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Do you feel distant from other people's dolls?

Jul 4, 2021

    1. To me, dolls are art, and I appreciate good art. It’s not hard to be enthusiastic about good styling and cute faces and just the startling amount of creativity people pour into them. It’s inspiring!

      That doesn’t mean I don’t like my dolls best, because obviously I customized them to my specific preferences, but it doesn’t render me incapable of appreciating a pretty thing just because I don’t own it.
       
      • x 2
    2. I wouldn't call it distance per se...but I totally get the feeling of "lesser connection" re: looking at other people's dolls. As others have said here, if you haven't put energy into something yourself, there's not as much personal attachment. I still see the dolls as aesthetically lovely, but gazing at them just makes me want to go pay more attention to my own dolls.

      But honestly, I think I mostly feel a mix of joy and envy when I see someone else's large doll collection. XD I have so many plans for the future/grail dolls I have my eyes on...and yet comparatively little patience to wait for them to come to fruition.
       
    3. I like seeing other's people BJDs. I can admire their pictures or appreciate a well-thought backstory. I can appreciate the owners different skills and ooooh and awww pretty easily.

      But I am only emotionally invested in mine and always thought it was the case for everyone. XD
       
      #23 lyaam12, Jul 5, 2021
      Last edited: Jul 5, 2021
      • x 1
    4. Tough one from me. I find that it depends. I don't love every doll I see. I do find I can connect easily though depending on the situation. With my own dolls, even when I've sold them, I feel I'm missing a piece unless I wasn't connected (it's happened a couple times).
      Really, if I think they are beautiful and close to my style or if I might've helped by getting something for them, I chance a connection. There are a few dolls over time I've been around I absolutely couldn't connect to. The people around me don't quite understand it or get aggravated, but I've collected dolls on and off my entire life. I've ignored quite a few I didn't feel anything for, and others I'll immediately jump to getting them.
      Honestly, I know that I may or may not feel something immediately so it's 50/50.

      I don't mind listening about others dolls and you can ask me to listen first but I can promise that most of the time I've had something different as an idea. Really, I rarely talk about mine so even if I showed to a meet to see other dolls I am betting they'd just be "that pretty thing" be it mine or theirs.
       
      • x 1
    5. I'm just the opposite (in both D&D and dolls).

      I like hearing the backstory to the gaming character, and miss characters from the party that get killed. I like finding out about other peoples' doll and their characters. It's like reading a book, following a TV series, or seeing a play - an interactive one, if my doll has friendships with the other person's doll.

      Teddy
       
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    6. If the doll is beautiful and beautifully painted and dressed I can easily feel a lot of attachment and warmth towards anothers doll. If he exudes some kind of character or personality from his looks alone that adds to the appeal as well (the actual back story some owners make up. I can take or leave that. It's not the main appeal of the doll hobby for me). There are some owners entire collections I might be persuaded to swap mine for if it was an option... well maybe.While it makes sense that in general you like your own things best (you chose them) for me there's always room to admire anothers.
       
      • x 1
    7. There are other people's dolls I like, enjoy hearing about, might even call myself a "fan" of, but none of them will ever "spark joy" in the same way that my own do for me. For the most part, particularly at meets, I like that I can enjoy dolls that aren't in my style, and that don't "spark joy" or speak to me in any way, because it's fun to just appreciate a doll without the attachment, in a way. (That said, there have been a few cases where a doll did "spark joy," and end up adding something to my wishlist that I would otherwise have overlooked.)
       
    8. This is more or less my take as well. When it comes to this hobby I'm very much a visual person, and can feel just as much spark or joy in someone elses doll if their styling or the sculpt they own are to my tastes. However, I tend to care very little about a dolls backstory. Some of my own dolls don't even have one. One of the few exceptions is when people do those relationship charts with a picture of their dolls/characters mapped out with lines showing how each character is related with a small blurb. I tend to like those, but mostly because they're generally short, sweet and to the point. No long drawn out diatribe about ones angsty 1000 year old Delf Shiwoo who looks like they're 15 being a fallen angel and is now the third general of hell or whatever.:lol:
       
      • x 2
    9. I think it depends on the doll owner and the dolls in question. For example, my husband and I each have our own separate collections and of course shared dolls. There are some dolls that I'm more attached to than others and I know my husband feels the same way about his own collection. I've also had attachments to some of my best friend's dolls in her collection, but that was because she had backstories and characters to them and some of them were "best friends" with some of our dolls. However, there were a few that I didn't feel an attachment to even though they were beautiful dolls or super limited edition dolls. I've also been to BJD conventions/meet-ups too where I felt some dolls were well loved by their owners while others were just materialistic items on par with cellphones or the latest fast-fashion trend. It just depends.

      For me, I think it is part upbringing, part culture, whatever is one's dominant societal mores (so like religion, being part of a collectivistic or individualistic society, matriarchal/patriarchal, etc), one's own personality type, and yes even one's financial situation in life (especially across time). Someone wrote previously about "The Endowment Effect" which is definitely one of those psychological effects that we can place upon an object. Another concept would be an "attachment object" (can be called other things like "comfort object" or "transitional object"). Will lead you to lots of fun psychology articles related to it (especially regarding teddy bears and other historical objects of attachments ranging from stick or clay figures to even idols). There are a few psychology (developmental, cognitive, abnormal, behavioral, social, etc), early childhood development, and even archaeology courses that relate to these situations, but what they all boil down to is that it's normal.
       
    10. .
       
      #30 Gintsumi, Aug 9, 2021
      Last edited: Feb 28, 2024
    11. I forgot to add, if it's really unique, it depends too. There are some dolls I see that are cool but not my style. There are others I know can't be repeated but hit hard when I see them so if they go up for sale I might jump.
       
    12. I think we all feel certain attachments to our dolls because we develop our dolls to be who they are and who they are is part of who we are. So “feelings” for other people’s dolls are not there. Of course we don’t hate their dolls or think they’re not important and I’m sure they feel the same way about our dolls so don’t worry. It’s natural to feel the love for your dolls than to someone else’s dolls.