"Its a doll, its not a real person."

I see my boy more like a real person rather than a doll. c:
I talk to him quite often and I feel rather protective sometimes; like a mother. Call me crazy, but I even covered his eyes during some of the more intense scenes of Schindler's List while we watched it a few weeks ago. xD

I find the hobby is a lot more fun that way. c: Instead of just leaving him on a shelf to collect dust, it's fun to bring him around with me and talk to him and just have him for company while I'm doing homework or gaming.

 

I get that "They're dolls, not living things" from my boyfriend last time when I told him Nesyne bit my finger when I was posing her. I do get a bit upset but I understand it. I closed up myself often and he was worried that the reason I got myself dolls is because I could interact with them and replace the people in outside world. He tried really hard to open me up so he kinda got over protective on it. Still, he understands that I'm fond of dolls and he accepted me as who I am. He is fine when I'm playing with or posing my dolls or even bringing them out to meet my friends (My friends enjoy taking picture of them) but he will be a bit frustrated when I start to go "I think Lusyne is upset cause I didn't take him out". He'll remind me that I'm treating them as a real person again.

As for my friends, they're totally fine with the dolls. In fact, there are some who knows/remember the doll names and the company manufactured. None of them mind when I call my dolls by name or refer them as he/she. Is much easier for them to pinpoint which dolls I'm talking about. A good example is when I bring Nesyne out to the mall. We heard something drop on the floor, the first thing that comes to our mind was "Nesyne's item fell?!" and we went a bit panic and search around the floor. It ended up as a random button which doesn't belong to any of us. As we continued walking around the mall, my friend laughed and said "Oh dear, I couldn't believe we put Nesyne's priority over us. All we could think is her stuff and not us. Ahaha."

 

I've heard the "it's just a doll" line before, and how it's said determines how I react. If it's spoken with scorn, disdain, or in an "I don't care" attitude then it really flies all over me and I get cross with the person who said it. I always think, "Yeah it IS just a doll but it's MY doll and I love it! How would you feel if I said that about something YOU enjoy?" It annoys me.

On the other hand, I accept that a lot of folks don't care for dolls. In that case I just refer to my dolls casually (or avoid the subject altogether) and focus on something else. So it can go either way. One thing to keep in mind is that most of the folks who matter to you will at least try to accept your hobby (they may not like it, but they still accept it). And those who don't matter to you? HANG 'EM!!! If they don't matter, then neither do their opinions.

 

I've read thru several threads similiar to this & tried to figure out why it bugs me when people say 'it's just a doll'.
I believe it has to do w/symbolism. My dolls are physical embodiments of my characters - which ARE real in that way characters have of taking on a life of their own (think how Conan Doyle couldn't kill off Sherlock before reacting in scorn).
I have my Voudon priestess doll - a blessed object given to my mother 75 years ago. I have my mother's baby doll & a porcelain doll my grandmother cherished until she died. I have my own Baby Kathy (Madam Alexander). These dolls aren't my characters but they certainly have a lot of memories, energy, history embedded in them.
So most often saying 'just' a doll is HIGHLY inappropriate, as well as offensive.

 

Non doll people will never understand what doll people know firsthand. That's just the way it is. They can't see why someone would personify an inanimate object but it comes to us naturally.
You can't expect them to readily accept it but I would hope they'd at least have some consideration.

 

How many of you see your dolls as real people? And treat them as such and have feelings for them as such? Empathy, Love, etc.

Well, you know, I try to never lose sight of the fact that my dolls are nothing more or less than physical representations of characters I have created. I care deeply for the characters, even though they're not separate people from me, but the dolls themselves are just shells. Miyae, my oldest character by far, has been reshelled so many times I have literally lost count. Ashe, Megumi and Chaeri have all be reshelled as well. Only Belle Fontaine has never been changed from her origins (she's going on 4 years now).

Having said that, I do treat my dolls, especially Chaeri, with love and respect. I hold Chaeri, I talk to her, I sit her on my knee or on the couch arm beside me or in her own little chair by my place at the table. I talk to her (in my head if other people are around, aloud if we're alone). I pet her hair and kiss the top of her head and tell her how beautiful she is. I love all my dolls very much, and although Chaeri is my current favorite (going on two years now), each of them spends time as the "favored one" who gets carried about and petted and praised. I've taken all the girls to work with me and I even took Miyae to New Orleans with me when I went to Mardi Gras there.

Have any of you had a situation like this where your ideals were shot down or objected?

All. The. Time. My roommates and lifemate are completely not doll people (though I'm trying to convert my best friend even as we speak). One can at least admire my sewing and hairstyling/wigmaking skills, but the other two just kind of shrug and go "Eh, it's a doll, whatever."

How did you react?

I have long since learned not to talk out loud to Chaeri or any of my dolls when anybody else is around. When I bring her into the living room to watch a movie or sit with me while we're playing one of our tabletop RPGs, the rest of the group just pretend she isn't there. I talk inside my head to her while we're around everybody else, and everybody's happy.

 

How many of you see your dolls as real people? And treat them as such and have feelings for them as such? Empathy, Love, etc.

Um. No. Never. They are possessions. Dearly treasured possessions, but they're just dolls in the end.

Have any of you had a situation like this where your ideals were shot down or objected?
How did you react?

I'm generally ok if people want to treat their dolls like real people, because I love the roleplaying aspect of this hobby too. I just get a little weirded out when I find out that people really believe that their dolls are real people. ._. And raging mad when they put down other doll owners based on their beliefs. It's one thing to treat your dolls like real people, it's another thing to bitch about owners not showing 'respect' to their 'kids' because you think that dolls should be treated like real people. O_o This actually happened recently. /facepalm.

 

Okay, I love my dolls and I love playing with them, and they are special possessions to me. But they are dolls. If someone said to me, "Your dolls are just dolls," I would say, "Yes, indeed, congrats on your firm grasp on reality." I really do fail to see how this is insulting. If the person is honestly trying to belittle you by pointing out that your interest is stupid, then yes, I would be insulted. But the "it's just a doll" phrase is just one possible phrase a person could try to use to belittle your hobby, and honestly, it's a pretty mild one.

Bottom line, what should be making you mad in this scenario is the other person's disdain of your interest, not the actual line they used to express it. I don't agree with putting down someone's hobby, but I don't see how this one way of being belittled is different/worse than any other possible put down? Maybe I'm missing something, it's totally possible

 

My vocabulary and language is COMPLETELY different between talking to doll people versus non doll people. I'll use "it" with non-doll people, they are "just dolls" with no characters (just names and styles). It might be kinda lying, I don't know, but I have a lot of people in my family who would like to report me to a hospital as crazy if I was all "Layla doesn't like skirts, sometimes she takes them off." and stuff like that, no joke.

And, honestly, for the first month or so of being in the hobby, I believed that they were just dolls, and I called all dolls "it" and mine didn't have a character and everything along those lines. But the way people talk in these forums, it grew on me. I started talking like they're real people, just like many folks here, just because "thats the way some people talk about dolls". Man, I'm impressionable.

 

Of course my dolls aren't real people, of course they're not alive. I have no problem with people stating the obvious. But they're still special to me.
What I don't like are people comparing them to toddler toys or the like. Calling them my marionettes or puppets or dollies. I know that's what they are. But that's something that for some reason can offend me. If that makes any sense.

 

Perhaps those who insist on the 'just' in the phrase 'just a doll' might define what the word 'just' means to them. I think that word is the crux of the problem. Saying 'its a doll' does not carry the same connotations (obviously we ARE dealing w/dolls & not people, or living breathing entities)

 

To me, they are just dolls. In the end they are made of resin, not flesh and blood. These are not living breathing things with conscious thought patterns. I think it's rather strange to get offended or even angry over something like this. If it were a human child I could understand, but never with a doll or any other inanimate object. I say this as a doll person.

 

I don't see my dolls as real people, and I don't believe they feel anything. However, I talk to them and about them as if they are real at times, though mostly in a joking way. I have actually found my non-BJD friends and family talk about my dolls more like they are living. My mother doesn't like me to leave them unclothed, my grandmother dislikes me refering to them as "it", and one of my best friends refers to seeing my new dolls as "meeting" them.

There's a lot in this thread, so I did not read it all. However, Kim said something I agreed with on the first page. You cannot expect everyone to go along with acting like your cold human-shaped hunk of resin is a living being with feelings.
I have complex, original characters for my dolls, I roleplay those characters, I have made up a mythology for some of my non-human dolls (of races I made up), and I am in the process of developing a language for some of them. I faceup (and mod if they need it) all my dolls myself to look like characters of my own, most of which I have been developing for years. They all have personalities, and sometimes it does seem like their thoughts and feelings are separate from my own and happen without my thought process, but in the end, it's all my imagination.

Personally, I try to be nice to people, and at a doll meet, I feel, whether someone really believes their doll is alive or is just having some fun, they should be allowed to play like their doll is an actual being, and I won't burst their bubble. However, non-doll people in everyday situations cannot be expected to act like dolls, possibly things they don't even like, are alive just because you want to act like they are.

 

Oh, my dolls are 'just' dolls, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be treated as gently as possible. I'm like that with all my posessions - and these particular ones look like characters that mean a lot to me! I'll refer to my dolls as 'he' and 'she' and 'my boy' and 'my girl'. But they are definitely inanimate, and as such, they need less care and consideration than, say, my cat, who needs affection and tender treatment much more than the dolls do .

I'm the kind of person who gets upset when she accidentally breaks a shoot off an orchid - makes me feel like a brute. So my dolls may be dolls, but I'll still insist on treating them gently and with respect. I feel sad if someone derides my dolls, but the fact that my BMF thinks they are creepy, won't stop me from still considering him my BMF...

 

I decided to read through the thread after all and felt the need to respond to this I'm a "vulcan" Aspergian. When I was a toddler, I was very aware of the fact that my toys were not alive and upset other children by reminding them that theirs were not either. Only as I have gotten older have I started to attach myself to anything, living or otherwise. Even now, I do not feel comfort or security because of my dolls or any other non-living thing with the exception of the lock on my front door. ...I don't have that child-like charm.

That said, Belladriel brings up an interesting topic. Attachment to non-living things and treating those things like people is more common in people on the autism spectrum than in the general population, and because of my experience with other people on the spectrum and my experience of being a "jerk" when I was little, I try to be sensitive to other people's feelings about their dolls even if I disagree with them.
That was slightly off topic, but I wanted to at least note that there is variety in the way we, "Aspies" think and feel about this subject.

 

I was back at my parent's house for the holidays and came back just yesterday. In the bus, I kind of mentioned to my friend that I had Yuli with me and asked 'You took her along?' and I'm like 'Yea, of course. Why would I leave her alone on xmas?' and she went all like 'What? She'd feel lonely?' all jokingly and in a 'nice joke' kind of way.
I don't really consider my doll as a person per-se, but not a doll either /: So yea, it was kinda annoying ^ ^;;

 

I talk about my dolls as a "he" and "she" and call them "my girl" and "my boy" but I tend to avoid calling them by name, that only ever comes up in story. But that's partially because they're names are almost constantly pending. I do love them though, as they were people and when playing with them I talk to them like they're people, only simple things like, "Come on, you can work with me a little!" or "Stop being so stubborn!" when posing or little comments like that.

The first time I learned that I really loved them was in a random petty argument (I can't even remember what about ) with my boyfriend one time and he said something careless like, "Oh why don't you just sell your dolls since they're just dolls." and I burst into tears and it surprised both of us how much that hurt so he instantly apologized and later apologized to my dolls .

Now that I'm actually thinking about it I talk about them more like people than I thought. Haha. When I was talking to my boss once about how my boy was away for faceup she thought I meant my boyfriend because of how I was talking about him.

But overall it doesn't bother me too much when people say it because I'll usually say something like, "Well I know that! But you can pretend right?" or just, "Where's your sense of imagination?". It kind of makes people feel like they're no longer looking down on you but the roles are reversed, and they tend to loosen up a bit after that. I guess I got used to it since I kind of act like that to everything. *pats laptop* Good laptop.

 

How many of you see your dolls as real people? And treat them as such and have feelings for them as such? Empathy, Love, etc.

well..I call them by their names and if I planned for a photo-shoot and they don't seem to want to pose for it I'd be like "come on~~ It's just for a few minutes!" or "why are you so stubborn!?" although I know that they can't reply...I rp some of my doll characters before I get them so....technically I can't help but see them as real people although I don't hold conversations with them like they are one? .w. although like Lana Gambino I kinda talk to mostly everything like "Darnit laptop!! Why won't you work!?" and such.

Have any of you had a situation like this where your ideals were shot down or objected?

YES!!! Its more like when I was in my gran's house and was fiddling with one of my doll (he was on a new body and I was so excited to play with him just to test his posing) my uncle came up to me and called me a psycho. I'm not sure why, perhaps its because I own a doll (I wasn't talking to him so...)?

How did you react?

I got really pissed off and just glared at him, picked my doll up and went into another room. Seriously, there would be people like that who don't understand so I'd just let it roll off my back. (It's my hobby they can't do nothing about that) I did however whined about it to my mom and other more understanding relatives and they just told me to ignore it so I did.

 

I don't think they're just dolls, they aren't real people, they're a hobby we enjoy and like. I'm new to the hobby, it'll be a year soon. I own two dolls, a Doll-Love Lincy(Ayane) and a doll on the way, Doll-Zone Shuang Er.

But anyway,
There are days where I really like taking pictures of Ayane and write statuses on Facebook about how cute she is when I take photos of her. then I get comments like, "She's just a f**king doll, stop posting pictures, nobody likes them" comments like that bother me. Or sometimes when I walk around the city with my doll, people will come up to me and be like, "So why do you carry around a barbie?" I usually get those comments from the imigrant community.

It bothers me when people ask me things like this because I never know what to say and I'm blunt enough to make someone cry and I don't like hurting people.

On the other hand, my parents like my doll(s) of course they think they're expensive but I always bring up "Hard work pays off" and it does. I worked hard to get my dolls and I'd appreciate people accepting my hobby. My mom will usually bring up a conversation about my doll, usually asking what color of eyes I put in Ayane, what clothes she's wearing, etc. I think that if my parents didn't accept my hobby that I would cry. I'm pretty sensitive, especially when my parents say things.

 

Ooohhh. Okay, I've been into dolls (paper, American Girl, barbies... Ya know, DOLLS) as long as I can remember, so my my Dollfie Dream, Hakumei, is very close to my heart.So my mom was getting her hair cut by our hair dresser, and she brought up my Hakumei. Apparently he got excited, and she showed him pics on her phone, so he asked me to come down. He collects like Tonner dolls and has this Edward Scissorhands around his work area. I brought Haku down, and he was like "OH MY GOSH THAT GIRL IS MAD CREEPY! If I had her she'd be behind glass. GLASS I TELL YOU!" I. could. NEVER. put her behind GLASS. HOW WOULD SHE BREATHE?!
I was like "Ohhhh." but secretly thought "I'mma gonna let my hair grow out. >_>"