Good question! I often wonder when people seem to say things which suggest they think of Tolkien's work as other than fiction, because for all my own obsession, I can quite firmly separate Tolkien's world from the real one. However that's just one aspect of 'obsession'.
There are others - and I've spent vast amounts of money on my interest. On books, collectables, action figures and so on. I also fill up the very limited space in our house with more and more books that I do not need, but that I
want.
I will also often spend my lunchtime at work on the Downs instead of going out of doors.
But this is what having a hobby is about. If we didn't 'waste' our time, we'd spend it solely on useful things and that would make life utterly miserable
Also, knowing 'facts' isn't so bad, and isn't isolated to 'geeks' because plenty of sports fans have reams of facts stored up in their heads, and you can quite easily be a music 'geek' too, because I'm a bit of one - always correcting people at work on which band recorded which song and so on
