WHY WE DON'T TALK ABOUT ANIME IN PUBLIC.

Sociologists have a colloquial term used to describe what normals¹ consider socially acceptable in American society - "The Football Window". The idea is, celebrating football in America is considered completely normal. Going to football games, dressing up, talking about football in public is perfectly acceptable². However, being just as obsessive about anything else besides football is considered unacceptable or deviant. If you're interested in Lord of the Rings or World of Warcraft and you go out with friends to LARP and have a good time you're called "weird". If you talk about anime, read manga, or cosplay in public people will think you're strange as your behavior violates cultural norms. Unfortunately, the stigma attached to discussing any aspect of otaku culture public won't be going away any time soon.

SOCIETIES NORMS, WHY CAN'T WE 'JUST' IGNORE THEM? 

The first and most natural response is, "Why should we care what other people think?" or "It doesn't matter what other people think." This response is the problem. You learn societies norms through a process called socialization. Agents of socialization (friends, media) and institutions of socialization (schools) teach you what is and is not acceptable. When you act in a way that society deems deviant, the process of socialization has failed; society has failed to teach you its norms. The person who does not care what other people think is the strange kid who comes to school in camouflage. You should care what other people think about you. Caring about what others think of you is an important aspect to being a functioning member of society.

This is my dakimakura. There are many dakimakuras like it but

this one is mine. (Source: Figure.FM) 

If you talk to normals about your dakimakura, figure collection, or VN's they will label you as deviant; they're not wrong in doing so. Normals frown upon your obsessiveness, your interests. Anime will always be "that tentacle stuff from Japan" or "those chinese girl cartoons for children" to them. You can't blame normals for believing that either. You can't expect normals to be tolerant of your interests (or any other interests besides theirs for that matter). You can't expect to change their mind. So the question is, how do we handle it?

DON'T TALK ABOUT OTAKU CULTURE IN PUBLIC.

We handle it by avoiding normals. I don't mean skipping to the other side of the street to avoid them, I mean hide your power level from them. Refrain from acting like a weeaboo faggot discussing any aspect of otaku culture in public. Keep discussions online with other people who are also interested. Don't be an autistic³ man child like bronies.

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Also, the brony fanbase is pretty damn annoying. You can like what ever you want. People can be interested in what ever they want so long as their interest doesn't harm anyone (that stipulation includes themselves, obviously buying figurines instead of food is problematic.) But there's no reason to be an obnoxious faggot (BUNDLE OF STICKS) about it. Bronies were so obnoxious that there is now a global rule on 4chan: posting any MLP related outside of /mlp/ is a bannable offense. Something Awful has a similar policy and even completely unrelated boards like MMO-Champion (a fan-forum relating to World of Warcraft) issues 1 week bans for posting pony related items outside designated threads. People aren’t giving bronies flak because they're watching a small-girl's show, it's because the majority of them (or at least, quite enough of them) are obnoxious.

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~ Shemhamphorasch on Bronies.

Keep it among friends. But, more importantly, keep it online. It's not about being normal. It's about the capability of projecting the patrician facade of normality. In other words - acting normal is just as good as being normal. Make yourself, and the entire otaku community look better.

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1 - Normals or "normal people", people who follow what society classifies as acceptable. A football fan is usually considered normal.
2 - "Acceptable" meaning behavior that society (as a whole) wouldn't classify as deviant.
3 - One of the early signs of autism in children is missing social queue, that is to say, not knowing what they're doing or how they are acting is socially unacceptable. If you consider the obnoxious bronies, for example, they don't seem to understand that walking around in MLP shirts is wrong. They're missing the socials queues, so if we assume that bronies are all mildly to severly autistic, their behavior makes a lot more since.