, if you're Nd this is par for the course, even if you're not so what fuck em. I've put up with this shit for 57 years of my life. I call the cunts out now they don't like it 🤷

I wonder about that sometimes. Knowing your ancestors were walking around in various different historical eras is fascinating to imagine.

If I’d been having an interesting discussion about it I’d think about it when I’d gone to bed though as that’s my favourite place to think about things.