Feeling 'done' with a certain doll you have owned for a long time

I do this a lot and it often confuses friends who always go "But _____ you love!" My response is always "Yeah, but I'm done with the doll, time to sell it and move on." It's not just dolls who I have gotten recently either, it often is dolls who I have owned at least for a couple of years.

There's no real rhyme or reason to it, I just know when I am done with a doll and want other things more than keeping it around.

 

This has happened to me many times. First I really wanted just a boy and girl doll. That is all I had planned on but I found myself loving other peoples boys and not my own. After a while I found out I just do not want to collect boys I sold all mine and I collect girls only now. Now I still love other people's boys still but I just prefer girl dolls. I dont know why this is. I have also bought dolls that I liked but for some reason I just didnt care for something about them, like a body. DIM makes the prettiest molds but I hate their bodies. So I sold my two DIM girls. I could not find another body to hybrid them. And a couple dolls right out of the box I knew were leaving because they looked so different in their promo pics.

 

Hmm, I must say this hasn't happened to me yet, but then I do get very attached to things and hate losing things. I imagine I would also feel guilty about selling a doll, maybe the same way I would feel guilty about dumping someone or giving away a pet. I just feel like I promised the doll a home for life and I would be betraying it somehow by selling it. What's more, I still there's loads and loads to do with my dolls, so I've never been in the situation. Not yet anyway ^^

 

Yes this has happened to me. I sort of went out the hobby for a while, well was too busy to be active in it, and I now feel like having an overhaul. It is not because I didn't like them anymore or anything like that; it's just time for them to move on and new ones move in. I am stunned with my decision to part with my Vesuvia for example, and my El went too...along with a couple of others. It was just time for them and for me.

I cannot say I think of the dolls the same as dumping a person or a pet; they're alive and have feelings, a doll is a doll at the end of the day, however much I like them. I am umming and ahhing over my Husky but more to do with the time I dedicated to finding him than how he would 'feel' about being sold.

 

I bought a bunch of CP elves when I was first in the hobby. I thought they were fantastic and fun, but after a while, I felt that by being elves and having stylized faces they were rather limiting. I still liked them, but was over them, so they packed up their bows and arrows and left.

 

I'm going to do this soon. It's not something typical to me at all, but after a while I have come to the realization that a certain storyline isn't working very well in the scale I've put it in. I can't say I was done with either of the ones about to go, not in terms of everything to get them to exactly where I wanted them, but one I am still pretty fond of. The only doll I've sold to date was a little bit like this, although I didn't have him all that long, only for several months. In that case it felt entirely right to sell him, because he was from a storyline that I just didn't feel I was ready to start shelling.

 

Yep... That's happened to me quite a few times. My vampire elf El and elf Lishe were like that... my Hound... both of my little Doll Factory anthros... my Nanuri '07 and elf Chiwoos... I enjoyed all of them completely while I had them, and felt no regrets when I sent them off to new owners, even though I'd owned them for a number of years. I just consider that sort of thing the natural evolution of my collection.

 

Yes, this is my case exactly right now. I bought my first doll two years ago. I loved him, posed him on my bookshelf, customized his eyes and wig and clothes... and then he wasn't working out. I tried re customizing him, but nothing helped. I knew that the doll was no longer inspiring or comforting me. He just wasn't a right fit for me. And, I realized the only reason I was holding onto him was because he was my first. But after I realized he'd be more loved elsewhere, I decided to let him go. I think it's only fair-- I sometimes feel as if the dolls have souls, so at first I felt like I was betraying him... but I realized I'd be betraying him more by keeping him in his carrying bag and never using him than selling him.

I think it's normal for this to happen, but I don't think it will happen to everyone. ^_^

 

Yes, actually. I'm passing along some dolls now all of whom I've had for at least two years. There were a couple that just never did seem to fit in, but several others that certainly had definite places here and who I felt an attachment to at one point. I think it's just one of those things that happens -- this time round I felt like I needed to make space so I could go in some other directions, and I had a few characters that I just felt like I couldn't go anywhere else with them and it was time to let them go and move on. I'm still not entirely done refining my group, as there are a few others that I'm up in the air about right now. It was difficult to make the decision to overhaul my doll family, but it was absolutely the right thing for me to do, and I expect that it will continue to happen periodically.

Nobody has given my any grief over it -- there is one friend that I think may have some trouble with some of the changes I've made, but since she lives out of state she doesn't know about it yet as I haven't exactly gotten into it over the phone

 

I haven't owned dolls long enough for this, but I've certainly had it happen with other hobbies and I'm sure it will happen with my dolls as well. I tend to sell collectibles when I no longer feel any kind of distress at the thought of no longer having them - when I still think that it's pretty, but it's missing the sense of attachment that I once felt for it

 

I actually don't think I would do this, even if I felt like I was "over" a doll. Part of it is because I'm horribly sentemental and a packrat who doesn't get rid of anything I feel like I might use again someday. But also because, well it's kind of hard to explain, but my likes tend to be cyclical. Like I'll be into an anime show for a while, then I'll get into a comic book series, then I'll look at doll stuff all the time, then a manga, and then I'll get back into the anime show and the comic books again. So even if I don't like the doll right now, I might fall back in love with it again later. I do this with my stories too, and if a doll wasn't working out for a particular character I'd probably just find or make up another character they could be.

But that's how I work. I don't think it's wrong to sell dolls that don't work with you anymore, because there could be someone who would really like that doll and play with them a lot.

 

Ive never done this with a doll that I was very attached to but often times I do have certain dolls that I just dont mesh with and it feels right for them to find a new home. The ones I do have though I feel too guilty to sell, It would be nice to think he will be more loved somewhere else but I think we are just kidding ourselves. We try to imagine they will go to better homes and be loved but I think the reality is they could just as easily be tossed around, broken, neglected, and basically thrown away. Just like when people who give up animals to the shelter hoping they will have a better family with better resources, when truly the animal is euthanized a few days later. Its an extreme example, but I get pretty attached to my dolls. I just imagine them laying broken on a dusty attic floor somewhere with that "why..?" look in their eyes (if they still have any)

 

I guess "No". Not the way you describe. I sell dolls to buy ones I like more. I don't always want to. But I have to finance other things. The only doll I hung onto for years was my Sard. And in that case I came to hate him more and more through various adventures. I loved him at first but not enough apparently.

 

I'm experiencing this very process right now, though it's been yielding surprising results. I've had a certain male character since around 2004, and it went through a series of head and body changes until 2007. Now that I've had this particular head for almost 4 years, I'm feeling really "done" with it and with the character.

But...I can't let go of the head, because I still do like it very much from an artistic perspective, and the circumstances on how I won it on Y!J have a lot of sentimental value. If it weren't for that, I would've sold it. So recently I started dressing it up as a girl instead...it's like getting a new doll all over again, lol.

I've had this happen to other dolls before, but in all other instances I just sold them. I guess there's just a limit, where I no longer feel stimulated or challenged by a certain mold or a certain character.

 

^Definitely for me! I'll get into a TV show for a long time, then suddenly find myself into a different show. I'll want to read a certain book, but midway through it, I'll read another book and finish it before I ever get back to the other one. So, I don't think this will happen to me, either. If anything like that does happen, I still think there will be a time where I eventually go back to it.

 

I've never experienced this myself, but many of my friends have. And it makes perfect sense to my brain. When you're done, you're done, so you break up and you both move on to other adventures (just like with humans).

I just can't get my heart to agree with my brain-- I'm one of those who never ever throws anything away. I am 69 inches of Chronic Sentimental Twattery from head to toe. ^^ I can't imagine selling any of my dolls, even though I know I may have to someday. Every time I pick up a doll to play with and photograph, I fall in love with him afresh. Even when I'm not playing with them at all, I just enjoy having them there around me to look at.

But I bought every one of these guys for True Love, anyway. They all seem comfy with the long haul. My first, Rowan [Volks Arashi] will be 6 years old this fall. :>

 

I've felt something sorta similar to this but not quite. I've had my first and only doll for... about 3 years now? It's not that I don't love him or that I'm bored with him at all, but more that he has a huge box of clothes and I've taken all the pictures I can think of in my current surroundings. I still love him to death and could never part with him, but these days he gets played with less and less. But I'm about to get 2 new dolls and I think that'll end my slump with Tovarious. I'll have 2 new characters for him to interact with. I can make real photo stories (kinda limited with just one doll) and take a whole mess of new pictures. I'm really looking forward to my new boys so that I can further strengthen my bond with Tovi.

 

This has just happened to me...today in fact! My collecting phase with this hobby is finally winding down (as I always knew it would.) I really never wanted a huge collection, and actively hunting new resin for the rest of my days never held any romantic draw for me either. Instead, I always dreamed of a day when it would come down to the final refining of my crew, and then happily spoiling them and actively enjoying them and this hobby for years to come. But now that I'm actually there, one doll (oddly once my "grail" doll) has lost her luster for me. I've had her for 2 and a half years and I spent an entire month perfecting her faceup and body painting. She was truly a work of art...and therein lies the rub: for me, she's more a doll to display than to play with. And I finally had to face the fact that that's just not how I collect. I need to dress them, change their wigs, move them around and interact with them constantly...but I wasn't doing that at all with this doll. She just sat in her display looking beautiful. Selling her was not a problem because I had a ready, eager buyer who had often jokingly threatened me with bodily harm over the years if I ever decided to sell her without letting them know. Once I made the decision, the deal was instantaneous, and I shipped her out first thing this morning. And when I finally reached for that box to take it into the post office this morning, surprisingly all I felt was relief. It truly was time for both of us to move on.