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

I enjoy reading everyone's responses.

As for myself, I've always loved and had dolls. Also as an introvert I see my dolls as a way to express myself peacefully. And often times when I do bring a girl out, we dress alike. But not on purpose, we just have all black wardrobes.

My sister said it was my motherly instinct. Because I want to have children. I'm not too sure on that.

I don't have stories or characters for my girls but think of them as beings that chose me. I believe there is life in everything.

My Lusis looked exactly like my little neice that I had to get one for her. This little one makes me happy since I don't get to see my niece all the time. Every doll is a different emotion and expression for me. I don't think they compensate for anything I don't have. (hee hee, maybe money since I spend it all on my dolls).

 

no.
i don't mean this in a rude sense, but i think you guys are thinking about this the wrong way.

collecting dolls IS part of your "real life", and all of these different "parts" compensate and "make up" for the whole that you want to have. for example, i used to be very involved in club swimming. you could say that i used those swim meets to achieve the happiness of winning that i couldn't get from the rest of my life, but that is not usually the commentary that people use on competitive sports. swimming was a hobby, so is doll collecting. we all undertake activities that weave together to make life an enjoyable experience, to say that any one part is compensation for another is a pointless chore.

 

The only thing they're really "compensating" for is the fact that in my life right now, "playing dress-up" is rather impractical. I've always loved costumes and interesting clothing, but I just don't have the room to keep a closet full of various period pieces and other costumes ready to go at a moment's notice. But I CAN have a set of Tupperware storage drawers brimming with costumes for my dolls! (That being said, I DO have a few giant Tupperware tubs in a storage unit with all my old costumes... just in case.)

It's much easier and more gratifying to dress the dolls, pose them for photos, and just plain play with them than it would be for me to put on a big frilly dress and sit around in my apartment. ^_~ Also, they can wear the kind of clothes I just really can't wear anymore. In high school and college I had a style that was somewhere between glam-rocker, perky-goth, vintage/retro, and "omg a bag of skittles exploded on her". But now I work the day shift in an office every day. I love my job and what I do, so I had to make a choice to tone it down and dress in business casual wear most of the time.

Plus... I'm just too plain lazy anymore to do elaborate makeup, coordinate accessories, and wear itchy glittery tights anymore. When I'm not at work I want to be comfortable, so jeans and tees is usually the way I go nowadays. I think I'm getting old. But my dolls... they can wear anything. So I do kind of live vicariously through their wardrobe and fun makeup.

 

When I was a more delightful youth in my early on years, I found that there were things I knew I could never have. Things i knew that people were go to say to me or about me. I have lived a sheltered life, one where I have had things given to me all the time. It was not a Life I desire nor at the time figured was something I would hate when I reached maturity.

As time passed and I learned of the dolls (recently) It made so many things possible for me that I knew I would either never see, or meet. I say this because in a way I know from my conditions and from the things that occur in my life-

I think through the dolls is a life I would rather live. Through them I can archive and do the things I currently can not.

 

I think that's the point of hobbies. I've recently been in a rough break up and I want a doll more now then ever, perhaps not the best decision..^^ So perhaps there is an element of compensation that goes with this hobby? I do think we live vicariously through our dolls. Personally, I'd never want to look like the dolls I wish I could have. Although I'm sure this is the appeal for some. I like the customization and willingness for change that ABJD have. I can easily change my doll's hair, it's not quite that simple for me. ^^;

I think that when we read, play video games or whatever we do to occupy ourselves; we're doing so to satisfy a highly individualized and insatiable part of ourselves.

 

I agree!

I'd rather live vicariously through my dolls than my kids, that's for sure.

 

This is an excellent topic and I am happy to share my thoughts. For me, it is true that my dolls compensate for something I am missing in real life and that is the comfort of siblings. I grew up very sheltered, so I didn't have many friends. My family was kind of broken too, so my parents weren't really there either, and through this I always wished I had an older brother. Before I began collecting bjds I always had this concept that I would buy an older boy first and a younger girl second and that they would be brother and sister. Although my second doll is not a girl, it is still a sibling and that bond between my dolls is very important to me.

 

Well, mine certainly won't be a child substitute, cos I already have a dear RL child of my own, and one is PLENTY for me.
My doll (when he gets here. Hurry up, Alex!) is to be my helper.
I spent years at uni learning design for not only clothes. but accessories and shoes, too, but I've never had a chance to really use the skills I acquired. Now I can, and hopefully share them with others eventually. He will also help me with my illustrations, and in general be my little model.

So, no, my doll isn't compensating for anything, he's just assisting me.

 

My dolls compensate for lack in many ways. But most of all I dont feel alone when I`m with them. I cant leave for a couple of days without having one of them with me. I feel lonely inside me without them... I get depressed and sad when I cant hold them when I need comfort. They make me smile.
I`m much alone, due friends have lives and dont like dealing with my emotional problems, so the dolls are all I have.

So the dolls are the social life I dont have.

 

I am new to BJD, but not new to collecting Japanese and Korean dolls. I definitely collect a lot of the dolls to "compensate" for not having a little girl. I have boys, and they will not abide being dressed up in costumes for mommy. Believe me, I tried. :P Poor kids, when they are grown I can shame them with photos of them in Victorian baby dresses and the like. I used to sew a lot for myself, but then I got old and plump and it wasn't so much fun to sew for me.

Now that my 4 yr old niece is living with us, the doll hobby is something that she and I can do together. She only gets to play with the cheapo Barbie-sized dolls, but we both have fun picking out clothes and hair and setting up houses for the dolls together. I hope to teach her to sew as she gets older, and the dolls will provide another great way for she and I to interact.

 

I think I'm the opposite.

I don't see the dolls I'm planning on getting as somehow compensating for something I lack. I agree, I will probably dress them in things that I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing myself, such as skirts (I can never quite decide if I like my legs) and I'll give them hairstyles that I wouldn't have myself as someone training to be a teacher.

For me, my dolls will represent a part of me that has taken a long time to accept. I was born without a left lower arm, and as a result I have an artificial limb. I've grown up hating it when people have referred to it as being doll-like, but now I'm more comfortable in myself and it's something that I want to claim back for me. So the dolls that I already own (Pullips, but they're off-topic) and the BJDs that I am planning on buying are more of an embodiment of me taking control of that. I suppose they're my silent kindreds.

 

Oh wow. The concept of family is something my writing and my dolls compensate for as well--especially siblings. In my case, I do have siblings--but they're both autistic (one severe and the other high-functional) and neither of them seem to realize I exist. What's more, the rest of the family are practically strangers to me since they live at the opposite side of the world; it's just my mother and father, my two autistic siblings, and for a while an older brother who I've always regarded as the most intelligent person I've ever known--but he was murdered last summer.

I don't see my characters/dolls as my OWN siblings, but the close-knit trust between some of them in a family-like bond even though they may not be blood-related is comforting to me.

 

for me, yes, it lets me express(more) freely my inner thoughts and feelings- i don't really have problem problems, but if i were still the sheltered little girl i was maybe two, three years ago, i would just be blathering about without a care for others' feelings and stuff. growing up, that was a problem, but highschool cured that for me REALFAST. i went from bigmouth to an introvert/social outcast-y quiet wierd (insert more stereotypes here), and it felt like my feelings and stuff went wasted since it was bottled up and like, i didn't feel like i should share...and lately i'd been feeling a bit more lonely than usual- but thankfully i got A doll, though even if we didn't bond, it felt like there was someone who understood my thoughts exactly >____< so i guess that makes up for my super childish side that was forced away, dolls are an extension of my ego, and make up for my apparent lack of bearable company...

 

I'm what I would describe as "violently creative" if I can't express all or enough of my creativity in one hobby, then it finds itself another. There's nothing I can do about it- it's so much a part of my psyche to look for things I can change, build, shape, colour, add to or somehow customize in some way or another and make my own that I've just given up trying to deny it. I want a BJD (and have two coming) because the day I realized the full customizable ability of them was two days before I clicked 'order' on my first one.

Lol- I guess I'm being too serious really, but honestly, I'm not making this up. I played with dolls into my early teens (well not really playing- I just gave them firm multifaceted and complex personalities and made bags and bags of clothes for them) and when I gave them up, it was at a really rough point in my young life- I was going through that rebellious phase (a little early perhaps...) when I was about 13 and giving up my dolls was as much a stab at myself as anything else.

So five years later I've found BJDs and I'm violently wishing I'd found them earlier! They are everything I wanted in a doll- I mean, I used to glue hair onto my bald baby dolls so that I could style it XD (gawd I was a precocious kid >.<')

But my point is- maybe these dolls are making up for something I lack- I really can't be sure, I'd assume there's a good chance though considering the maelstrom of other psychological woes that inflict humankind today...ahem- back to the topic now! And if they do I don't give a rat's arse really, beacause (conciously at least) they provide me with a way to siphon off all that violent creativity (which would have me otherwise mumbling stories to myself in the voices of different made up characters...long story ^_^; ) and live a somewhat normal (if otherwise cluttered) existance

 

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I guess maybe it is even more frustrating for you to have siblings versus me having none. I understand how you feel about your dolls. I don't consider my dolls my own siblings either, but just having them related to each other as such seems to complete me in some wierd way. I'm beginning to see now that bjds are much more than just a "doll".

 

BJDs, for me, don't compensate for anything. They're a hobby just like my classic cartridge-based videogame collection, or my resin figurine collection, or my teddy bear collection.

If anything compensates for anything in my life, it's my story-making, not my toys.

 

wow, deep concepts...
I wonder if my fascination (read: borderline obsession) with BJD has any deeper meanings? I don't think it does but I know I have an attraction to beautiful and elegant things. I also enjoy making clothes and needle work (child of a third generation tailor).

If I am compensating for anything with this hobby, It may as well be revenge against my older sisters who like to dress me up in frilly dresses and mum's fancy dress. At the same time I suspect it keeps me from kidnapping my friends and using them as human manikins....

 

My boy is just that, a boy.
While I don't really use any of my dolls to compensate for much. (other than the ability to wear summer clothes when its 40 degrees outside, and winter wear for a shoot in the summer.) His wardrobe and looks go through less than mine with costuming and theater work in general.

 

For me, I guess in some way, my boy does compensate for something I do not have in my real life. But most of the time, I feel just like a mother. Seeing my boy looking great in different types of clothes make me happy as well

 

While I don't own a BJD, I do own pullip dolls, and I'd say that I definitely play with them to compensate something I don't have in my real life.

For me, I never really had much of a childhood. I was forced to grow up too fast due to some unfortunate events in my life. Don't get me wrong, I played with toys, I had dolls, I played video games, I played with friends, but it seemed as if I made the 'growing up' transition too fast. See, when my dad became ill, I gave up everything to take care of him. I gave up my friends, my toys, and my life. I'd sit on the computer all day, which was in his room, to watch over him.

Now that I'm 16, I see everything I missed out on. And it's so weird...saying I missed out on a lot at such a young age, since I still have my whole life ahead of me, but really? I feel like I belong in my 40's. =w=;

Anyway, I'm rambling. Basically my dolls are a way to for me to live out my fears, and my desires. I have a fear of romance and touching, so through my dolls, I can live out those experiences I know I'll never have due to my phobias.