Do you feel that ABJD's compensate for something you don't have IRL?

Yeah,they compensate for my lost childhood I realy wish to go back and do all that stuff I took for granted when I was a kid. I'm realy scared of growing up and I don't like how my friends changed when they became teenagers. It's difficult for me to be friends with people my age because we have nothing in common. It's hard to explain it,but sometimes I feel very lonley because I can't realy be myself with anyone. I'm too old to behave like a kid,and too young in my heart to behave "mature" like my friends. So when I come home to my dolls,I can be myself again. Playing with dolls is like returning to childhood and just having fun. They realy make me happy...I know that it's just pretending and that dolls can never replace real friends. But to be honest,real life is where I'm forced to pretend every day. And when I'm playing with dolls,that's just being me...

 

well, yes, but i didn't find out about it until some month ago.
mostly, my dolls compensated for my lack of love. now i have a boyfriend, and they compensate for the lack of physic touch (he lives 6 timezones away from me)
and they also compensate for my... weirdest... sexual fantasies.

 

It's kind of funny, because my friend asked me the same question. He asked if me not being able to have kids makes me love dolls like I do, like I'm replacing a child with dolls. I don't know, I don't think I've looked that deeply into it, I just like the hobby.

 

Um... it's just fun to pretend and play once in a while, really. I don't think about it too much. But yeah, my one thing is that my dolls must always look good, and I get bored with them if the outfits they wear, or their look is not what I consider "right". And I, on the other hand, do not bother with my clothes quite as much as I do with my dolls. My dolls wear all the clothes I like, but don't own. So, maybe my dolls are a compensation for my lack of ability to nicely pull off the clothes I like??

Hmm... anyway, it's natural to do these kinds of things in writing and cosplay, and doll/bjd 'collecting'. In writing, you explore different things or situations you might not be able to in real life..

 

To an extent I feel they do.

I've been writing a story for quite some time now, and I've realized how happy it would make me if I had all the characters in my story as dolls.

Also, I'd like to wear some of the extreme outfits I have my doll dress in, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm so shy. Instead I dress her up in those extravagant clothes I'm too shy to wear. :3

 

Everyone judges me because i look like a middle schooler and my apperence is VERY feminine :C
According to them it's impossible that i could like comic books, HALO (video games) , old rock-and-roll, bugs, or any other "manly" thing.
I was also turned down by my first love because i wasn't born male.
it's seems unfair to me ... that even my own friends stereotype me as some cutesy little bunny .
i have a boy bjd because not only can i relate to him better, but because he can be what i can't be.
He can show the side of me that no one seems to accept or care about.

 

Kind of. I give my dolls traits I don't have and wish I did and parts of myself. For example, one plays the piano, something I've been trying to do for years, but he's very lonely, like me, because he isn't socially accepted. But since I got into this hobby, I haven't been as lonely as I was, so I guess he's "healing" with me. But sometimes it's parts of myself that are supressed because that's not what's expected from me. Parts of me and beliefs that I'm afraid to share with most people.

But mostly I just think they're beautiful. And their clothes are pretty. ^_~

 

I think that most people look for some sort of default in themselves to blame their enjoyment of dolls on because the world doesn't quite understand, and people naturally feel the need to defend themselves. They think (on a subconsious level, of course) that if the have some sort of mental flaw that makes them need the doll, that makes them different from everyone else then the world will "back off". If the world has a reason then it can go on about its buisness.


that was all kinda off topic...
having said all that however, yeah I feel like my dolls are a compensation everything I don't have, that and in a masocistic kind of way I like the attention...

 

a very simple and short - "no"
other that the dolls can wear clothes that I can't/won't.
A 30something may not look good in frilly girly loli.

 

Both yes and no, actually. I would call it compensation when it comes to my doll's universe - I will never be able to go back to the 1920s so I let them live there insted. At the same time this world of theirs is, of course, a hobby of mine that I like to keep separate from my "own" life and surroundings.

 

from my last post ages ago, I have in a sense, changed my view of my dolls and whether they compensate for something I am missing in my life or not. I am only eighteen, and have been raised that anyone who has a kid at eighteen or before finishing college and getting married will end up a loser.. Well, I am one of those people who LOVES kids. I volunteer at a local elementary school 2 hours on Mondays, and starting in February my time will bump up to Mondays and Tuesdays. I work with first graders, and they are amazing. I would love nothing more than to have my own kids ASAP, but the way I've been raised turns me off to early parenthood. I understand full well how hard it is to have children at such a young age, but I can't help but to want them.
My two girls, an MSD and a Puki, are my children. To me, it seems as though most people here on DoA treat their dolls as people living with them, but to me, my dolls are my children. So yes, they compensate for my lack of real children, and I love them very much ^^
Heck, most people think I'm pretty crazy, but my boyfriend and best friend are both very supportive of my hobby. ^^

 

Well... they compensate for my lack of patience, apparently - in whole my life I never was able to knit a thing in human-size. But i like to knit (just not for long) and doll size works just fine.
As for other "standard" things that are mentioned in compensation - I have them all except kids, but I did enough babysitting for friends and relatives to know that doll and a baby are SO different that no one of them can compensate for other. So... overall no. I wanted a new hobby, i got one. It could as well be something else, I just happen to meet dolls in the right time.

 

Yes my BJD's were compensating for my rl family
My bjd's were the only thing that got me thru the last 5 difficult years without them to focus on I could easily have become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to extreme family turmoil.
Thru them I created a peaceful BJD family had a creative outlet and was able to deal with my grief and anxiety and bring myself back from the edge of dispair, pessimism and anger. Today I am in a much better place because of all the wonderful people I have met thru the BJD's.
My RL family has also gotten better

 

i don't have one yet, but i'm saving for one and i'm sure i will have one.
and because i'm able to examine my own mind pretty well from kinda distance, i know he will be some kind of replacement for somebody who would really love me just the way i am. not really replacement cuz i'm one of those ppl who gets really binded to some things (dolls here) and don't consider those dolls just toys, but, excuse me my stupidity, infantility and naivete, kind of real existences.

not really the place to put out my soul, so the short answer is: yes.

 

My dolls compensate for all the years of being told what to wear and how to wear make up. Id love to be able to wear my fluffy Lolita dresses and crazy clothes places, but after all the years of being told how thats horrible and i shouldn't wear that stuff out of conventions or Halloween because it would embarrass my family its been taking me forever to feel comfortable wearing that stuff. So I dress my dollies up all crazy for my insecurities and being a coward to wear prettier things.


Plus their soo pretty and I couldent resist owning one..or two ..or 5-kagillion :3

And im very childish so it helps me channel out that little kid in me!

 

Well, I live alone, and having another face in the house will be nice. But BJDs can't replace real people, and that's not at all what drew me to BJDs in the first place, or why I ordered my boy or anything like that -- he's beautiful and I just like him!

Plus it will be a change to have something beautiful in the house that I didn't create and couldn't create without considerable challenge, and don't dissect all the flaws of. As a crafty artist type I insist on doing too damn much work myself!

Pukis attract me very much because as a kid, I saw miniature worlds in everything and would have LOVED to have an incredibly detailed dollhouse and little world setups with some pretty dolls and miniature things for them to interact with - I would have played with them all day and never left the house, probably! I was a deprived kid, brought up in a poor family, so of course nothing like that would ever have happened. But I can't afford to have any Pukis right now, nor do I have anywhere to put a house for them in my apartment, so someday, perhaps. :3

 

I gotta say yes to this....

It true that they are only representation of characters I created.... but at the same time I think it is really impossible not to feel that they are what you can never be.

I can make them wear things I would never imagine to wear, have a figure a style everything that I would love to have, get but cannot or that would just not fit me....

and even more that they are just so perfect without really being.....

 

I think they do, yeah. Because I have been roleplaying for years as a method of escape from the real world which I consider upsetting and sometimes dull, plus I just dont quite feel right as myself xD

So when I found I could bring my characters to life so to speak, I felt like then at least there'd be something physical that was my own, y'know? And to compensate for the company I need when im alone xD

Oh my that sounded a little depressing but still

 

Interesting thread. I guess in my case is because while I was growing up I didn’t have any friends. I was always sick and didn’t connect with kids my age or anyone for that matter at all so I immerse myself in a world of fantasy. My favourite character as always been Edward Scissorhands because I’ve always felt just like him: an outcast misunderstood by his peers. Nowadays is a hobby but also a way to express my feelings, an outlet.

 

In my case, it's not really the doll but more story making. I've found that with a lot of doll owners, the character that the doll is bounded to comes much earlier than the actual physical doll. They've already written their stories, drawn their portraits, and became deeply attached with this fictional being of their creation that when the right doll comes along, it's more about having the character in a physical shell, so you can touch them and pamper them, and make them seem even more real, as compared to just doll collecting.

Or at least that's what I feel personally. As far as I'm concerned, the only compensation in it for me is I weren't born in a fantasy world, I can't cast magic, can't be knighted or meet talking bunnies in the streets. So I create people who live the life for me instead, so to speak. P: