Do you feel alone in the hobby? (even with the forum)

I am not sure if my sister actually likes it rather than just entertain the idea of it. She doesn't have any dolls of her own but we do talk about it sometimes. I'm glad there are people like you who understand there are extreme pressures sometimes with even hobbies from society. It makes me feel more welcome though, especially with the anonymity of being online on a mainly English speaking website. I do hope to keep learning about this hobby and open myself up to it even more in the coming years!

 

I really want to go to a doll meet too!
Apparently there was one recently that was even relatively near where I live and I didn't know about it until after it has passed
The forum is great but I want to meet some BJD people (and their dolls) in person sometimes too

 

Yes I feel alone in this hobby. I am new to the forum and I mostly friend people I follow on YouTube and other social media. I do not know anybody on the forum.

 

I did feel alone in the hobby until very recently when my best friend decided to start collecting too. I was so happy that she accepted my hobby and then when she told me she wanted her own doll, I was elated.

I used to belong to a doll club for Barbies. It was so much fun. We met once a month, and there were about 30 members. We would have themes and competitions for dressing dolls, or making dioramas with our dolls. I stopped collecting Barbies years ago, and sold my collection because of financial problems. I don't miss my Barbies but I really miss the club meetings.

I have no idea if there are any other BJD collectors in my area. I would love to attend a meetup or join a club for BJDs. I would host one myself if I knew there were other collectors here.

 

extremely! but i agree with @DenaliWind, youtube is a big community and a lot of people go to it for inspiration and fun. When my boy is complete I'll be getting back onto the youtube scene

 

I feel the same way. I live in a small town two hours from the capital. An hour away from the town we get groceries from. And timezones away from my best-est of friends(who all, don't share much interest). On top of that the people who do live in my town are either retired or younger than me by a decade or two. All the other guy's who took it upon them self to call us friends are, well. Currently in jail, construction workers, or cowboys. So they would probably make fun of me, give me weird looks. At extreme, take the doll strip the doll make fun of the anatomy and possibly break him. But good new's is I'll be moving to Utah (hopefully) and be an hour away from Salt Lake City. I'll definitely attend more conventions and doll meet up's there. Worst case scenario (due to personal relations) I might end up in Chicago. Which will have even more conventions and likely meet ups. Worst worst case is I stay here...
Either way I'll try out the youtube community when I have time. That way I have friends on the go! And people say internet friends are bad. Psh.

PS: I can be anyone's friend.

 

I feel the same way. My doll hasn't arrived yet, but I don't really have anyone to share my interests with. There's a local con where doll owners meet, but I'm not the type of person to go to something like that by myself unfortunately. The only other person besides my sister who knows I love BJDs thinks they're creepy anyway.

 

I'm pretty alone in the hobby, I think it's good I started out being alone and making my dolls pretty for myself to get into the habit of having that mentality. I say that because a lot of people get caught up in trying to be popular, and they obsess over making their dolls something other people will like

While being in the hobby for my own enjoyment is great, I do wish I had a dolly friend. I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of or be excited with. I'm not so good at making friends both in real life and online, so I'll probably just stay stuck like this unless I try to reach out of my comfort zone.

 

I have 1 dolly friend, but she lives states away and we contact each other online.Which is totally fine! I just find myself wishing more often than not that I had somebody to sit and talk to, face to face, about my dolls, to show them to, things like that. I wish I could go to a meet up too, but there are literally none in my area. =m= I just wish I had more friends here online to talk to about dolls, compensate for lack of IRL people, and hopefully build up more confidence with myself and this hobby. But I wouldn't even know who or where to start with ;w;

 

Yes I feel totally alone. I have no dolly friends what so ever online or irl. Where I live no one has interests like I do. So I have no friends. It is hard especially without having any family other than my husband and kids. I have tried making friends online in the dolly community but no luck so far

 

I have actually Two friends into the hobby and one of them is my best friend. However while one of then is busy a lot by best friend is hard to talk to about dolls. She has a competition and or jealousy issue. So when I get excited about anything with my dolls and go to tell her she will instantly try to shoot me down by shoving someone about her dolls in my face or dissing it. For example we got our dolls at the same time mine is an msd and hers is one of the 70±cm and I got excited about buying an outfit for my doll from my other friend and she began bashing my doll for being an msd and having easier to find clothes. So I typically don't talk about my dolls much to anyone I just keep to myself because there's no-one else and my first doll meet experience was kinda eh after I saved a girls doll that fall off the window ledge and the girl kinda told me piss off for daring to touch her doll when I only caught it from falling while she had completely left the doll unattended and I didn't even touch it's face just it's legs and torso which was completely covered. So yeah I stick to myself.

 

We are never alone as long as we have our dolls! All of these posts are kind of making me sad. I would hug my doll right now, but unfortunately she's not finished yet.

 

Sometimes I do feel lonely in the hobby...At first I didn't know there are many forums where people can share photos and discuss with other people who have the same hobby. But after having more friends online, we organize dollmeets and communicate through internet,I feel great Though actually there are still many people in reality that can not understand my hobby at all...Fortunately, my friends and families all can accept my hobby and they even love my dolls

 

Aside from my SO accepting my hobby, I do feel lonely. My friends don't really know the extent of my hobbies. I'm sure they'd understand but I don't see them getting into it. I live in Indiana so there aren't many conventions that come here like in bigger cities. But I have just recently joined DOA so hopefully I can meet new people.

 

Nope, because I knew a few people(friends haha) who collected back in high school already. I started when I was in college when my friend introduced me his girls.

 

I do now but not when I just started more than 10 years ago. When I started, I had a few friends who were in the hobby so I didn't feel alone. But work happened and we got sucked into other stuff and then I sold my first boy... Now I'm back into the hobby again but my friends are no longer active anymore and we are seldom in contact. Anybody want to make friends?

 

I believe that it's best when you can enjoy your dolls by yourself, but I can see how it can be frustrating when you don't have anyone to share your joy with. Unless chatting on forums suits you - then you're never alone! *hugs*

I am lucky enough to have made some dolly friends during all these years and I think it is really really great if you have a small, but honest and sincere team, rather than loads of people who may not neccesairly share your veiws on things or simple are too distant emotionally.

 

I've yet to really make much for online dolly friends. I don't know, I've tried, but nothing really stuck. I guess if me and my girlfriend broke up, I'd only have the meetups I go to once in a blue moon. I like sharing with her, IRL. That's what works. She helps me pick sculpts for our characters, and knits things for them.

 

I actually posted a thread on this very topic in Brigadoon yesterday! I'm looking to meet some online bjd friends too. It's difficult living in a small town in the UK where it seems there are no other doll collectors!

 

My only friend lives in Washington state and I live in Alaska >_< I wish I had friends that shared my hobbies.