• ArtemisimetrA@lemm.ee
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    4 hours ago

    This but replace “stuffed animals” with “your friends.” Nothing like someone coming along thinking they can somehow be the one to “fix” or “save” the homie and ends up separating them from longtime friends (and then they’re still not happy and now we’re all a little more lonely)

  • RedFrank24@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I would never hide my stuffed animals. I have exactly one, and it’s a hedgehog I keep on my bookshelf. Not a Sonic-style hedgehog, a British hedgehog.

    I will be keeping that hedgehog until I or someone in my family has kids, at which point I will pass it down to them.

  • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    To each their own. I don’t think I could take someone seriously if they were too attached to toys and dolls as it is, for me, an obvious sign of an arrested development. But that doesn’t mean I should ridicule them, nor that others wouldn’t be right for them (or that they’re immoral people either, of course, which is what truly matters in the end); the world is big enough for both of us, and for your toys too!

    • LengAwaits@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

      • C.S. Lewis
      • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        That’s a lovely quote! But I’ve never been afraid of being who I am and enjoying myself (I don’t have any ‘guilty pleasures’ when it comes to media consumption, for instance, nor I truly understand the concept), so it doesn’t apply to me… and even less so to what I was saying.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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      3 hours ago

      The problem isn’t the toys and dolls, but being overly attached, which can happen to any material possession, even “adult things” like cars or clothes.

      • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        100%. Anything that can just be bought and seen but has no depth is definitely on the top of the list. At least if you’re into cars but talk to me about engines and technical evolution, or you’re into animals but fr and know classifications and curious facts about otters, like, even if I’m not interested at all I can’t help but respect a bit. It’s a passion with depth, an obsession I could never have but that shows you appreciate the less superficial and consumerist parts of the world. I’d have the same opinion about someone who has a massive collection of Bionicles (I get it, they were cool AF but there’s a time and place for everything…) in full display in the living room, or worse, anime bodypillows, lol.

    • Alaik@lemmy.zip
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      3 hours ago

      I’m really not sure why you’re being downvoted. Your comment was polite, contributed to the discussion, and was made in good faith.

      I’m on the other end. I don’t think keeping a stuffed animal matters really. I have a functionally useless old timer pocket knife from when I was a kid and I just kept it for sentimental/memory value.

    • Soup@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      My friend was embarrassed when I stayed over the first time because others had made her feel bad about these things. She’s a very emotionally mature person with degrees, social skills, and all the rest and I wasn’t about to act superior just because she had a big chipmunk that made her feel good.

      I’m not sure you’re on the side of this that you think you are and I hope no one has to deal with that until you can address it.

      • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        I’m on the side of not bullying folks for ultimately harmless things. When it comes to dating, it just wouldn’t be my thing… but I’m a married man so that doesn’t truly matter either, lol.

        • Soup@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          And yet you’re literally saying that someone liking a stuffed animal is a sign of arrested development. “I’m not bullying them but I am saying that they’re a little broken and don’t think they should be taken seriously” is so much more a showcase of your own deeply flawed character than theirs.

          • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            There’s ‘liking’ like one likes video games and movies and jogging and whatnot, and there’s being obsessed about something that shallow and consumerist. I’m obviously talking about the latter, and while it does say something about them (enough for me not to consider them as a partner for instance) it doesn’t make them “bad people”, not at all, so one should be gentle if they find themselves in a situation like visiting a romantic interest’s home, finding 50 stuffed animals and deciding against continuing. Relax.

            • Soup@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              No one was talking about 50 stuffed animals, not a soul. You just decided to bring it up for some unknown reason like anyone cares at all what you think about your little made-up scenario.

              You’re not the person think you are, treating people like this and saying that your quieter tone of voice is superior while spouting these nonsense opinions and putting more unnecessary negative energy into the world for no other reason than stroking your own ego.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      3 hours ago

      I know you think you’re coming off as magnanimous, but it’s got the same energy as “I’ve got a lot of gay friends actually” energy.

    • exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 hours ago

      Two things.

      First, dating and commitment is about matching and compatibility, not about some kind of objective ranking system of quality or merit. It’s about how a partner or potential partner rates on your own personal scale, not some sort of societal scale built by social consensus. So while it is ok for you to find a particular trait to be a negative, or even a deal breaker, your point is completely irrelevant to the advice being given, which is not to hide important traits of one’s identity.

      Second, your own preference here is stated in unnecessarily condescending terms, as if your preferences are right and the opposite preference is wrong or the sign of some kind of disorder. Whatever your definition of “toys and dolls” are, it probably isn’t a very tightly defined term, and I’d venture to guess that you are OK with some kinds of “toys” but not others. People collect stuff. People develop emotional attachment to physical things all the time. And for you to gatekeep and say which things are acceptable or unacceptable is kinda an asshole move.

      • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        I’m taking a somewhat oppositional position to OP! I’m not gatekeeping anything, just expanding on the topic. And no, I personally have never collected anything nor do I particularly care for decoration, and I find being attached to material possessions to that extent says something not necessarily dangerous or immoral about you, but it does still. So, while being obsessed with toys is not at the core of any ideological or personality-dependent negative attribute (nor does it constitute one by itself), it does serve as a litmus test for whether the person is, you know, ‘regular’. Come on, you go to a guy’s house and he has nothing but Goku and Vegeta inflatable dolls and refuses to take off the Piccolo doorag in his 30s and you’re not gonna think he might be a tad infantile and focused on less than important things?

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    11 hours ago

    My fiance’s plushie inventory has increased since we met. It’s kinda a problem but whatcha gonna do.

  • stinky@redlemmy.com
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    6 hours ago

    Don’t date people who make you feel like you have to hide your stuffed animals

  • rhacer@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    62 year old guy.

    I was given a bear when I was born. His name is Growl. I have never once been ashamed of him or hidden him away.

    Much more recently (last 10 or 15 years) I was gifted a Build-a-bear Chewbacca. I will never hide him away either.

    • dkppunk@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      I love this!

      I have a handful of stuffed animals, but my most prized ones are Teddy the bear that my pop-pop gave me at the hospital when I was born and a cat that my grandmother hand stitched, she made one for each of her grandchildren and mine is one of few that are still around. I’m 41 and I have also never been ashamed 😊

    • Brickhead92@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Word! I’m a nearly 40 guy.

      I got a blue bear when I was born. It is called bear. It has a few stitches, and a hole in it’s ear. I also have a blue mouse called Mouse.

      They’ve been sitting on the shelves in the kids rooms for many years now.

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    I’ve had girlfriends steal my plushies. Now they stay in a locked cabinet (the plushies) until I know who I can trust.

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    I seldom get emotional when watching the news, but when I see a child hugging a stuffed animal in a warzone, or when you see a dirty stuffed animal in on the ground after an attack, that really stings.

    Stuffed animals are symbols of innocence, love and security.

    I am a 37 year old man, I have my childhood stuffed animals on a chest of drawers next to my bed, and my stuffed toad I got from my mom and have had my entire life is in the top 5 items I would try to save from a fire.

    • ContriteErudite@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I also have a stuffed beanbag frog/toad called “Fleagle” from when I was a toddler and I keep it in my nightstand. It’s the only thing I still have from back then and I feel that same way.

    • Sorrow3527@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      While I don’t have an stuffed animal, I do have an mood pillow that I stitched and fixed for over 20y now. I can’t sleep without it, it’s part of me

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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      1 day ago

      We have a moose that goes on trips with us. I recently made a tiny 3D printed version that we call his “drones”. They go on the bike rides, hikes, etc.

  • cynar@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Both my wife’s and my stuffed teddies have now been retired. They now sit, cuddled together, overlooking the bedroom. On a shelf, in pride of place. Their tour of service done, but not forgotten.

  • jupyter_rain@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 days ago

    Had a giant stuffed ladybug nearly all my life. Somehow abandoned it and just recently, after a few years, discovered that I now need a pillow to hug at night. Miss you, giant ladybug :(

    • pticrix@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      Never too late to build your collection, however big or small. My SO got one of those chonky seal plushy about 4 years ago, and they almost never goes away without it now. When I see them leave with their big hiking backpack, the seal plushy squished on the side of it with one of the bag’s straps and buckles, I just feel love inside.

  • Strider@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Wait - - the ones my wife has? Ah, silly me, I am not dating.

    But I’d also not hide my transformers or gaming stuff.