Will you sell your doll to me?

I don't take my dolls out often, but I have had the apparently-standard "Where did you get it? How much was it? Orly?!? 0.o Kthxbai" conversation.
On the personal space tangent, I am often appalled by people's complete lack of manners. I've had pink hair for a few years now, and multiple times complete strangers walking behind me in a store have run their hands through my hair, or walking in front of me will just reach out to touch me, so I can totally see someone reaching out to grab something you're holding. It makes for a growing sense of paranoia, that's for sure. I have gotten a lot of practice on the "Touch me and I will lay you flat on the ground" look. It usually works now, although they sometimes look like I've slapped them in the face, or even get offended that I've said "no." I used to feel obligated to be nicer about it, but at this point, if a stranger reached out to touch my doll without warning, I'd probably hurt them.
Funny how people believe they have the *right* to touch you and your things.

 

Never happened yet, but I have a feeling once my puki comes in and I bring him to work and give him a proper place at the register people will ask. I work at a pharmacy so I come into contact with many blue hairs that touch without thinking.

The few times I did take my boy out into public I got a lot of "Oh, she's pretty" kinds of things. Yes, cause he's a very pretty girl.

 

Ugh, that sounds so rude! I'm one of those people who have a personal bubble that MUST NOT ever be encroached. I have flipped people who made me uncomfortable flat on the ground before. People touch my hair without my asking too and it drives me crazy, especially because I'm a germophobe. People do it to me because I have random streaks of silver in my hair and I'm under 20. I don't even know what they think justifies it! It's not my fault I have premature greying! The rudest people are the ones who just randomly try to pull out my grey hairs as though I can't FEEL it when they do.

 

Luckily, this has never happened to me. Mine is an SD and most people would rather have me get him away from them as quickly as possible! This is fine with me, so. xD

 

Something similar happened with my coworker's dog. A little girl picked up the dog and tried to walk off with her but she was on a leash. So when the little girl realized she wasn't going anywhere and my coworker turned around and politely asked her to put Harley (the dog) on the ground, the brat turned to Daddy and says "Daddy. I want this dog." My coworker tried to explain to her that this was her puppy and asked her to put down the dog and the dad also told the brat the dog belonged to someone else. The monster turned around and gave my coworker a dirty look and turned back to the dad and said in a firmer, more demanding voice, "Daddy. I want this dog." The father then started trying to convince my coworker to sell the dog! She was NOT happy and demanded the brat put down the dog. He told my coworker she was rude and walked away with his daughter. This happened by the way right in front of an rescue adoption event.

 

I have had other doll people say "If you ever want to sell your doll, I would buy it!" But no one was rude about it.

 

Oh yeah I've really met such situation!
I said yes then I told that person the price(just the company price, no tricky price), her face just turned and went away.
I think it's quite fun to predict their reaction and then it really goes like that.

 

I haven't gotten asked that yet and i carry my boy around every where (even as a floating head)
the closest i have ever gotten to something like that was when a girl asked where i got my purse
(MCR messenger bag FTW lol) but nothing like demanding. It kinda baffles me how some people
would do this :/ Though when i told my dad about this he said: "Technically everything is for sell,
everyone has their price for something, just depends on how much you are willing to pay..."
but he also says it isn't very nice to just go up to someone and tell them to sell something to you
>.> the way I was raised was, if you like it just ask about it see where it was from... unless they
are really selling it lol.

but yah i would get a little disgruntled if someone kept pestering me to buy my boy -.-

 

Huhhh. This has never happened to me before. I've had a few people ask where they could get a doll like mine, which I am more than happy to discuss. I've had people ask to hold them or look at them, and I let them. I've had people try to reach for the doll, and I pull away from them or turn away from them. No one has ever asked if I would sell them.

On the one hand, it would be tempted to say, "Why yes, I'll sell her for *marked up price*." The problem is that if you add say $200 to your fully clothed, wigged, and painted doll, you'll have quite the sum... High enough, I imagine, for the person or anyone nearby to be tempted to snatch the doll away from you, or even knock you out and take it. So I would just say "she's not for sale" to avoid any danger.

I don't know if this would offend me. On the one hand, people can be odd and sometimes they just don't think. On the other... I would never ask "Can I buy your purse/coat/necklace?" I mean, it's just not done. But it's no reason to get offended, unless they are rude and demand that you sell the doll. Anyone who tries to touch my stuff or demand that I sell it to them is really going to annoy me!

I would be downright furious, however, if someone suggested that I give them my doll. What? Really? Are you that selfish? Someone would really have to think that they were queen of the universe to expect you to just hand your possessions over to them. Seriously. If I were snarky, I'd say "I dunno, can I have your wallet?" But I'm not, so I would probably ignore them, if I could, or else shake my head and walk off quickly, preferably towards a crowd. It's best to avoid engaging them if at all possible; a conversation with someone like that can only get worse and more annoying by the second.

 

plenty of times. If it had been my Bambicrony however, then I'd tell them sure! Of course when I said I wanted $200 for her they'd be all, DX and run... oh well. We'll see if I can't wrangle someone into buying her at Naka-kon...

 

My hubby and I brought our dollfie dreams with us last year to Anime Boston we got lots of generous $50-$100 offers for our Kanu and Ryomou dollfies We tried to explain that they are not cheap, we had one fairly young teenager that was pretty hellbent on buying on my Ryomou she followed me around all day in the dealer's room finally her mother approached me and told me she was going to buy my doll, not that she wanted to buy my doll that she was going to buy it from me whether I liked it or not, needless to say that did not go over so well.

 

wow, people can be so rude. I had a drunk guy at one of of Anime Arkansas cons that was like that. Would not leave me alone. I kept my kid tightly bound in my arms that whole con. DX

 

This makes me furious too. I don't know what world these people live in if they think they can just go up to people they don't know and ask them to give away their possessions. I wouldn't dream of doing it myself.

I don't understand how some people don't understand this is rude and wrong. I also don't understand how they don't take no for an answer.

 

I thankfully havn't had anything as bad happen to me. But Im fairly new to taking them with me. I did recently go one a trip and took a couple of my dolls with me. I was taking some pictures to document their trip and this lady behind me goes "Oh she must be doing flat Stanly pics" It took me a minuit to realise what she ment, then I remimbered my mother, who is a teacher, telling me anbout that little guy. You know, you send him to someone, somewhere asking them to take a pic of him, and then return him with the pic of him in that place. Yeah, so I kindly told her what I was doing, and we talked a litle about bjd's and their prices, I even gave her a few sites to check them out. She said she was going to look them up, and then on her trip to Japan next month she was going to get one for her 19yr neice. Man I wish I was her neice!

 

I've never had it happen, but I'm sure if it did they would take the offer back once they heard how much they'd have to pay for them. XD

 

That's considered the more "polite" way of asking. Some people know that folks in the doll hobby can be pretty frequent sellers, and also that with the economy so bad, people might be willing to sell in order to make rent and such. Plus, some of the artists who post on Deviant Art do sell their work, so folks who post there probably figure it doesn't hurt to ask. As long as she doesn't keep hounding you about it then I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Probably more likely the doll is for her and she was just embarrassed to say so, so making it into a gift for a family member sounds better, LOL!
In toy stores sometimes I used to pretend to be shopping for some little kid's birthday. It was better than admitting that me at age 30 or whatever really was looking to buy nifty kids toys for myself.

 

This thread just seem to be trickling down to horror stories.

Guys, if you chose to parade your doll around in public don’t be so “shocked” “surprised” when you get attention. Be it good or bad attention. People sound so offended and miffed. You would think we were members of the aristocracy having our tea party encroached upon by a bunch of tattered peasants.

Yea some people are rude but come on. So you want to walk around with a doll out of the bag go for it. They are beautiful things worth sharing with the world. But give up this idea that you can walk around with this giant doll and expect everyone to marvel at you from a distance and oohhhh and ahhhhh your doll without approaching you. Also, please stop expecting people to KNOW THE WORTH OF YOUR DOLL. This is a super niche hobby. Are we going to look down our noses at people who have no reason to know about BJDs? Can you imagine how hard it is to be outside this hobby and then have some stranger tell you a doll is worth 800 dollars! I can image. They are like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT!???? In their heads. They can’t believe it! Most of the dolls they are exposed to in life are not that pricey and if they are expensive they are not at the mall or the park. They are in a glass case.

Sure the world could do with some better manners. Touching things that don’t belong to you is not polite but sometimes when a person is mesmerized by something they reach out to touch it. DRIVES ME NUTS when people do this in Museums! ACK I want to break their fingers! Most of the time they catch themselves but sometimes they don’t. I have had my doll out and watched a 13 year old girl ring her hands red because she wanted to touch my doll so badly and her hands kept reaching out as we talked. I just handed it to her...yea I was brave but I could tell she was careful. My doll made it back to me alive by the way.

The thread is starting to sound like we are protecting our only child from a brutal kidnapper. Try to see it from the perspective of a person who knows nothing.

To add, I am not condoning people who ignore “this is not for sale” and wave money at you. Or people who don’t understand what “don’t touch” means, or people who can’t control their kids. But we have too may threads on DOA where people complain about the ignorance of those who are not in the hobby. Is it really that hard to understand people? Is it SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO offensive that they like your doll sooooooooooooo much that they are willing to pay anything for it? Or follow you around? Or beg their BF for it? Or that they think your doll is worth the same as the most expensive Barbie they ever saw at Toys R Us? I can understand the offensive stance if it was your child they tried to purchase so nonchalantly but a BJD is just a toy to people outside the doll hobby. They don’t understand the community or the energy we put into our little pieces of resin. Or that such an expensive item would actually be PLAYED with and taken out in public!

Come on...we are a bunch of dolly weirdos on DOA. We can give non dolly people a break? We are always asking them not to judge us

 

Isenn, I agree there can be too many threads on DoA to the effect of "non-dollie people don't understand us, wahhhh" but this really isn't one of them. Many of the posts in this thread are just people sharing an experience they had without being particularly judgmental about it. Also, some of the people have legitimate horror stories. Someone being mugged for their doll, or being hounded around a mall, meet or con by someone who is hellbent on buying is a pretty bad and annoying thing to have happen. If anything, these stories should be here just so that people new to the hobby will have some idea what they might encounter should they choose to take a doll out exposed to the world.

Many of the posts in this thread seem very undramatic and are just folks saying "Yeah, someone came up to me when I was photographing my doll and asked how much, I told them and they were shocked and went away" without sounding like OMG SOMEONE APPROACHED ME WHILE I WAS OUT WITH MY DOLL.

It's also possible that a lot of people are actually surprised by the public reaction their dolls get the first few times they take them out. My parents taught me when I was little not to take out bunches of toys in public because "someone will probably think you are selling them" and also advised me not to flash around fancy posessions or toys I really cared about because "someone might help themselves to it" or grab it or damage it. Not everybody is taught the same things growing up, so maybe it really IS a surprise when someone comes up. And to have someone over age 10 follow you all around a public area because they're enamored of something you've got, whether it's your doll, your dress, your hairdo, or anything else is just weird and rude. It's not like people in the thread are demanding that no one notice that they're holding a big doll, but more like they'd rather not be harassed about it. There's a difference.