1w ago

Excellent advice

90 comments

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.
- How can you tell it's British?
  
  I have a small figurine of an Irishman and I'm fairly sure the hedgehog is bullying it.
  
  It has a massive hoard of stuff its grandparents stole from all the other stuffed animals.
  
  You can tell because of the way it is.
  
  Probably because it stole spices and land

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)

Does this apply to my Funko Rogues Gallery?
- Eeeehhhh, I'd silently judge anyone with a Funko collection. 2 or 3 would still be fine
  
  But it's a fucking awesome collection of various villains. I got a Mirror Spock between 10" Skeletor and Storm Trooper enforcers, yo. And a MF Dalek up front, who will exterminate any punk asses.

Hella respectable

Don't date ~~people who make you feel like you have to hide your stuffed animals~~
- Don't.

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!
- 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
  
  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.
- 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.
  
  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.
- 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.
  
  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.
- 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.
  
  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?
- 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.
  
  I don't, but I do have a gay uncle.
- 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.

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.
- 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
  
  What is a mood pillow?
- Naw, cute!
- 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.
- 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.

I've had girlfriends steal my plushies. Now they stay in a locked cabinet (the plushies) until I know who I can trust.
- Thanks for clarifying that it's your plushies that you keep locked up. Otherwise, I would have a lot more questions.
  
  The girlfriends are in the other one

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.
- Read 'both my wife and my stuffed teddies' without the 's and got very concerned
  
  Lol same. It was an emotional roller coaster. I felt sad and then confused until I reread it.
- overlooking the bedroom
  Front row seats then

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 :(
- IKEA has giant ladybug pillows!
  
  Brb driving to Ikea!

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.
- 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 😊
- 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.
  
  Love this!

Everyone I date has so many more stuffed animals than I do. I get stuffy envy. 🥺
- 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.

my blahaj is called bloop and he is soft and he loves hugs ❤️
- I have two blåhaj - one in my bed for snuggles, who is well loved and well worn, and one hanging out on the back of my sofa for "Sunday Best" 😆
- I'm currently sat beside my wife who is half asleep hugging one of our blahaj. She sleeps with one every night.
  
  i have 5 in my bed usually :3

I'm a guy, I have a shelf of a couple of different stuffed animals. One of every dog breed I've had and one of each for each dog of that breed
I don't sleep with them or play with them, I have actual living pets to do that with