"Attachment to Inanimate Objects".

A interesting thought came up when I was pondering your question: Someone who is very sentimental would find it easy to bond with their dolls; they can feel them. However, if you have someone who is not very sentimental/emotional... would the issue of bonding even come up? Bonding wouldn't matter to them anyways right ? Therefore, "less sentimental people would have a harder time bonding" is kind of invalid, because bonding wouldn't quite exist in their dictionary. Perhaps they like dolls because of their beauty, rather than, someone to be with. So bonding is non-existent.

If they DO suddenly decide to bond, then that would make them sentimental. And once they're sentimental, they can bond easily.

See where I'm getting at ?

Non-sentimental people will not choose to bond with their dolls, therefore bonding doesnt' exist for them, so it will never be hard.

Those who choose to bond with their dolls are sentimental; so it will never be hard for them.

I don't think there's an "in-between". I honestly think one either gives life to their dolls, or merely sees dolls as items of beauty.

 

I disagree. I am very sentimental (I cry at pretty much every film I see and for a death of someone I have never met. I get heavily upset at injustice etc. ), yet I don't seem to have the attachment many others have here. While they are sort of shells for OCs, they are not 'alive' to me. My characters are a part of my mind, they are me in a way, but my dolls are not.
I am their voice. They have none of their own.

 

I am the same way. My dolls do not have a different personality or fashion likes dislikes from my own. They look and wear what *I* want, they are not separate entities. Although I would cry if something happened to them cuz I love my dollies(and I don't have the money to replace them easily). ^_^

 

I think I'm attached to my dolls because firstly, I invested a heck of a lot of cash in them, then secondly, I'm sentimental about them. But I also think I'm sentimental to my dolls in the first place because they're the shells of my characters. My characters have been with me for about four years, give or take, and I've grown rather fond of their imaginary presence in my mind. So when I shell them as dolls, naturally I start seeing the doll as my character, and for a scarily sentimental person like me, it's difficult when I have to part with them or something.

Slightly OT and not really related to my answer above but I think I should put this in: my mom and I had a serious fight about five months ago and as punishment she took away my Angell-Studio LE-50 Antonine and refused to tell me where he is. For five whole months I had no idea where Dante was and I wouldn't put it past my mother to've thrown him away, expensive or not. Yes, she is that sort of person.

Yesterday I plucked up the courage to confront her again about him, and she snappishly told me she did throw him away (she didn't, actually ). I honestly became a depressed wreck the whole day afterwards, because Dante is extremely special to me. He's my first doll, not to mention an extremely LE doll, and I bonded with him the moment I saw him in the dealer shop, he fitted this character of mine that I haven't given much thought so well I literally fell in love. To think about him being stuffed down a rubbish chute or something of the sort seriously broke my heart, and not just because of the money.

My mother is usually a ruthless old dragon without a hint of a heart, but she obviously felt really bad when she saw my reaction, because just this morning I found a rubbish bag (!!) lying next to my bed, with Dante inside. He was in a fetal position, miraculously without any joint twisted out of place, and thankfully unscathed. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic to have him back again. But I am definitely going to find a hiding place for him away from my mom.

Sorry for this horror story, but I had to let it out OTL.

 

It definitely helps! Since what we're talking about here is bonding with inanimate objects. I'm exactly like you i end up growing attached to all my inanimate objects. Plushies, silly gum-ball machine toys, electronics, and basically every "knick-nack" i own.

 

@daniquine: Yikes. Must have been a bad fight then. Glad Dante was all right though.

I talk to my things and have names for things like my computer, car and stuffed animals, but I don't get attached to everything. I'm pretty heartless towards my My Little Ponies. I have no trouble decapitating them. (For customizing of course.) It's things that have sentimental value that I like more, such as a plushie of Nala I've had since I was 10. (She's my anti-homesick plushie. I've taken her to England, Australia and California when I lived there for a few weeks.)

I haven't felt super sentimental about my dolls. (Probably because they're not finished). Still, I am attached to them because they represent both money I have spent and art to make. :3

 

I name my oven Bekky, my wooden art dolls are a family, and I love my 60cm Jack Skellington. I have him sitting on a shelf watching over me while I draw and paint. it's very comforting, and I wouldn't part with him.
That being said, I could bulldoze my entire room and not feel much hurt from it.
-Unless I had to leave my books behind. I'm completely attached to my books.

 

Generally i get attached to things i enjoy very easily and i bonded with my bjd within a week and a now have a huge attachment towards him, everywhere i go i try to take him with me and if i am away from him for hours especially at night i get depressed.
so i guess if you get attached to things easily you will bond quicker if you are generally an unsentimental person the bonding will be harder and longer, though it often does count on mold preferences

 

I don't see my doll as just an inanimate object (even though they are, technically). But I think a lot of owners give their doll a lot of complexities by giving them a back story, or using them as characters, and just fleshing them out in a variety of ways.

I also think it's probably easier to bond with a cute object or a human-like object because it's probably ingrained into us from evolution. I'd find it a lot harder to bond with... a sock, for instance, than it would be to bond with a doll that looks like a person.

I don't exactly think there's sentimentality in it. I think it's much more of being able to be with it, and do many things with it that creates some kind of 'bond'. You can bond with a car because you had that car at certain points of your life. You can bond with a doll because you took them places, did photo shoots, went to meets...

 

I agree with Batchix: I am attached to my dolls because of the effort and love I have put into making them into a certain character or a certain look.

Of course, some of the sentimental attachment comes from WHERE I got the doll as well. My best friend gave me my favorite anthro, and before she left to Germany, I gave her a tiny Dollfamily fox to keep her company. Both of us think we'd never part with THOSE dolls. I love them because they mean something to me, and I get sentimental over them because of that...but I don't consider them 'alive' or that I've 'bonded'. I don't have a problem thinking about thinning out the collection or re-shelling characters but only if it was a doll i bought myself or haven't customized.

 

Hmm, I like this question. I love my dolls and I would never sell them. I do give them personalities but I also know that they are not "real" people and do not have actual feelings. However, it is fun to pretend, isn't that what dolls are for anyway? Sometimes inanimate objects are just that but some people really, really get attached to their dolls.

 

My doll is a creative median, though sometimes I think it would be cool to give her a back story.

 

I just wanted to quickly say that it's nice to see comments that I can relate to and not feel so weird in doing so. Since I was younger I've always been overly emotional. For a straight(ish) guy anyway. Like others on here, I've always felt strong attachments to inanimate objects, things like if I left my coat behind after swimming class I'd feel intense guilt, strong sorrow and would be left wondering if my coat would be ok. I even remember forgetting my teddy when going on holiday, and adopting to carry a small sheet of black cloth around with me as a comfort. But when I lost that it just made things worse! It's better now, I mean I still cry at movies, I still feel sad when one of the gatcha figures falls from my bag and now I have my first BJD I'm starting to miss him when I go to work.

I think when you love an animate object such as a person, there's more room for you to become disappointed, angry or even upset in them, such is the way that life isn't always violins and rainbows. But an inanimate object will absorb all the love you give it and will give back whatever our eyes choose to see and our hearts choose to dream. I think the fact that inanimate objects will never hurt you as a result of their own actions or words makes the connection between us and them almost unbreakable.

I think when dolls, (such a human like figure) come into it, it's easy to see why people can become so intensely attached and only hurt by their absence or loss. It's like we have found something beautiful, something to love, to live for and something eternally yours with minimal input or sacrifice. It's almost as though with dolls, we have found our soul mate.

NB: To be fair, I guess everybody has their own reasons to feel a connection. This was just my thoughts

 

What he said.

I always feel guilty if I leave something behind or when I loose one of my keyrings. I once thought I'd lost one of my plushie anime keyrings from my work keys, I felt awful! Then I found him in my bag, so all is good.

I feel an attachment to my doll, kind of like a protective feeling. I don't think it's because he cost so much, I truly think it is, I've grown an attachment to him. I'd be really upset if something happened to Piers!

 

Well said. *Runs to bag to check if Pichu keytag is still there* Sigh...

 

I actually used to be a TERRIBLE packrat. My basement apartment could've almost been on that show Hoarders, no lie. I was obsessed with gathering as many dolls as possible and I loved them all. I kept all their boxes and everything strewn across my front room. Having to very suddenly move to a smaller space snapped me out of that mentality though, and I started to force myself to learn to control this urge and taper down my collection. I know that objects can't love me back, but at the same time I've developed a special attachment to some dolls that hasn't broken. Even if I stopped collecting dolls or being active in photographing them and such, I'd have to keep them around. They are special to me outside of being dolls because I helped create their image. They are a stress release, an escape, a creative outlet.

 

I am totally into my dollies and I am sentimental and have an attachment to them (even though I am aware they are resin art pieces). They have their special characters and names and are a comfort to me when my husband or our kids are away. We are becoming "empty nesters" and my dolls give me a sense of stability- I really don't know how or why, but they do.

They are also a creative outlet as well - with photography and customizing. I find that I bond even more with my dolls while I am finding outfits for them, wigs, couches to sit in - especially taking photos of them.

A bit off topic: I also have a huge collection of Dept 56 villages. If you are not familiar with them - they are normally little lighted houses, buildings, parks with trees and little tiny people who live there. It is so fun to pull it all out and build these villages every year and when people ask why: I say: "this is the world I know I really can control". The villages are built and displayed during the holidays and this year I started to build a third and my hardest one yet: Disneyland's mainstreet.

Now, the BJD family that is growing in my home is giving me that feeling all year around (not just during the holidays). They allow me to have that sense of comfort with positive and creative fun all mixed in.

 

I think its sweet. I cried when my mother sold off my first piano, but other than gifts, I don't tend to have emotional attachments to inanimate objects. Likewise, my dolls won't have big OC stories or anything like that. But each to their own.

Although I did name my computer. I put a lot of heart into naming the occasional inanimate objects.

 

Heh, my friends regard me as a mostly "emotionless" person, and I agree. The dolls are pretty and all, but I can't see them more than inanimate objects, "shells for OCs," as someone put it earlier. I never name my computer or car or anything and I usually have no qualms about getting rid of stuff I've had since I was a child.

However, I am extremely attached to my Dilophosaurus plushie named FlopFlop.

 

Add me to the list of 'easily becomes attached to random objects' people ^^; When I was little, I acted like my toys had feelings. I was attached to my stuffies, blankies, pillow, night-light... You get the idea. I once had an attachment to a pencil- when it broke, I taped it back together and used it until I couldn't anymore.

With my dolls, it's sort of odd. I have porcelain dolls, an American Girl doll, and some dolls from other countries my Nonna would bring me after her travels. None of which I'm bonded to in quite the same way as my BJDs. I couldn't part with the ones from Nonna cause they're so special, and they were gifts (not to mention they're beautiful!). My porcelain dolls have actually scared me, and I wouldn't be heartbroken over them for long (initially, yes) if they broke. But if something happened to Ichabod or James, I'd be upset for so many reasons. One, money, I couldn't replace them right away. Two, I have this thing about duplicates... I don't know if I bought the exact same sculpt with the exact same wig/eyes/face-up that I could see them as the same character. Since Ichabod 'told' me his story, instead of it being a character I'd had in my head for a while, he is the character and therefore another doll made to look the same just wouldn't feel the same.

I guess in a nutshell, because I interact with them so much, I have an emotional investment in them. I know deep down they don't have feelings and aren't anything more than what I imagine them to be, but once that personification begins, it just doesn't seem to stop ^^;