Unconditional love or Actual possessiveness?

I can relate to what Yuki is saying. When you are a child, your toys bring you much happiness and comfort, and in turn you do what you can to make sure your precious dollies and teddy bears are "happy". At least that's what I did growing up. I would rotate my stuffed animals every night to make sure everyone got a chance to sleep and cuddle with me, I made sure they were covered with a blanket so they wouldn't get cold, etc. Dolls are more than, say, car toys, because they are made to resemble human being and convey certain emotions through their faces and eyes. So, yes, you can certainly love a doll like you love a pet. It's not like loving another human being, but I wouldn't say dolls are just "things" like clothing, shoes, and so forth. How can you put something that looks human and resembles people you know and love in real life in the same category as material things that can easily be replaced and hold no sentimental value?

 

To me, my girls are extensions of myself. Just like a composer or any other artist, my dolls are the product of my imagination and something even deeper than what can be put on paper. The feeling I have for my dolls could be described as love, but I consider it to be the same sort of love that a creator has for his or her creation. It's a feeling that only I can tap into. I know my girls and I love them, just as a poet can thrill over a passage he has written or a composer can summon to mind his favorite sequence of notes. They are the embodiment of my favorite self, my deepest self, my ideal self, and I transcribe that through stories and personality traits particular to each doll.

My relationship with my girls is very philosophical. I love my dolls because they are constant. They are a stamp of who I am at this moment in time. Who they are is what brings me comfort and amusement in myself, and I like for them to manifest it even when I'm feeling low. I like to foster them with memories and happy associations. Not to mention that I love to play with them for hours and dress them up and customize them. I am a collector and I invest a lot of emotion in everything I do; my dollies are the perfect outlet. I can feel what they feel, even if it is imaginary. Or perhaps because it's imaginary.

If this makes any sense at all.

My love isn't conditional, but it isn't unconditional either. It's a love that wouldn't die, certainly, but it isn't like the love I would share with another person. Hence the word share: my dolls cannot return the love that I have for them. It's an affection or a fondness that I would be happy to maintain forever even if I no longer had my girls with me; I would have the memories of the great fun and pleasure that they gave me, as I do for what gave me happiness in my childhood, for example.

So, in other words: my love is possessive, if I am allowed to bend the rules a little and call it love at all.

 

Recently I was talking to my mom about the dolls, and she said she was creeped out with how my roommate treated her doll. (I guess as if they were like children instead of dolls...?) I wasn't sure how to respond to her, since my behaviour around the dolls tends to vary depending on my own feelings. I get this reassuring kind of feeling when I look at my dolls, and while they're not my kids, they (and my pets) are like easy replacements for kids, I guess xD I really don't want to be a mom but I like mothering things, and caring for pets and dolls make me feel happy and motherly.

On the other hand, dolls are possessions and I don't freak out if something happens to them (ie. knocking one off a table >_>) like they were a person getting hurt, but rather an expensive doll I'd rather not fix or replace. I feel accomplished when they turn out the way I wanted them to, but... I know they're not alive. Even if they do sometimes have their own personalities in my head, :/ It's a very weird balance that non-doll owners can't understand, I think.

 

I personally think that a doll is a doll, but me on the other hand i get used to non living objects and add santimental value to them so that would be a bit of a problem.

 

I realize and clearly know they're dolls and will always be dolls.
Of course I'll be really sad if anything bad happens to them.
But I'm actually quite possessive towards my things. Haha...

 

for my older dolls they have reached a 'privileged status' of unconditional love. But i suppose with all humans love is never totally selfless, they bring my joy and pride. So i buy them things for them, but that's also for myself.

 

I feel like, if something has a face, I get attached to it. If I buy a doll and then don't like it, I can't sell it, I just cant. I don't always look at my dolls as just things with looks. I have the ugliest doll who was my first and his faceup is atrocious and his face is destroyed and I could never part with that doll. I would feel guilty. I look at my dolls and refer to them as "my babies" so often that I don't even need to specify that I'm talking about my dolls. Sometimes I feel like it's unhealthy to think that way because they really are just pieces of resin but in another way I love that I think that way because I always have something that makes me happy, and I feel like I still have the imagination of a child to see personality in these dolls, even after I've taken them apart and confirmed that these are indeed objects. I never really had friends until about 2 years ago, and I suffer from PTSD from bullying problems, and when I got into dolls was basically right in the middle of those problems happening. I ordered my second doll when I had to move school districts, and I hadn't been happy for a long time until I got that doll. They also remind me of my friends I have now and distract me from flashbacks and the like because my friends absolutely love my dolls, and I know all their favorites, and I have wonderful memories of box openings of them and taking pictures of them together and long, long skype chats where we argue over who has the best booty out of all of them. My love is unconditional for my dolls and I could never part with them, and even I find it strange but I feel like their little glass eyes have seen me suffer more than anyone else. I know they're just objects and they can't really see, but all my dolls are such a part of me.

 

I try and keep thinking of them as dolls. But I do feel like there's something more sometimes, even though I know it's not true. I have this idea that I will make a good home for them--love them and care for them and not mod them or sell them or mess up their faceups!

But that's just silly. I mean, I WILL treat them well, as I understand it, but my "well" is not everyone's "well" and really, the dolls Don't Care! They are dolls. If someone wants to enjoy them by modding them to bits, that's just how it is, and it's a valid reason as any to have a doll... I have to keep reminding myself that that is the way it should be!

I do NOT get dolls for company. I don't cuddle them. I don't think they need that (in fact, to me, it's doll abuse, since it can wear on their faceups and clothes and wigs--but that's just me!).

I DO enjoy the possessiveness of it all. I like having them. I enjoy looking at them and dressing them and swapping out eyes and getting them different outfits and taking photos and bringing them to events. It's FUN.

So, it's BOTH to me--I love them (even though I know they are only dolls and don't feel love), and I enjoy owning dolls. I would want to give them good homes if I could no longer care for them. I try not to anthropomorphize them too much, but it's difficult, because I do love them. I'm not all that possessive of them, even if I really love owning them. I don't like selling dolls. But if I had to, I would--but they would need to go to a good home.

 

It's difficult to say for sure when it comes to other people since it's obvious just from this topic that people react differently to their dolls.
On the surface I understand entirely that my dolls are in fact that: dolls.
However, these dolls are based off of characters of mine, and that gives them much more value to me than some stuffed toy. I do catch myself talking to my dolls once in a while (understanding that they can't actually talk back and no I do not hear them talking either lol), and I do get attached to them because these characters are an extension of myself. It just feels right to be able to have a model replica, almost real in appearances, to my own personal creations.

 

It is great to see there are many kind of relationships between dolls and owners
I personally consider them as toys, I do love them, I would be upset if someone broke them or took them away from me.
But I do not consider them like people or my own children or whatever. But I do cuddle them because resin is sweet *^*