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

Everyone I know (meaning my family and close friends... sadly I don't feel that I'm close with any of you lovely people yet), see me as a cross between a therapist and dear abby. I don't have anyone I can really talk to and I don't trust diaries since 7th grade...D< so I'm getting my first doll so that I have somone to talk to who CAN'T spill my secrets.

plus I love clothes, but with my odd figure it' hard to find awesome feminine clothes that fit me.

 

I suppose that they do. Yes.

I'm a very severe person. I tend to scare people off if they can't handle my personality. I'm blunt, brutally honest, and I don't get along well a lot of the people I meet. While I'm not totally bereft of friends, I guess my dollies are my perfect little friends.
Different parts of my personality are reflected on them and they're like super fragments of me. ^_^

I do live vicariously through them a bit, too. They have fabulous clothes!

 

Yes, since I don't have any boys I can dress up IRL, I have dolls.

 

No, not really. But it does give me a sense of pride after I draw him good or make clothes. They are more like a sense of accomplishment for me. Also, dressing them up in styles you wouldn't try on yourself, just to see the different styles and personalities on a doll instead of dressing that way yourself. Like a safe way to experiment with creativity.

 

My dolls make me happy, Thats about it.
I love to spoil things, and i love being able to create something from nothing or just flat out endlessly making new things. Dolls do give me an outlet for that.

But as for compensating for something? Nope. I was fortunate that i'm aesthetically appealing in real life, and i found many talents through out the years.
When i started collecting dolls again (i did loose interest after i was 8, dumping barbie and took interest back when purchasing a character doll around 16) It was just for fun. I care deeply about them, and would be very sad if i no longer had them. But in the end, they are for enjoyment. not to make me feel pretty, or glamorous, because such things can be created with effort.

I agree entirely with Mamehisa.
I kind of feel sometimes that people project these kinds of things onto me (not anyone here but family members have also questioned along the lines of my baby clock going off......at 22 -.-"). If i could say...for any one reason they might compensate for anything, it's the lack of non dramatic people in my life. They're just pure fun and happy ^_^.

 

My love of bjds comes from a fascination with human facsimile. I've never liked Barbies before because i found their limited mobility disappointing, though I did like the occasional baby doll as a child. But I am completely fascinated by the mechanics of human movement and how to translate that into non-living objects.

 

For me, it's an artistic outlet. Penelope (and soon, my new Sadie) are canvases. I paint their faces, I make their clothes, and futher, I make their furniture and am planning on building them rooms. I -do- have an emotional attachment to them because they are so human-like and I often read their emotions, but I don't think I'm compensating for any lack of love or friendship in my life. I do have a strong desire to have a child, but I think that's a different sensation then having my dolls.

So really, I think they fill in a gap that I had in my life between the time I stopped taking art classes in school and when I got them. They gave me something to sit down and enjoy again.

 

I don't see the dolls as people, or as having personalities. To me, they're just dolls. Just a hobby.

But I'm not too naiive to say that they don't compensate for anything, because I know they do.

For one, I get to dress my dolls up in clothes, which I love doing, instead of a child.
Along with my dog (dog=love, dolls=cute clothes), the dolls fill in the gap of not having children without the hassle of the kids themselves. It's a pretty good deal, at least for where I am right now and the next few years to come.

I think it all boils down to the fact that I've just found one more little hobby that doesn't include interacting with people very often. People, even online, are a strain for me, and I can only hold together my polite composure for so long. I usually end up hurting people in the end, which is a continual disappointment for me. I can't emotionally hurt the dolls, though...they're just dolls, and something I enjoy. Which means that they're a darn good escape from the world.

 

In a way, my dolls (BJD and others) are an expression of a fantasy life/expression of beauty in my head that does not exists in the Real World&#8482; I've spend a long time finding a way to express or rather to have this kind of aesthetic in my life. Before BJD I knew what I wanted but didn't know where to find it.

I've collected Barbies for a long time, always slightly disappointed that their faces, their bodies and their costumes were not REALLY what I wanted. But when I saw BJDs for the first time it was: THAT is it!

And there is also the clothing style. I am too old for the gothic style and never had the right body type for the lolita style (even if I had had known it even existed when I was at the age where that would still make sense!) and am perfectly happy to have a bit of those in my life through my dolls. I don't need to be part of those cultures, I just want to have the costumes

 

Hi! I think it's an interesting thread.
I never played with dolls when i was little, I'm a girl, but i loved trucks, tractors, climbing trees and knight tournaments with plastic bottles instead of swords. Now, all grown-up and feminine, i guess, i want to play with "girl" toys.
I'm very new to the whole BJD business and have no dolls of my own, i have just ordered 3 from different manufacturers.

 

Yes, I do believe dolls compensate for something missing in my life. When I was young I didn't so much "play" with the few fashion dolls I had, but made clothes for them, and posed them in settings. Fantasy and period costumes appealed to me - they seemed romantic and were an escape from real life. Even today I still prefer elaborate historical and fantasy-style costumes for my dolls. And digital photography has made it even more fun to pose my dolls in dramatic settings.

 

Lolz!!!! I don't care who you are that's funny right there. Well anyway I think some people after reading this thread might go into deeper thought about why they bought the dolls they bought. For me I love the look and I could think that subconsciously I bought it because that way I can have my own "harem" well I gues that's not really subconscious anymore. Haha well I'm going to go and spend time with the harem... I mean uhhh yea...

 

Do you feel that you 'and/or' others around you are using ABJD's to compensate for something you don't have IRL?

Well my boy doll, Koori, does in some way represent what the perfect fantasy guy would look like in real life to me. But more than that, he represents my own creativity and how it has grown. Since I was 12 years old I started writing my own fantasy/supernatural novel. Over the years, Koori has matured with me as an idea. He contains aspects and certain personality traits that are both perfect and flawed in some way, which I find endearing. And his personality becomes more lifelike the more I live through life and translate that into him. In some ways, he represents my life since his personality is a concept created by my own experiences. Making him into a doll was like bringing another element of reality into his persona. I always drew pictures of him, now I can take pictures of him and create stop-time animations of my story with him as a doll, not just with words and pictures. So yes, he represents a part of real life, as a material existance as well as a mental one. In more poetic terms, the soul has a body.

 

Well because I don't have any BJD's so I'll answer this regarding my other dolls and future BJD's. I love pretty things, which is why I was attracted to dolls in the first place. I dress my dolls in both fashionable clothes I like to dress up in and clothes I would like to wear. When I change a doll's eyes or hair, I think that's more when I'm compensating for what I don't have in real life. I can't really change my eye color and I'm too afraid to dye my hair (and lazy for the upkeep as well as styling) so being able to give my dolls different looks makes me happy.

 

I'll answer this regarding the one I just ordered...yes I do think it's compensating for something. I'm 21 now, and have just graduated from university. I'm kind of scared about the future and generally growing up, and more than once I've longed to be a child again. When I was choosing my doll I knew she had to be not just a girl, but a girly girl, with long hair and a beautiful dress. Until I was about 11 I was exactly like that. I even refused to wear trousers because I thought they were 'for boys', and of course I loved barbies and dolls other traditional girly toys. So I think part of this is me trying to regain my child self in some form, and so maybe compensating myself for the 'loss' of my childhood.

I've also honestly had a very rough year emotionally, and I think I'm also getting one as a source of comfort.

 

I believe that it all depends on the situation of the individual. For some it is compensation for something while for others it is just a medium with which they express their creativity. Personally I'm unsure what it would be for myself. When I was younger I generally shunned dolls but now I'm buying one... I'm also a very creative person and love that aspect of this hobby. Like I said, it all depends on the person.

 

I definietly agree with VistreousSanity13, it completely depends on the person.
For me, I've had a really rough time the last few years with medical issuses as well as just life. Dolls are a comfort source for me, but, they are also a much loved creative outlet. Writing is my hobby, and my dolls will become the characters I create.

 

Dolls are a lot of different things, I think, for every person. I won't deny that my emotional attachment to dolls is some extended outreach due to my suffocating loneliness, but also, an idealized version of my image of purity. The dolls I am attracted to buying are always innocent, wide-eyed, sometimes a little sad or melancholy look. The personalities I assign them are nearly always loving, completely selfless and martyrs. I have always tried to be as giving and open as I possibly could and am very disappointed with myself when I show any kind of selfish or cruel feelings.

Conversely, the second type of doll I am attracted to are devilish and coy, promiscuous and corrupt in nature. Highly sexualized females, dark magicians, occult and heavy-metal inspired characters. ;^__^ I suppose those are the two conflicting sides of my personality manifested through characters. Anyone who thinks they learn nothing about themselves by the characters they create is just naive. I suppose it's the inability for me to be either one, much less both, of those things that makes me portray it through dolls. However, for artistic purposes, I will always love BJDs regardless. 3

BTW, Edit, Sorry for the tl;dr. T_T

 

Most of these discussion threads I just like to read but this one I'd really like to think of my own answer to.

I think for me it is more oriented for what personality traits I like but don't have, or perhaps situation. Miles is the cute, bubbly type. I'm not a optimist and Miles seems to embody those types of people I see and wish I could be like. Zane, on the other hand, is the flirty, sexy, reckless type. He is partially antithesis to me. Not that I think I'm ugly, but I don't see myself as sexy and I don't act sexy. But I am a very guarded, very "look before I leap" type of person and it's interesting to me to see into the mind (obviously how I'm picturing the mind) of someone else who has traits I lack.

But anyway, I think that is only a small part of my attraction for dolls. The majority is the fantasy aspect, of creating a different life in these two dolls. Like writing. I know in myself that I use reading stories, writing stories, and just imagining stories to keep myself both entertained and away from the real world. I don't much like the real world. But it also doesn't mean I spend all my time living in pretend fantasies. Temporary escapes keep me sane, I think. There's a balance to everything. But I think I might be getting into a separate topic now so I'll stop.

 

You people are wonders! Houdini-ziggy, where were you when I was 23? I was always looking for a friend like that! And Princess-tomato, you sound interesting enough to be well worth the scare factor. Kristalluna has been writing in the fantasy genre since she was twelve?!

This hobby attracts amazing, talented, unusual people. The dolls can't speak, but, with their amazing, beautiful, unusual faces and bodies they manifest the thoughts, feelings and dreams of so many extraordinary souls.