Have you ever accidentally influenced someone into the BJD Hobby but..

I have a friend, I met her through an online game, and admittedly I have only known her for about 5-6 months.

She's a real sweetheart, quite a bit older then myself, who is going through a divorce and finally going back to art school.

I used to share Yli with her all the time, and she loves the dolls... But she does not have a lot of money, even a 60$ doll was too much for her. But it wasn't for me! I am currently in the process of buying and setting a doll up for her...

But she seemed less then enthusiastic about it today when I told her I'd actually set the date for purchasing said doll. I am really confused, I know she'd love it, take good care of it.. But I still worry perhaps she really just doesn't want one. It worries me.

I think in the end I am really overthinking it, and as she said, Monday classes were hard and she was exhausted.

I hope this ends up being a gift she will be really happy with, and that she doesnt freak when I ask her for her RL mailing address!

 

YES!
I have a friend who's little sister thinks everything I do is the next best thing to sliced cheese and wants to copy my every move.
Her mother buys her whatever she wants, and the kid will lose interest in things within months.
It would sicken me to see her get a doll, have it for 3 weeks and then have it tossed in a closet or under a dusty couch because she doesn't care.
(non-bjd example - She got into collector MLPs after I did, so I went to a convention and brought her back a $150 convention exclusive pony. She loses it in 2 weeks and where do I find it? Under their couch! Where I also found about 10 other ponies that had just been forgotten. so yeah, not really wanting her to get a $500 bjd.)

 

They did that on purpose? The mind boggles. I wish I had money to burn

You can't tell someone not to buy something, but you can definitely tell someone that a certain hobby is not for them. It's easy to make BJD sound pretty bad if you bring up the money issues, the maintenance issues, finding the right eyes, wigs falling off, fingers breaking off... A friend who I know would love dolls (and would treat them well, incidentally) was put off them by the price. She was horrified that I spent $600 on a doll, and has been horrified in the past when I spent $60 on a pair of limited Converse trainers (which seemed fairly reasonable a price to me)

If you have a 'five-minute-wonder' friend, who doesn't stick with hobbies well, you don't have to show them your doll either. It would be nice to have more RL friends into the hobby, but I wouldn't just do it to have company. I'd feel a sense of responsibility for being there when the friend bought the doll and I'd feel like if he/she mistreated the doll I would have to step in, and I don't want that kind of responsibility.

 

Ive been into BJD's for about 4 years now and the passion tends to peak and fade with me but the love for my boys never goes.

Recently ive been looking at unoas and my boyfriend has fell in love with them! he wants a be-el as well as an SD. i know he'd love them as hes a mad geek/collector maniac like me ^_^
Its great to have him understand my love and even offer to help pay for my new unoa lusis!

I was a skeptic myself at first though and couldnt believe hop much my friends in university were paying for DOLLS! but then i saw a petit ai raphael on the custom house site and fell in love! she was a limited and ive never gotten her but i'll never forget that little girl either.

xxx

 

YES. this is happening to me now. i have given my friend all the info, helped her pick the right doll, told her all the info and she still wants one, but i know (because i have known her for just over 16 years now) that the doll will just sit on her shelf, or she will get bored with it and it will end up under her bed in a box, the same as all her other belongings.

i won't stop her though. maybe i can persuade her to get more into it and perhaps get her to not treat her doll like a priceless heirloom and take him out for photoshoots. that's gonna be hard though considering she wouldnt even bring her £20-a-piece living dead dolls to the cemetery on a dry sunny day for a photoshoot

 

Just tell her you're going to be a hands-on aunty and take your niece/nephew for days out if she won't

 

My friend appeared kinda interested in my pullips and even got me to show her 'round my favourite dolly websites - she even started an airdry clay BJD head (just a head... she was gonna make it a cloth body) but she abandoned that and now has no more interest :S But I kinda like it to be just me!

 

This is a good point. For those of you who said "yeah but the person will just forget about it/leave it somewhere", what about offering to find the doll a new home?

 

Sorry if this is a bit out of topic~!

But, yeah I'm kind of in the situation where I have this friend I introduced to dollies and now she wants a Delf El, but the thing is that she would not take care of him at all!! She's the type of person to leave everything on the ground, she's lazy and quite irresponsible (I was forced to live with her for the summer )And if she breaks something, she doesn't care! Like one time my PS2 was on the ground, (covered by her clothes cause she tends to throw everything EVERYWHERE>D) and she stepped on my PS2! Well kinda jumped on it and it broke! ;_____; Now, imagine if she had a dolly! She's be interested but quickly lose interest.....

 

Did she offer to pay for the damage to your property? You can't do anything if it's her property she is mistreating, but you have a right to be recompensed if it is your own!

I've been thinking that if these irresponsible people *did* buy dolls and ruin them, there isn't always a hopeless ending. There are many talented people here looking for the challenge of bringing a doll back to life. So even if a doll had a miserable existance to begin with, it doesn't always have to be that way.

 

Almost... lol

I was at a spouse meet and had brought Alice to show my friend, another spouse.
And one of the other spouses took an interest and said she thought her daughter might love to have one since she was growing out of Barbie... And then asked how much they cost and where you get them...

Needless to say, that line of thought died fast.

 

I've had numerous friends that have seen pictures of my dolls, both long distance and close to home, and a couple of them I was really hoping they would not get into the dolls cause they just would not stick it out or care for them. Another few actually have collected dolls and I knew they would care for them, but it's those doll collector friends that spaz out over the price more.

So none of my friends have bought a doll as a direct result of me to date, but I have enough friends within the hobby to keep me happy since a fair few live pretty close by

 

I have influenced someone who really doesn't care. And it's very frustrating...

While I was in the area, this guy I know and I went to a Volks store. He saw an F-01 and said he wanted her because her hair and clothes were pretty. I tried to explain to him about different head molds but he refused to listen to any of it. He went to go pick her up and I asked him what he was doing. He said he was taking her to the counter to pay for her. I told him that she was a display model only and all the signs said not to touch them because they aren't for sale. After he found out about having to wait two months for the doll he stared to throw a fit. It was like talking to a three-year-old.

He still talks about getting one. He still refuses to listen when I tell him about the basics, and I mean the very basics like the fact that you can change their eyes and wigs. No matter how many times I give him information he still thinks of them like over sized barbies.
It's gotten to the point where I can't stand talking to him about BJDs.

 

Kinda, my best friends fiancee wants one for her 9 year old daughter. Her daughter is great with my dolls but her mum is always telling her off for holding them saying they aren't toys and that they are expensive. What's the point in getting her one if you're gonna yell at her for holding it??

 

I asked her to pay for it but she refused and said it was my fault for having it on the floor, and at the time I agreed, but almost everyoe puts their game consoles on the floor.... so I dropped it altogether. But what you say is true, I congratulate the people that can do that! =D

 

I brought my boy Takanori to school once so a friend of mine(who also owns and loves BJDs) could meet him, and a couple of people I know suddenly decided they wanted pretty dolls too, but it seemed like they only wanted one because I had one. Kinda like a fashion trend or a "stealing my thunder" thing.
What bothered me is that I know that they would take them for granted and I didn't think they were even going to actually manage to get one. They picked the dolls they wanted and even had thought of how to get them. But after not mentioning Takanori for a whileor bringing him to school they completely forgot all about dolls.

 

Yes, do plan on it! I just bought a Puki Puki...and I'm already eyeing another one...

As for influencing people - my mother is into the Tonner doll world, but she just bought one of the American BJD's from DenverDoll...and she's asking me all sorts of questions about how to change wigs and eyes and everything. It's only a matter of time before she gets a resin ABJD...I just know it!

La

 

My best friend bought 2 dolls because of my interest in it. 2 Soom dolls, at once. And the moment I heard that I knew one day they would be in my house. She never took one out of the box except to try to mod the nose, and the other just sat on her desk. She never even named them. Though it took awhile, they did make it to me. One boy has been traded and the other is on layaway.

 

well I got influenced into the hobby by a dear friend -coughAllycat_81cough- but she made sure I knew alot of the detail including,price the care they require, what not to do and after all that I wasn't put off. However one of my friends has a tendency to jump on the bandwagon and although I've tried to tell her the facts and she sometimes responds with 'well thats silly'(for example ' don't touch their face to much') and she lives in a pretty artsy house hold where I can imagine the doll getting easily damaged.(6 cats,younger siblings, constant stream of mayhem, etc). Although I would love for her to be committed to the hobby,I can't help but doubt how committed she is as it stands. So I've tried to inform her and now thats all I can do and hope she makes an informed decision and commits to caring for it. ( I really do love this friend a bunch incase it didn't show, I just know she can't afford to waste money)

 

Actually, if my boyfriend really do that(buy the doll), I will try to buy the doll that both of us like it. So when he lost the interest, you can have his doll.
My friends all stop when they heard the price of the doll, so I know they will not spent any money on the doll.
One of my friend just visit my doll when she comes to my house.