What does it mean for you to "bond" with your dolls?

For me it means just being able to stare at them for ages and really enjoy looking at them from different angles, being inspired to draw them, photograph them and also the compulsion to make clothes for them, have them sat around... If they dont get to that stage with me they usually have to go. Usually it happens very quickly.

 

"Bonding" for me is when I look at my doll and get this sense that I made the right choice, and that I can see myself keeping it into the future. I occasionally have a hard time when the doll is not customized in the way I meant for it yet, but when it is, I definitely feel overwhelmed with admiration. I had to give away an event head that I could not bond with because I couldn't see it getting any priority; I wasn't moved to do things with it or for it. So it had to go. I know I've bonded with a doll when I've become inspired by it.

 

I connect with mine through photography. I get to know them through posing and seeing how different angles effect expressions. You see how they react to poses and it kinda establishes their personality when they fall into a pose (or even refuse a certain pose)

 

The bond is really special... really hard to explain too. It's like, when you hold your doll or look at it and feel so happy or proud that you got to own it... yeah haha that's how I feel

 

Bonding is sort of a vague idea for me. I have to have a doll for quite a while and then realize that she's just sitting there, without any attention or new clothes, before I realize I haven't connected with the doll enough to do much with it. When I first got into the hobby I bought a lot of smaller dolls before realizing that I preferred MSD's and SD's, and when I realized that the little ones weren't getting any attention I re-homed them. I have a set of Yo size twins that I just love but still don't get much attention -- they aren't going anywhere! Maybe it's time for some new outfits!

 

I guess for me it means to get attached to them. The first night i had my doll (about a month ago) i set her next to my bed and she scared me SOOOO much i had to cover her so i wouldn't get scaed. But after two to three days or so Ii stopped being afraid and she sits by my bed each night.
I guess the bondage is just growing more fond of them and finding out what personality fits them.
In my opinion at least OwO

 

I bond with my dolls by simply playing with them

 

For me, I bonded with my girl doll RIGHT when I opened up the box containing her head. I nearly almost started crying since she's a very important character to me. I just kinda cradled her head in my hands for a while before getting her onto her body and her wig and eyes in. I want to take pictures of her all the time, and get her new clothes and such. Eventually I do want to get a different body though.

My boy doll, I do like him, but I won't say I've bonded with him yet. I think that may be since he's blank. So I'll wait and see if he 'clicks' or not after I send him out to get a faceup. He is lovely though. Initially when I opened him I thought he was nice to look at but...it didn't really register that he's 'mine' because he looks like every other doll of that sculpt when it's blank. But I left for a week and came back the day after opening him and realized he has great potential and deserves a decent chance. Though the more I work with him, the closer I do feel like....after sueding him I could actually handle him instead of having him just sit carefully on my desk. Then I changed his eye size and they fit better.

So I think bonding is when you look at the doll, or handle it, and just feel some kind of pride because it's a doll that YOU customized. You 'brought it to life' and it is uniquely yours. And naturally, this can take time.

'You' is meant in the generic 'everyman' sense.

 

I don't really have much to say that hasn't been said already. I just look at my doll and I love him. I used to enjoy RPing with him to give him a voice and to interact with other dolls. He had a mess of friends and even a girlfriend before the RP ended up dying. I like to make him things that I think he'd like to wear and if I don't make him anything in a long time I feel bad. I like taking him out of the house and posing him and handling him and really making him my own. I learned how to do face-ups on him and he'll always be my favorite no matter how many dolls I get in the future. He was my first and I would never want to sell him. He has a very special place in my heart that's all his own and I just feel happy when I'm doing stuff with him. I hope I bond with my new dolls just as well when they arrive. I think I'd be a little upset if I spent all that money to add members to my little family and then I just didn't feel anything for them when they were finally in my hands.

I think you know you've really bonded with a doll when they arrive and you're not any less excited. I was so worried when I ordered my first doll that I was getting so worked up about ordering and waiting for him that when he got here he wouldn't possibly be able to live up to my excitement and I'd end up feeling... let down. But that didn't happen. I loved him straight out of the box and carted him around everywhere with me when I was home and sometimes when I went out. If I was on the computer, he'd be sitting nearby and I would look at him and smile and go back to what I was doing. I hope it's the same with my new boys when they arrive. I hope I open the box and still love them and feel excited.

 

I bond with my dolls as I dress them, style their hair, pose them and take pictures.
Photography is the best part of the hobby. If the doll do not look good in pictures, we do not bond well. They need to be stylish and photogenic for me to really love them.

 

I agree with what's said before.
I think of bonding when I feel like, when I look in the doll's eyes or just look at him radomly.
I feel I made the right choice, and that I love him/her to bits : 3 and ofcourse, everyhing about him (I'll just speak with 'him' cuz I only own boys)
But some are more dear to me then others. Then again I'm sure everyone has that.

The bond I have with my boys is different with any other.
For example I feel different about Elijah, then I would with another doll in my collection.
But the bonding mostly happens when I handle them, look at them. And I dunno, touch them and such. And ofcourse taking them out for photo's and feel proud of the work I see when I upload the pics on my computer.
Then I know there's a bond. I guess.

Sadly I'm really in doubt on one of my boys Noah.
How much I do love him, somehow I just dont feel that... Click.
I already thought of selling him a few times. But I told myself to wait a little longer.
Make some more pics and pamper him a little more.
That when I dont feel more in the end, I wont feel scared of selling him.

Since I dont want to regret it in the end ofcourse >___>
Then again I dont figure I will. Perhaps it's just a sudden impulse of mine.

But it's something I've told myself from the start.
If I dont feel a 'bond' I'll probably sell the doll in the end. Which ever it is.

 

To me, I bond with them by playing/taking pictures/dressing and planning clothing designs for them(:
Bonding itself means the attraction you have towards them, when you feel that it's 'your' doll and even if other dolls out there are much prettier/better, you still prefer your own over them XD

 

HAHA The bond is the love between doll and me!

 

For me, it's just a matter of "Can I consistently give this doll a look that I like?" A lot of times, I have to give a doll 2-3 faceups before I really enjoy looking at that mold. Other times, however, there are molds that no matter how cute they look on the maker's site, or how cute they look in good owner pics on DoA, something about them annoys me in real life, and I sell them. Other times, parts of the body annoy me, and I either sell the whole doll, or swap bodies.

 

When I look at one and think: if I end up homeless, I use her as a pillow just so I can keep her!

The details vary a bit from doll to doll, but the ultimate theme is that if I feel like my life is happier having them than not, then there's a bit o' bonding going on. If I look at a doll and think of the untimely life matter it could help pay for, then it will probably find a new home eventually.

 

Apparently, for me, bonding best happens when I fall in love and buy one entirely on impulse (within a very short period, preferably) and cannot imagine letting them go at any point even six months to a year later. I'm all for shelling beloved characters that have seen me through many years of dealing with teenage angst because the bonding process would be much easier for me then, and yet some dolls without even a shred of a backstory planned beforehand whatsoever surprise me with how much attachment I develop towards them.

For example, I'd always thought my first ever BJD would be Crobidoll Yeonho, the first sculpt I had ever fallen seriously in love with and saw immediately as the perfect shell for a very well-loved character, Reiss. Saved quite diligently for him for several months, never lost track of my goal, always fantasized how he'd look like when I finally got him.

One fine night, as I was surfing BJD websites with a friend, I stumbled across Antonine, modelling jointed hands for Angell-Studio, customized and photoshopped to portray the look of a very attractive psycho. I was enamoured, but hardly wavered from my Yeonho goal. Then the very next day, I went to a local Angell-Studio shop-- that has since closed down-- and saw their in-store Antonine in the flesh. Needless to say, it was love at first physical sight, literally. All the money I'd been saving for Yeonho? Gone into downpayments for Antonine, an LE50 70cm looker.

I had a scant knowledge of BJDs and how to take care of them at the time, but I never once had to worry about bonding issues because I literally bonded the moment I saw him. Two years, a finger crack, a noseplant that chipped off the edge of his nose permanently, and a new faceup by Poppy later, Dante is still with me. His body is majorly difficult to manoeuvre and I hate posing him, but at the very least I cannot imagine letting his head go whatsoever. I have tried thinking about reshelling him, but I know it's futile because Dante is who he is with the sculpt, and my love for Dante hasn't waned a bit.

 

for me it means that i love the said doll more than i am bothered by it.

 

Bonding with my dolls?

To me it's a tons of things. It begins before i've even chosen my doll. At first i fall in love with it on the net, i'm quite frugral (or what's it's face? i'm not sure i spelled that one right) Next i imagine it at my home, because i hate spending so much money on something that other people find riddiculous, because everyone in my family think them beautiful, but WAY to expensive. when i finally decide to buy it, it's the exhitement. The waiting, it both drives me nuts, and it makes me look at emails, go crazy, call the doll company, check the status ect.

when it reach my country, it's checking the mail, checking my mailbox for the notice that i can collect it in the postoffice.

When i get it home it's opening the box.
The first glimpse of the doll, the first wig they get on, the way they act when i pose them, the feel they have when i carry them around.

It's like getting a child home or a pet after weeks of planning; the waiting, the exhitement, the joy when it comes the utter satisfaction of 'spoling it'
I never plan their personality ahead of time, it's like they have one from the moment they're 'born' or in this case, made.
And everyday i look at them it's like their expression changes a little. I even talk with them ^^; i know i don't get answers, but i talk with them loads.
And 'spoiling' an inanitmate object is, in itself, silly, because i'm pretty sure, when i look at it rationally, that i'm nothing but a weirdo or a crazy doll-lady. But then the irrational emotions come over me and scolds me for even thinking like that about them. So i quite litteraly think them human, like i do my current pet-rats. I give them personalities due to their actions, or in the doll's case, how they look in different light and how they 'act' when i pose them. It's like seeing a blossom blooming and getting to know them, and i love it.

So to me they're little pieces of heaven, all of them, all with their different personalities and i couldn't DREAM of getting rid of any of mine. To me, getting rid of a doll you can't bond with was the same as giving up on a child, or a pet.
Ofcourse when i bought (or halfbought) my first secondhand doll i thought of it as adopting it. As taking over the task of loving it when the first owner failed to find that spark. So to say, my view on selling a doll changed quite a bit.

To summ it up:
It's the feeling of having them around makes you happy and the thought of having them leave your home is the same as a little part of you dying, as loosing something very dear to you. So i agree with Bagofspiders on that account, if i was ever to be homeless, they'd be the faithfull dog you see with the homeless people. They'd be the LAST to part with.
That was a pretty elaborate description of bonding with a doll.. Sorry

 

Bonding for me means being able to see the doll as a character with a personality and a story of it's own. I stumbled upon dolls where I blankly stare at them and ask '' Who are you? '' simply because I can't see a character in them :/

 

For me it is a feeling of general happiness, whenever I look at one of my dolls. A bit like the feeling you get when you see something really cool/cute/beautiful. A lack of of bonding is for me when you look at a doll and just feel "meh" and disinterested.