A love once lost..... My first time buying experience

Oh dear. Do you know what maybe triggered this?
I mean, for me dolls ar elittle plastic people heh, not things. Anything with a face I tend to anthropomorphise.
Do you think maybe some bonding time might help? Sitting down and watching a film together, or working on his faceup or just getting a bit of dolly dressing time?
Take some photos, maybe other people's enthusiasm may rekindle that love you felt.
Sounds like you just need to get back into the groove.

 

Oh golly gosh, such a tragic story. I think that you have started off well by putting it down in black and white and accepting your own disappointment.
Don’t linger over it, don’t hold a grudge – or a wake. Move on. If necessary put him away for a week or so, carry on with your life and other dolls and then get him out again and see how you feel then. Just try living with him for a while before you come to a decision about him or the hobby.
He's a lot more than just a $1000 paperweight. He's a work of art and although I don't like many works of art I can appreciate the idea or the work which has been put into creating it. He is a work of art which you have admired for a considerable time and perhaps your expectations were very high. So, having been disappointed your expectations may now find an even keel and you will appreciate him again in time. I do hope so.

 

Often there isn't a connection like people describe, and that's ok. To be honest, I think it's all a bit played up.
I have never felt that sort of love or connection with my dolls. I pay attention to them as the whim comes and goes.
And really? I think that's okay.

This hobby is meant to be enjoyed-- whatever that means to you.

Surly you must have some idea about what you like about him, after following pictures of him for all this time? Can you pinpoint what's different? What don't you like?

How do you feel when you look at those pictures you used to love? Do you still love those dolls, in those pictures?

You have an Iplehouse Chase, right? Ultimately, sometimes it is the doll itself. 70+cm's especially are pretty clunky, and not at all that dreamy dolly experience people describe with smaller, more transportable, more poseable dolls. You may be in the wrong size range for what you want.


My advice: Retrace your steps, and really be honest with yourself about what you were expecting, versus what you received.

And once you've done that: What can be changed in order to get what you want?


If it makes you feel better: Sure! Pack him away. There's no harm or betrayal in setting him aside.


PS: Did you do a box opening for him? Maybe sorting through the pictures and writing up a box opening thread will help you sort out how you feel and why.


PPS: I'm sure you've tried this, but if he isn't already dressed up and posed, maybe give it another try. Everyone loves a different part of this hobby-- the story making, the planning, the dressup, the posing, the photography, the sewing, the crafting... maybe your niche just wasn't what you were expecting it to be. Try something new, even if only to take your mind off things.
Alternatively:
Take a break all together. Browse through other dolls. Get back into an old, non-doll hobby. There's no harm in any of that, either!


Best of luck, I hope you can reach a conclusion to this that you like. Sometimes people's first dolls aren't "The One;" sometimes people get a totally different perspective on the whole Doll thing once they actually hold one. It's all okay! This hobby is different for everyone.
Sometimes it takes some introspection. Even if you don't love him the way you thought you would, that doesn't mean you can't find a way to like him at all.

 

It's not the end of the world, you know. Sell the doll and move on if you hate him that badly. Sometimes when we see a doll in person it just doesn't meet expectations, and it sounds like you had some pretty sky high expectations. It happens. If you want to try to salvage your feelings for this particular sculpt maybe change his look or something. Or pack him away for a few weeks then re examine how you feel. But if you are seriously that let down just sell it. You won't hurt its feelings, I promise.

 

I understand what you mean, expectation versus reality can be two very different things. It's not uncommon to really want something for a long time then feel flat when you finally get it. If you've put in a lot of energy into something, then not many things can measure up against that. It's not that the purchase was wrong, it's just a mismatch of feelings.
It also doesn't help that when doll are just there, flat in the box they can be very meh. I think with most of my dolls, when i've opened the box i've felt a kind of disappointment and had a panic that I've have wasted a whole lot of money on something I don't actually like. But for me I find it's not until I've got them properly dressed up and with the right wig & eyes and had several days of trying out poses ect before I warm up to a doll.
So I would suggest give it time, wait a few days for feelings to settle down, then try getting him out again and trying dressing him up and play around with posing etc to breathe a bit of life in to him. You might find he grows on you once you've got past the initial feeling of let down as it may just be a temporary feeling ^^

 

It's upsetting for sure, but it's not uncommon.

When I got my first doll, an Angel of Dream Chen, he was so perfect that I literally cried. I LOVED him, instantly. This was in 2008, and AoD sculpts were relatively realistic compared to a lot of the popular dolls at the time. LOVE!! Then...I got my second doll, a DollZone Mo, and he was single jointed and had a much more simplistic, anime styled sculpt. Upon opening him, I was initially disappointed. He didn't have the detail in body or face of my AoD. My AoD's nose was very finely sculpted, my Mo's nose was a pyramid with two drilled nostrils. My AoD had beautiful double joints, Mo...didn't. As a newbie, I honestly thought something was wrong with my Mo. That he was unfinished because they "forgot" to finish sculpting his nose, and they "forgot" to finish carving his joints. Looking back, that sounds so silly, but I just simply didn't know! I didn't know single jointing in a doll was even a thing! Anyway, I continued working with him and adjusting to him, and after a couple of weeks, I loved him almost as much as my first doll. He became one of my favorites for several years. He was different from what I had expected, but once I learned that he was just a different style, and not unfinished or wrong, I loved him.

Now....that was a happy story, but later on I got a DragonDoll Cheng, and he was the first doll I really truly regretted. I loved the factory photos, he was just so pretty! They were a new company, and there were no owner photos. The instant I opened him, I hated him. His face was much flatter than I expected, his eyes looked squinty, his faceup was totally different than stock photos, he was extremely difficult for me to pose and handle, hard to find clothing to fit, and his feet were huge and not even sculpted on the bottoms! I was shocked and upset, and try as I did, I never liked that doll. I ended up selling him about 6 months later and buying a different doll I liked a lot more.


Lastly, just a little bit about bonding: Some people bond emotionally to their dolls, some don't. In my case, I bond to the characters I write for them, and having the physical shell of that character is fun. However, they don't fulfill my needs for friendship, romance, family, etc. I think of them as an escape from reality, like watching a movie, reading a book or playing a video game. I think if I expected them to essentially be equivalent to a living person, I'd be very disappointed.

 

It sounds like you have built up some very high expectations as to what this doll is supposed to be to you. So much so that when you opened that box and didn't feel that instant connection that you were disappointed.

I love my resin guys but at the same time I know they cannot replace real friendships. They can be a wonderful distraction and the more you put in to them the more you get out of them. They are a creative outlet as well as a distraction from stresses of daily life. Many (including me) have found them to be wonderful for cheering us up when we are not well or a bit down.

To me the ones with more developed characters with back stories have more meaning to me than the ones I just bought because I liked the look of them. Do you have a name ans character for your doll? Do you know what this character likes/dislikes, what kind of cloths he would wear? What are his hair and eye colours? Spend some time thinking of these things and then see how you feel.

Try taking some photos of him as that helps you learn about his posing and you will see his face at different angles. Take him somewhere like a park and enjoy trying to capture his personality. I like sitting with a doll on my lap while watching TV or have them on my desk while I am on the computer. That also helps you bond with them,

Another thing to try is taking him to a doll meet as meeting other enthusiastic owners is a lot of fun and you can make some great friends and share ideas.

The thing is at the end of the day he is a beautiful piece of art but not a living being. Not all doll owners are madly in love with their dolls. Some just enjoy looking at them dressed up in a cabinet and there is nothing wrong with that either.

I see from the other comments he is an Iplehouse Chase. I love IH guys and have a few. I would love to see a photo of your boy as i'm sure would many others. Drop in to the Iplehouse threads and spam a photo and come chat.

Give it time and do not feel guilty just because you do not feel the way you had hoped.

If it does not turn out you can always sell a bjd unlike many other things you buy.

I hope your inspiration will come and you will come to love him and wonder why you ever doubted getting him.

 

I know what you mean - the big dolls are a bit of a shocker to get to grips with. I think you have looked at lots of other pictures of Chase - and you are seeing the owners take on him - you need to try and put your own take on him. Your expectations have been so high - it would have been a miracle if he had met them all. Like everyone else says - get the doll out, move him, sit with him, dress him up and take pictures and peer at those and then see how you feel

 

Six years is a long time to build up to a purchase, so I think it's natural that he might not quite live up to your expectations. Maybe you just need to give it some time and adjust to the reality of having the doll at home versus the dream of what he was going to be?

 

What everyone else said! I felt like you when I saw the first of the Star Wars prequels...had built it all up in my mind, then when I finally saw it, it just didn't measure up to my expectations. But if you are able to reset your expectations, you should still be able to enjoy the doll hobby. If you really can't bond, I would recommend selling him on, and maybe going for a smaller Iplehouse boy? Might be more manageable, but still have the same vibe you were after.

 

I don't bond with dolls until I've made them my own (faceup, clothes, etc) and I never buy a doll without a character, so I've never had this. I had one whose face was all wrong for her character, but I hybridded a new head on her body and all was well. I think you seemed to expect both a child and a partner, and imo that's not realistic. The things you expected to feel for a piece of resin are things some people don't always feel for their partners and I think that's why you're so disappointed.

So, what I would do is try to make him your own however you will, and see if that improves things for you.

 

Awww, sounds like a case of buyer's regret... Honestly, carrying around such a huge doll with you everywhere is a pretty big task! Perhaps, look around for a doll that is much smaller and easier to handle?

I started out with a female doll that was 58cm, while I was in love with her since she arrived as soon as my slim mini came home, I realized that the SD size was too big for me and ultimately ended up putting her on the market. I don't regret rehoming her one bit, I miss her from time to time just because she was my first human doll, but I wouldn't ever re-buy her just because of that.

Maybe attend some BJD meets so that you can see other doll sizes before making another leap? That way you can see all the varieties that the BJD world has to offer!

Good luck!

 

I think this is great advice! I fell out of the hobby for many years because my first doll was an SD and I loved her, I truly thought she was beautiful, but I had no desire to play with her and when I tried to photograph her I always hated the photos. I never knew how I wanted her to look or what I wanted to do with her; I felt so lost. I made such a big deal out of it and I saved for several years; my friends (I was 17/18 at the time) had even given me money to buy her! I had a really hard time reconciling what to do with her.

This year, after SEVEN YEARS I finally sold her to a new loving home. I'm so glad that I did and I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I got my hands on an MSD sized doll and I realized that the missed connection was purely size. I had wanted a minifee forever but couldn't find a head I loved, so I went on a hunt and eventually found the Nanuri 2014 sculpt and fell in love. Someone was kind enough to sell me the head after only a few months and I'm now waiting on a body and I couldn't be happier.

Sometimes I'm still tempted by SD sculpts, but at least I know better now.

 

Give it some time before deciding what you want to do. Some people don't bond with dolls right away. Maybe try doing a faceup or just spending time with the doll. And if you still don't love it, you can always put it up for sale! As other people said, sometimes size is an issue. My first and only doll is an SD, and while that works for me, not everyone likes how huge they are. But the best solution in my opinion is time.

 

I'm sorry, and I don't want to sound like a negative nancy here, but I find it extremely inappropriate and even somewhat cruel to compare not bonding with a hunk of resin as the same experience as not wanting a child and wishing to abort it.

I recently had a miscarriage and it was a devastating and painful experience that I would never wish to experience again. I understand you may not have meant it in a harmful way but it is an unpleasant thing to say and to compare a doll to. I understand abortion and miscarriage are two different things, but comparing a living being actually dying inside of your own body to opening a box and not liking what you see is pretty dramatic.

Sorry if this comes off as rude, but maybe it would be smart to choose your descriptions more wisely next time.

 

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. Having seen my sister go through multiple silent miscarriages I know how traumatic the experience can be and how slightly thoughtless words can be very upsetting. I hope you're on the path to healing and for the grief begin to recede soon *hug*

 

It's important to remember dolls, while we may love them and the characters we impose on them, are not living people. They are objects, and tend to have only the value that we place on them. I would be broken hearted to sell my current collection, but I also felt that way about a doll I first loved, then ended up selling after growing to dislike her sculpt. But her character stuck around in a different shell, that's what makes the right doll special to me, their growing and changing not like a human, but with what faceup I decide, hair style, clothing choices.

They are what you make of them, and it's also possible that styling him differently will change your feelings. I wanted to sell a doll because she didn't have her right eyes. Only the eyes. She was in a size much too big and I thought oh no, I hate her now! I spent all this money to hate her!! But I didn't hate her, only the large acrylic eyes in her head. She's actually my favorite sculpt and I own three of her now so basically I advise you to get creative! After all this is a customization hobby.

Maybe your budget and reality are mismatched too. There are dolls I don't find worth the price tag, so I don't buy them. But my current trend is actually going up each next doll purchase is getting more and more expensive because I've found my groove and know my aesthetic. I also now know all the places to hunt down owner photos too, which can show other possibilities the doll has.

Going to meetups helps a ton! You get to see other companies and styles in person, and if the owners would let you, you can handle the doll too. See if it's something you'd find worth the price.

 

Not to be rude/blunt but as a mother with children and a doll collected, though I love my dolls, they are NOT on the level of my children.

That said, I think you might have built it up too much. Some times when we expect things to be perfect it sets us up for failure. As many doll owners can probably tell you, the dolls that you put the most into, time, effort, work, are the most cherished. It's a relationship, you get out what you put in. All my dolls, have extensive backstories, that I have spent years building.

I second everyone else's excellent advice. Go through a little grieving, then give your self some time to bond, experiment a little bit, and let the doll "speak" to you a bit. Sometimes our dolls have other plans for themselves than what we thought they were going to be.