I see it in for sale listings all the time:

“I just got her and I didn’t bond” or “Not bonding, doll for sale”

The Blythe community, and other doll communities really, are interesting in the way that people become affectionate and attached to their dolls. They form a bond with a manufactured item that they happen to play with and clothe. As a child, I became easily attached to stuffed animals and I had a polar bear teddy that I carried around with me everywhere. As an adult, I can still become attached to a doll, but not to the point where I feel the need to carry one around in my bag all the time.

For some, bonding means that they feel some kind of connection with the doll. For others, not bonding is realizing when they see the doll that they just don’t love her – and why should anyone keep a doll that’s worth a hundred or hundreds of dollars when they just don’t like her enough? Blythe is quirky in that way, especially when the dolls are expensive. For me, I’ve resold exactly one Blythe since I started (a Fancy Pansy) and she was the only doll that I ever bought that didn’t come right out of the box as soon as she arrived. In fact, she sat in her box (still NRFB) for months before I decided that I couldn’t afford to just have her sitting there, in her box, in the shipping carton, not doing anything. I sold her to a lady who had been searching for a stock Fancy Pansy to replace the one that she sold. She had a bond with Fancy Pansy, I did not. And honestly, I’m kind of glad that Fancy Pansy didn’t stay – having her stick around might have changed the composition of what my Blythe family looks like now.

I formed a near instantaneous sense of affection towards one doll in particular: Primrose. First saw her in a photograph without any legs and I just knew that I had to have her. I bought her, got her some legs, and now she’s one of my all-time favourites and it would take a lot for me to even consider selling her.

I form attachments to my dolls, just not in the way that I used to with stuffed animals as a child. Then again, things are a lot different now. I still form connections though, and I have dolls that I would not sell unless I absolutely had to and even then I’d be hard pressed to do it because there are some dolls in my collection that I just know that I would never be able to find another like her.