Do you hide your hobby from certain people?

I've been bullied for doll collecting, so I find it a bit hard to tell about it to people. I don't exactly go out of my way to hide it, I just don't bring it up in conversation if it doesn't come naturally, and I have all my doll-related social media on separate accounts, so it doesn't peek through on my normal day to day life unless you come to my house, lol.

 

I don't hide my hobby but I definitely have stop telling certain family members when I get a new one. It's always some one off comment being a grown man collecting dolls or judging me for the price.

 

I don't hide it from family, and their reactions have ranged from polite to excited. I haven't told anyone else, but I don't actually have any friends so there's no one to share it with anyway...

My BF (who I live with) makes it clear he doesn't like the style of most BJDs. That hurts sometimes, but he is supportive of the creative efforts that go into them, and he knows he has to put up with my dolls watching over our living room.

 

In my experience even some of the people who don't view doll collecting as weird in general (or can accept it as a quirk) react a bit judgemental when they learn how expensive BJDs are.
For that reason there's only one person who knows about my dolls - my mom.
And she's not exactly a fan of them either. A "waste of money" (my money, though).
I'm really not planning to tell anyone else about it at the moment.

 

I know I already posted in this thread, but I just wanted to add that as of last month I officially passed the 100-doll mark. I think hiding my hobby is a ship that has well and truly sailed...

I happen to love fantasy skintones, hooves, horns and elf ears, so that adds to the "creepy" factor for a lot of people.

The only place I have to photograph my dolls is a tiny front yard, so I do that on a regular basis - I don't care who sees me. It used to bother me to be called "weird" - but now I own it.

 

I never hide my hobby since is part of my life. I love dolls and my Instagram acc is about my dolls and my cat, I never post personal stuff about myself there since I'm not a very social media persona.

 

Yes.
I hide all "non-normal" hobbies from my colleagues and acquaintances (anything weeb-related, figures, etc). Especially in professional settings. I've had bad experiences before with people's judgement. I've already learned my lesson; I just want to blend in, go home, and enjoy my hobbies without attention. I don't want to share anything really memorable about me to colleagues, even the most bland political opinions. It almost always backfires. There's no benefits to sharing doll stuff with randos.

My best friend, partner, and family know about the doll stuff. They don't really understand at all, so it's a neutral thing. But they don't need to understand; I appreciate their support of me. I just wish I had a doll friend irl.

This is close to how I feel too.

 

I don't hide it per se, but I also don't freely offer the information. I just don't care to share personal details about myself to acquaintances or coworkers. A lot of those people are normies and don't care what a BJD is, let alone understand why we enjoy or spend so much time and money on them. I don't think it's worth the effort to explain all that when the truth is they don't genuinely care.

 

i don't necessarily hide my collection, but there are plenty of people in my life like family and such that really don't know or care what half of my hobbies are. only thing is the financial aspect for me, a lot of my peers struggle with finances in their own ways so i try to not..... flaunt? any of my expensive collections. i just don't want anyone to think they should be at a certain place financially just because i am able to buy and collect dolls

 

Dude, yes. "Normies" will automatically compare BJDs to Barbie... or say that they are creepy directly to your face. (Extremely rude to say to someone who spent $$$ + time + effort on a doll.) I showed my best friend some doll clothing I was making and she was like "why don't you make Barbie clothes instead, I bet that would sell for more because kids would buy it" I don't even want to make clothes to sell!

It reminds me how people outside of fiber arts hobbies won't realize how expensive and time consuming they are and will ask you to just make them a sweater in your free time or something These kind of experiences make me try to be considerate when talking about someone else's hobby I know nothing about with them

 

The same ! I don't hide them, but I won't intentionally talk about it with those who don't play dolls. I don't really care if my friends at school or organisation see my Facebook story or instagram and know my love for dolls. I just don't think that we should talk about every of my hobby with everyone.

 

( • ᴖ • ｡) I'm sorry they dared call your dolls creepy. I bet they'd get offended if you called their interests creepy, but you're just supposed to sit there and take it? It's so hypocritical. About the doll clothes, LOL. Yeah, I'm sure small children can appreciate the time and effort that went into making tiny clothes...right... People absolutely do not understand the time that goes into creating something from scratch and how that increases its value. But all of that is moot when you don't even want to sell the damn things! Arrgh I hope you future interacts are less frustrating for you!!

Yes! Discussing different hobbies with different people is something we all probably do without even realizing it. No everyone cares about every interest you have, and that's okay. It's always more fun to talk to someone with knowledge of a hobby anyway vs someone brand new where you're explaining it rather than discussing (imo).

 

I don't hide it from my close circle of friends (only like 3 people) because I know I can trust them to be non-judgmental, but I would definitely hide it from any new friends until we reach a certain level of closeness or I can predetermine if they're cool with dolls / niche hobbies.
I would like to someday be confident enough to just openly talk about my dolls to anyone though, as they're basically one of my top 3 main hobbies alongside art and sewing!

I feel like there's a lot of stigma around adults partaking in things that are considered childish. Some of my family tolerates it, but I know not to talk about it around them too much or else they start talking about how its childish/stupid or a waste of money.

 

No. Life is too short to let people have that much power over you and I love my dolls besides. They're therapy for me and anyone who doesn't like them doesn't need to be around me.

I've had people who don't like dolls see a post I've made online of them and pronounce them "creepy" and that just makes me laugh because I have the least creepy collection of dolls I think.

I don't often invite somebody over but the few times I have mostly the reaction to my dolls has been pretty positive for the most part.

Like me like my dolls and my cat. Can't do that then you don't really like me and we're not going to be friends.

 

I don’t hide none of my hobbies from people. To do so would make it appear as though I care about their opinion of me and I need their approval. I don’t need anyone’s approval for what makes me happy. As long as I am not doing anything vulgar or hurtful to someone its fair game for me to share my love of it.

 

Nope! If people can’t be normal about me having a fairly common hobby, that’s their problem, not mine. I don’t bring it up in every single situation, but only because it’s not always relevant.

 

I never go out of my way to bring up or talk about this hobby to anyone who isn't also already in the hobby with me. I haven't had any real awful experience, but I've spoken to people who have a genuine fear of dolls, so I'm always mindful of that. As someone with a horrific fear of my own that I am constantly dodging day to day, I don't want to accidentally trigger someone by just blabbing and sharing photos out of nowhere. xD Now...if someone else brings it up...I might say something...depending on the mood of the room, as it were.

 

It's strange to me that people think women haven't been into dolls forever. If they think dolls are a weird hobby, their eyes are closed.

Anyway, I put a photocard of Hina in the back of my phone case. She's a little obscured by the print so I need to locate a clearer phone case. It's a little hard to find them because my phone is 6 years old. I'm considering an itabag themed with my dolls next.

 

I’ll argue, it isn’t just women who can be into dolls in a “socially acceptable” way, because action figures are another flavour of doll-like toys that are heavily marketed towards men. They're certainly more recent, but multiple genders of people have been sold articulated small humans for ages.

 

I'm happily closeted and have no intention to share with anyone outside the hobby, but I often wonder if the dolls would speak for themselves. They're pretty much sculptures.