Quitting/putting collecting on pause

[canprime]

This is actually sort of me too. I'm not really into sports, but I also lift weights and can do stuff around the house that needs to be done, that sort of thing. My mortgage is paid off, I don't max out my credit cards, all that grownup stuff. Except my basement is full of toys and comic books, and that feels like I took a wrong turn somewhere.

I'm right there with you (though I probably should do more weights than cardio at my age, and I don't have comics anymore). However my collection takes up about half the basement, and I don't have anything in any other room of the house (or garage).

I'm a casual fan of a couple sports (Hockey, Basketball) but I do follow the NFL every year.

Our mortgage is also paid off and I make sure my CC balance is zero every statement period. I can't imagine how I would keep up with this hobby if it was like in my 20s when I almost always had maxed CCs and was living paycheque to paycheque. Now I am good with what I get, though of course sometimes I would like to get more. However at those times I take a look at what I already have and I realize it is not much of a leap from collector to hoarder.

 

[AceofKnaves]

Oh wow, lots to reply and ruminate on here.

Re: wives and collecting space:
I’ll be super-duper vulnerable here and say that before I met my wife, I was engaged three prior times (I’ve been through some serious shit, my friends), so I have lived long-term with four different women in my adult life. Each relationship was different and three obviously ended, but none of them had conflict over my collections. I’m simply not interested in dating or marrying anyone who would object to my collecting or dictate how and where it can be displayed, beyond a reasonable allowance for shared space and partner equity and such. I just . . . didn’t hook up with people who didn’t want to be with the “real” me. All the way back to high school, I was always 100% open with my hobbies and actively turned down romantic opportunities with anyone who would object. And I am NOT some smooth operator who can just date whenever and whatever: all my life I have been hypervigilant regarding making women uncomfortable and I am lost when it comes to social cues, so my default is to stay away, romantically speaking, until the light is so green it blinds me. I watched my mother absolutely dominate my father in terms of interests/hobbies/decor: I don’t even know what, if anything, interests my dad at all. I swore to myself I would never wind up like him in that way, and though the road has been hard I have kept that promise.

Re: shame:
I’ve been so indoctrinated into self-shame for almost anything I’m passionate about that it, literally, almost killed me a couple times. I still feel it, but I work to master it. Hell, I live a lot of my life in open defiance of shame to try to banish it. It’s hard, and it sucks, and yeah I used to keep a lot of my passions on the down-low. My mom often told me that I was “too much”, so I learned to mask and self-censor, but I’ve mostly left that behind. Like if you walked up to my car, you’d probably say 1) “damn, that guy is pretty messy” and 2) “Wait, are those a bunch of action figures on the seat?”
The best shame-killer I have found is really looking at the people trying to shame me: I find I have no respect for them nor any interest in pleasing them in the slightest, so why should I care what a bunch of assholes I wouldn’t hang out with think of me?
Still: it’s hard. Even at 47 with a wife who absolutely loves me unconditionally and openly celebrates my passion for things.

Re: masculinity:
Heh. “Masculinity”. I’ve been shoved into that box all my life and I HATE IT. Woof. My general features and build and such have frequently been described not just as masculine, but sometimes hypermasculine, and I do not relate to that AT ALL. I have come to understand that I am genderqueer: I’m peachy with my plumbing and essentially fine with my body (although more defined abs would be nice!!), and like I don’t relate to being feminine either nor do I feel “somewhere between”: I just don’t relate at all to expressing my gender in “traditional” ways, and if I do wind up doing that, it’s not out of any interest in meeting any idea of masculinity. Identity-wise, “male” isn’t OFF the list but it’s so far down the list of important things that it hardly registers. Even as a small child, all my male role models were more defined by their costumes or masks or whatever: I’ve never had a “hero” that was a real person at all, only fictional characters, and my earliest ones were like Snake-Eyes and Spider-man and Batman and even then I wanted to “look” more like the villains. I played sports and I still exercise daily, but I have absolutely zero *interest* in sports and never did. I always felt more comfortable having deep friendships with girls rather than boys (withal few very notable exceptions, who were usually likewise unconventional guys), and “locker room talk” makes me crazy uncomfortable. Like when “guys” talk about “guy stuff”, I’ve got nothin’. I’ll even admit that I find traditional masculinity distasteful. I hate “bro culture”; always have. Like even if Joe Rogan weren’t a Nazi-enabling shithead, I just can’t with that crap. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, flunks my attitude test faster than macho swagger.
Also: men just make me fucking nervous as an aggregate. “metoo” was absolutely not a surprise for me, I already knew how vile men can be. Indeed: suuuuuper vulnerable disclosure: I was sexually assaulted by a man in a dark hallway in a theatre I used to work with, DURING a show. Men, especially “manly men” fucking scare me, and I say that as a lifelong martial artist who has never yet been at a disadvantage in a potential physical confrontation.
Sounds like I “hate” men, and I don’t.
But I do utterly despise traditional patriarchal structures, and I hope I live to see them burn.
Until then, I’ll be the guy in the brocade cloak and leather top hat, fiddling with my Joker action figure and adjusting my eyeliner.

re: “Psychologically speaking, though, collecting toys as an adult is deviant behavior.”
Only “deviant” from the so-called “dominant paradigm”, which can fuck right off. There is what we call the “normative spectrum of human behavior”, and adults collecting toys is absolutely on that spectrum. We only think it’s deviant because we’ve been indoctrinated that it is. Please trust me on this: I speak not just as a psychotherapist, but also as someone who has been through ridiculous scads of my own therapy and entered said therapy with the assumption that I was deviant in many ways: and while I am certainly *divergent from established norms* in many many many ways, I have been aggressively assured over my own protests that my behaviors are normative.

We have to stop talking about ourselves like there is something wrong with us. I’m an addiction specialist, I’ve worked in some literal hells on earth and seen some incredibly disturbing shit when humans break down into disorder, so please hear me when I say:
While *anything* can become an unhealthy behavior, the simple reality of being an “adult collector” is not unhealthy at all. In fact, it MAY be MORE healthy: the process of play is often lost as we age, and that is really bad for the brain. Folks who are still able to access and stimulate “child-like” passions and play patterns are holding on to a vital piece of themselves that once lost, is difficult to recapture. I have many, many clients with a massive void in their life that some kind of “childlike passion” could, would and should fill.

 

[Chooch555]

I think I'm technically in the camp of "my wife won't let me have toys outside of my basement," but to be fair I've never tried. I married someone with kids after living more or less solo for 18 years. I very much enjoy having "my" space. Our house is painted beige, inside and out. Our furniture is beige. Our frickin' dogs are beige. Then I come into the explosion of color that is my basement and I'm happy. That said, the devil dogs would and have chewed up toys that come outside of my basement so there's a built in barrier.

 

[JakeEkiss]

Absolutely. Another tip I'd give for keeping your collection in check is keeping a spreadsheet.

100% I started doing spreadsheets a couple of years ago and OMG it's been an amazing habit to keep. I'm in control of my collection, I know what I have and I earmark what I might toss, I feel more organized and put together. 100% this is great piece of mind.

Psychologically speaking, though, collecting toys as an adult is deviant behavior.

Is it though? Like, my grandmother had tons of little porcelain religious figures. Why does she get a porcelain Jesus but I can't have a plastic Thor? Yes, she was religious, but she didn't have those as objects of prayer. She' liked the aesthetic of them. My grandfather had the miniature train and Christmas village he'd put up every year. Nobody ever gave them shit for it. Is this *really* that different? Really? I doubt it.

We have to stop talking about ourselves like there is something wrong with us. I’m an addiction specialist, I’ve worked in some literal hells on earth and seen some incredibly disturbing shit when humans break down into disorder, so please hear me when I say:
While *anything* can become an unhealthy behavior, the simple reality of being an “adult collector” is not unhealthy at all. In fact, it MAY be MORE healthy: the process of play is often lost as we age, and that is really bad for the brain. Folks who are still able to access and stimulate “child-like” passions and play patterns are holding on to a vital piece of themselves that once lost, is difficult to recapture. I have many, many clients with a massive void in their life that some kind of “childlike passion” could, would and should fill.

This right here. I'm so happy I can still have a form of play that's cheap and colorful. And frankly it's been inspiring me to try out other more active hobbies. I want to slow down my figure collecting, but it's making me think about displaying them, and making dioramas and such. I work in a makerspace, and this is what's driving me to learn and use the tools at my disposal. It's creative, it's playful, and it's mentally engaging.

 

[JakeEkiss]

What's sort of ironic/funny about this thread re: masculinity, is that unless I'm waaaaay off base in how folks identify here, there's no way action figure collecting *isn't* a deeply masculine hobby.

 

[EnigmaticClarity]

I don't ever feel guilt about collecting anything. One of the books that's visible on my bookshelves in the earlier pictures is "The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts, and I read that book every summer while I was in college and got the hang of Zen Buddhism. I can send myself into instant meditation at any time and clear my mind of all thought, i.e. inner monologue. So any time an unproductive or irrational thought starts I just instantly wipe it out. So no guilt because I squash it anytime it creeps in.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

And I am NOT some smooth operator who can just date whenever and whatever: all my life I have been hypervigilant regarding making women uncomfortable and I am lost when it comes to social cues, so my default is to stay away, romantically speaking, until the light is so green it blinds me.

I laughed out loud reading this. It couldn't be more me. I can't imagine how many times women have given me subtle signals that I completely missed. I can only think of maybe three times in my life that I noticed a woman hitting on me and one of them was my wife. I'm not overly handsome or anything, but I think everyone is hit on a lot more than that.

I watched my mother absolutely dominate my father in terms of interests/hobbies/decor: I don’t even know what, if anything, interests my dad at all. I swore to myself I would never wind up like him in that way, and though the road has been hard I have kept that promise.

This is kind of an aside, but the same thing happened to my grandmother. My grandfather has been dead more than 20 years and she slowly had to learn how to become her own person. Now she's had a whole life without him.

Re: shame:
I’ve been so indoctrinated into self-shame for almost anything I’m passionate about that it, literally, almost killed me a couple times. I still feel it, but I work to master it. Hell, I live a lot of my life in open defiance of shame to try to banish it. It’s hard, and it sucks, and yeah I used to keep a lot of my passions on the down-low. My mom often told me that I was “too much”, so I learned to mask and self-censor, but I’ve mostly left that behind. Like if you walked up to my car, you’d probably say 1) “damn, that guy is pretty messy” and 2) “Wait, are those a bunch of action figures on the seat?”
The best shame-killer I have found is really looking at the people trying to shame me: I find I have no respect for them nor any interest in pleasing them in the slightest, so why should I care what a bunch of assholes I wouldn’t hang out with think of me?
Still: it’s hard. Even at 47 with a wife who absolutely loves me unconditionally and openly celebrates my passion for things.

Hell yeah, man.

I’ve never had a “hero” that was a real person at all

Given what we've learned about real people since #MeToo, good call.

I always felt more comfortable having deep friendships with girls rather than boys (withal few very notable exceptions, who were usually likewise unconventional guys), and “locker room talk” makes me crazy uncomfortable. Like when “guys” talk about “guy stuff”, I’ve got nothin’. I’ll even admit that I find traditional masculinity distasteful. I hate “bro culture”; always have. Like even if Joe Rogan weren’t a Nazi-enabling shithead, I just can’t with that crap. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, flunks my attitude test faster than macho swagger.
Also: men just make me fucking nervous as an aggregate. “metoo” was absolutely not a surprise for me, I already knew how vile men can be. Indeed: suuuuuper vulnerable disclosure: I was sexually assaulted by a man in a dark hallway in a theatre I used to work with, DURING a show. Men, especially “manly men” fucking scare me, and I say that as a lifelong martial artist who has never yet been at a disadvantage in a potential physical confrontation.
Sounds like I “hate” men, and I don’t.
But I do utterly despise traditional patriarchal structures, and I hope I live to see them burn.
Until then, I’ll be the guy in the brocade cloak and leather top hat, fiddling with my Joker action figure and adjusting my eyeliner.

I'm sorry to hear about your sexual assault. Those stories are far too common.

I couldn't agree more about being more comfortable around women. My closest friends have almost always been women. I attribute it to being raised by women and being made uncomfortable in male-driven spaces. Women also listen in a way that few men do.

My issue is not so much men as it is men who exude aggressive, competitive energy. I fit in fine with my male D&D group or at a comic convention. The energy in those space is more receptive and tranquil.

Is it though? Like, my grandmother had tons of little porcelain religious figures. Why does she get a porcelain Jesus but I can't have a plastic Thor? Yes, she was religious, but she didn't have those as objects of prayer. She' liked the aesthetic of them. My grandfather had the miniature train and Christmas village he'd put up every year. Nobody ever gave them shit for it. Is this *really* that different? Really? I doubt it.

I thought I might run into some backlash when I used the word deviant. I should've been more clear.

When I use the word "deviant," I mean someone who operates outside of regular or socially acceptable behavior. Men of our age might be expected to watch baseball and collect baseball cards or signed memorabilia. I'm not comparing us to sexual deviants or psychopaths who skin cats at night. I use deviant in the gentlest way possible. As AceofKnaves pointed out, it's still not a great term to ascribe to myself or others like me.

I think you bring up another good point: people don't really care. People might think, "Oh, it's weird that Molly has pet ferrets instead of dogs," but they move on pretty quickly. All the shame and guilt I feel is built up in my head. Nobody thinks anything of my hobby except me.

What's sort of ironic/funny about this thread re: masculinity, is that unless I'm waaaaay off base in how folks identify here, there's no way action figure collecting *isn't* a deeply masculine hobby.

I'd offer a slight distinction between "masculine" and "male-coded." I think masculine means macho in this context.

 

[JakeEkiss]

I thought I might run into some backlash when I used the word deviant. I should've been more clear.

No worries, I wasn't really put out by the word, I knew what you meant and was just sort of being a bit cheeky in my response.

I'd offer a slight distinction between "masculine" and "male-coded." I think masculine means macho in this context.

Oh you're definitely right. There's a huge divide between what people (i.e. a cross section of men and a smaller cross section of women) think men are supposed to do and what men by and large actually do.

 

[joshsquash729]

Oh wow, lots to reply and ruminate on here.

Thanks for sharing your truth, my friend! I'm so sorry it all happened to you, but from one survivor to another, it always means a lot to see others talk about their struggles openly and with courage. With the life I've had, there's always that little thought/worry/fear in the back of my mind that I might turn out like my dad (or any of the unsavory people in my family, which, unfortunately, is more common than not). Because I know what he was capable of, I know what I'm capable of, and while I've certainly slipped up more often than I'm proud to admit, I do think I've been on the good path lately. It's harder than you'd think it would be to break the cycle, to make the opposite choice of those before you and continue to do so.

It's interesting to hear others refer to their collecting as a defiant behavior, because I've always kinda felt the same. Not even intentionally, per se- I never actively think about it until I really stop to take stock. Collecting for me is both a reward and a reminder; to not only comfort the younger me who so often went without, and to reward him for being life's punching bag for so long. It also helps keep that kid alive in me, and reminds my increasingly old and jaded present self to never lose sight of that kid, if only to know what behavior to avoid in my life.

Like others have said, the ones who tend to judge others are those who are unhappiest with themselves, who've probably had to stifle things they love in order to fit in more or avoid judgment themselves. I try very hard to lead with sympathy and empathy these days (as increasingly difficult as that is). More often than not, the ones who hate are the ones most in need of love. I know that sounds hokey, and there certainly are people who are just assholes plain and simple, but everyone has a soft side somewhere.

I personally believe that what "masculinity" and "femininity" entail is always changing. Men can be emotional, women can be tough, etc. Fact of the matter is, there's a lot more gray area than most people think, and like anything else, it's a sliding scale and it exists in all of us. What parts we choose to embrace is definitely nature vs. nurture- both have an effect on us, even if one side wins out. It's only when we try and suppress one side or the other that we run into problems. But we as people are far too filled with possibility to confine ourselves to one little box based on one little (subjective) word/definition.

Thanks, everyone for sharing their stories. This is the kind of community I yearn for, that you don't often see when dealing with fellow collectors out in the wild (at least in my neck of the woods).

 

[akajomiha]

Appreciate you all. Really and truly.

 

[Justice]

I have a lot to say on the subject of traditional masculinity and all of that. To preface I grew up a gay boy in a semi-rural southern area. We were near a fairly large town for the state and one that had a little more of a liberal population than some so I'm thankful for that.

I'm traditionally masculine just not SOUTHERN masculine meaning I'm not into the redneck culture. All of my friends are straight guys and always have been. I have gay friends online through the figure community that I've known for years but as far as locally I have none. At first I was the novelty of the friend group but eventually I was just another one of the group.

Still though, it is rough because I don't feel like I fit in with most men down here and that's all a me thing that I shouldn't care about but I've been dealing with a practically crippling sense of concern over what others think my whole life and the general feeling that I am different and will never fit in with anyone. I feel "too gay for the straights but too straight for the gays" if that makes any sense (friend group excluded of course).

Most of the men down here hunt and fish and drive huge trucks and vote Republican and go to church on Sundays and provide for their families and that really is all there is to them. I've known a lot of them well and that's the honest truth. That is what they are expected to do and it is the example that has been set for them for generations.

I love watching football, baseball, basketball (fuck the Mavericks though I will never forgive them for the Luka thing), and hockey. I do a lot of camping and every now and then my most redneck of friends (and best friend) manages to drag me out to do a bit of fishing. I live on three acres of wooded land and spend a lot of time out there in blissful solitude.

I'm single and pretty much always have been. I've of course had hookups but I am a very "me-focused" person. The idea of having someone that depends on me for something is enough to send me into a panic attack. I have a dog and a snake and some fish and that's it. I am vehemently anti-relationship and just can't fathom doing the normal relationship thing. The idea of finding a partner just feels wrong for me. Is it because I don't want one or feel I don't deserve one though. A question for a future therapist I guess.

The funny thing is I think someone here got me confused with someone else and mentioned that their wife sounded a lot like mine. I meant to respond and didn't have time to at that moment and now I can't find it. I can assure you there is no wife

And wow this thread has taken a bit of a turn from "quitting collecting" to this but that's okay. Glad we have a forum where that is acceptable.

 

[AceofKnaves]

Ooooohhh “too gay for the straights, too straight for the gays” totally resonates with me. Like I’m definitely only attracted to women, but that’s about the only thing that concretely separates from my many gay friends (I work in theatre, so I’m kind of a minority as a heterosexual man, and that is just fine). There have been many times where assumptions were made about my sexuality due to my gender presentation, and that has been awkward and sometimes unfortunate with hurt feelings and such. Also as a 90s teen, “hurr hurr you’re a f*ggot” was the de rigueur insult: I just started firing back with “sorry, bro, I get that you’re struggling and feeling a certain kinda way, but I’m just not interested in dating you”, and then hit them with a BIG smile. The bros did not like that, nope, not one bit.
So like: yeah, maybe collecting has been a middle finger to my mom, but it’s been a REALLY big middle finger to the shitty bros who tried and failed to bully me into some box of what a “guy” should be. And it started like all the way back in 2nd grade, when classmates thought they were “winning” by getting me to trade them my mini lunchbox Cheetos bag for Wild Weasel and Lampreys from GI Joe. Suckers.

So I guess that is one reason I don’t quit: so that maybe some young weirdo will see me living my weird life and go “hey, if that guy can be a toy-loving weirdo and also an adult, maybe I can too!”

I do believe in leaving the world a stranger, and hopefully more wonderful world than I found it, in my own small way.

 

[docsilence]

The shame and masculinity thing hits home a bit - I self-shamed myself out of... well, everything I loved from like 16 to 36. I did a lot of other things I loved - I was in bands, I worked on films, I tried to lean in on things that made me feel cool, and I hid EVERYTHING traditionally geeky. Once in college I wandered into a comic book shop with my then girlfriend and she was like: you need to read comics again. I've never seen you happy the way you were in that store. So when I had the cash I got a bit back into comics but not toys. Mid-30s I started collecting things I lost in a house fire as a kid, specifically RPG books and minis, and my now-partner LOST it on me because I hid all that from her. "You hid it like you were cheating on me and it's boxes of tiny Star Wars figures? You're an idiot. We'll buy you a display shelf so you can see them."

Didn't get back into action figures til my 40s, but that was in part because I started making money on superhero writing and I was like: okay, now I have permission. It's part of my work. It's almost a business expense! (Not really.) But I still feel the need to be vaguely sketchy about it. Fortunately my current partner flat out says I will never, ever do anything good for myself and always put everyone else's needs first so she encourages me to buy fun useless things. (She just yelled at me to burn hundreds of Amazon points I'd been saving for an emergency for household items on the X-Men Mansion Lego set. I haven't bought it yet but she actually WANTS me to do it.) We have a few of the "Fancy" lego sets i the living room, and for a while I kept those Disney Toybox Star Wars and Marvel figures on the bookshelf in the living room - I only stashed them cos they kept falling over.

I mentioned in the tariff thread that my brother saw my collection for the first time ever last month and looked at it like he was in the best museum in the world. He's much more the traditional dude than I am, and he wasn't judgmental, he was jealous. I gotta have him up again so he can just wander.

I think all this to say the reason feeling the need to cut back or quit collecting hurts more than it should is: it took like, 40-something years to let myself be HAPPY buying toys. I hate that the state of the world might take that away. It was hard enough to claw out of the shame of it without having the dumbest people on earth be thieves of joy for a lot of people, including myself.

 

[joshsquash729]

I have a lot to say on the subject of traditional masculinity and all of that.

I relate to a lot of what you said! Growing up gay in the south/midwest (Texas and Kansas), I had that traditional Catholic upbringing that still haunts me to this day. I couldn't come out for the longest time for fear of violence, and when I finally did to my friends at school, I too was kind of the novelty kid. The punching bag to half the class, and the harmless but funny kid to the others (being gay was fine as long as you made it clear you were silly and not "predatory" in any way, which is weird to say for a middle schooler, but you know how it goes). Eventually, by proving yourself enough of the class clown and a harmless commodity, even the jocks begin to accept you.

As much as collecting can be viewed as shameful in the straight community, I do feel like being a nerd in the gay community is a whole other can of worms. Very similar in many regards, of course, but a lot of the gay stereotypes are unfortunately true. For the longest time I had trouble finding someone to date because the idea of a "nerd" may have been attractive on paper, but upon seeing what it really entailed, they couldn't head for the hills fast enough. To a lot of gay men, a "nerd" is just a ripped jock or a skinny little twink with a pair of glasses on. If you're not the typical chiseled physique who likes to party, then you're not truly part of the community. It does kinda feel like those silly high school politics all over again, just with a little more glitter mixed in. Of course, there's someone for everyone, but it's certainly not the norm; the gay community can be uniquely mean-spirited when it comes to outsiders, ironically enough.

My first serious relationship, it felt like my nerdiness was tolerated, but never truly accepted, and I hate that I cut back- and considered quitting collecting altogether- to try and please him. The things we do for love, eh? I'd convinced myself that my hobby was just a major turn-off to others, and resigned myself to a single life, but luckily, my current boyfriend and I have been together for 7.5 years, and he's just as big a nerd as I am. We actively support each other's hobbies, and even though we may not be the best of examples in terms of financial responsibility, it's that moral support that truly means the world. I never have to feel embarrassed talking about the things I love around him, and vice versa, and I know that if I tell him I'm looking for a certain figure, he won't look at me like I'm speaking a foreign language. We're definitely worried about when we do move in together, where all our stuff is gonna go, though- it's gonna be a challenge for sure. Especially living in NY, you can have space for both, but it's gonna cost you big time. Point is- I'm very glad I didn't end up giving up collecting, as I was very close to doing. The closest thing to that I do now is holding off on or foregoing a purchase so as to be able to do things together as a couple.

And yet, even with as much support as I get from him, there's still that underlying shame. My dad used to have a saying that he apparently heard in the army, and as much as I hate the guy, it's definitely true. It goes "One 'Oh Sh*t' can knock out Ten 'Atta Boys'". Basically meaning, you can get ten compliments or do ten things right, but the moment you do one bad thing, or someone says one bad thing to you, it'll make those ten good things feel like they never existed. I kinda feel like the world at large is like that now- life can be going your way and everything is sunshine and roses, and then one (increasingly major in this day and age) thing can come along to knock it all out.

 

[Ru1977]

Yeah that's funny how much power negativity can have. My mom often lamented that being mega supportive of me in pretty much all ways still didn't counter the things my dad did. And even the positive things he DID do, which I have to credit him with, were drastically overshadowed by the negative things he did.

I think it sounds awesome to have a significant other who is also a collector, but yeah... I could also see it going into a dangerous direction heh. Just enabling and such. I'm mostly kidding but for me, personally, with how I am, I appreciate someone who keeps me from fully going for it.