I'm in love with a fictional character. No, not infatuated. I love this man (I'm a girl). I don't feel the same way about anyone else, real or not. I know a a lot of people who want to date me, so it's not that I can't get a real boy or girlfriend. It's just I don't want them.
I think about him all the time. I didn't start out even attracted to him but after years of playing the games I fell in love with him and like I really know him. It's not just that he represents the ideal partner to me, even if I found a real person like that, I wouldn't care. I only love him.
Is anyone else in this situation? How do they deal with it?
If not, do you think I'm crazy? Just tell me your thoughts on this situation, please.
>>Believe me, there are many, many geeky girls out there who will love your collection.
I believe you. But I also believe that the "geeky girls" to whom you refer are more properly called "figments of the imagination".
Put it this way: between the dakimakura, figures of girls wearing little in the way of clothing, and Megami pin-ups, what I've got is a treasure trove of female objectification. And I admit it. Once you start getting into the pillows, you have to come to terms with the fact that you really have no remaining pride in yourself as a human being.
Now, I can accept, if only theoretically, that some girls might be able to tolerate that. After all, lots of guys in stable relationships get to (somehow) keep their Sports Illustrated swimsuit pin-ups and what have you, so there's a precedent -- my stuff is just abstracted a few degrees further from reality. Small potatoes, theoretically speaking.
Of course, real life is what happens when theory gets T-boned at 90 mph by the Mack truck of practice. Experience has shown me that while pictures of flesh and blood girls in bikinis are considered an acceptable part of hetrosexual male life, pictures of ink and paint girls in same are not. I know this, yet I'm not willing to throw away my collection. Call it obstinance in the face of societal mores, call it the guy from Tianmen Square who got creamed by that tank, call it a seal about to become some shark's dinner, call it whatever.
Tl;dr: my interests + female involvement = catastrophe waiting to happen. But Mr. Secret Admirer, you say, "geeky girls" are different. Fine, let's run with that.
So, somehow I've managed to weasel my way into a relationship with a "geeky girl" who has no issues with the ink and paint thing. Maybe she's running a yaoi fixation on the side, maybe she's into cosplay, whatever. Life is good, right? I've got cuddles and love, and warm happiness stuff. But what's that ominous-looking object falling from the sky? That, my friends, is the 1,500-megaton might of postmodern gender theory, about to toast my nerdy ass.
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(cont'd from previous post)
Pop quiz: why are things like pin-ups and scantily-clad, anatomically-correct figures considered to be offensive by many? Answer: because they reinforce heteronormative gender images that lead to an objectivication of women. (Literally, in this case.)
Now, this in and of itself isn't strictly a problem. (Though I fully expect that the folks from the Third Wavers' Club on campus would dispute that point.) As long as I keep my enjoyment of such things strictly to myself and strive to minimize within my professional and academic lives the associative effects of such an intense male aesthetic gaze, then we don't necessarily have a problem. My interests and my life are separate, and infringe upon nobody and nothing at all. The fact that I'm basically a hermetic loser who has minimal contact with women in his day-to-day life works somewhat in my favor, here.
Again, for whatever reason, I can theoretically accept that a girl might conceivably be willing to tolerate such things within the scope of an otherwise healthy relationship. (That said, I doubt it would actually happen, but continuing on...) However, I cannot, even for a moment, accept that any self-aware member of the female gender would, as you say, love my collection.
Take, for example, a pin-up of Louise from Zero no Tsukaima. She's at the beach, wearing a black string bikiki with red trim and white ribbons where the strings meet the modesty patches. She rests her hands on her hips as she meets the viewer's gaze and scowls, presumably telling the viewer off in her lovably tsundere fashion. I like this pin-up. No, check that, I love it. It's far and away my favorite. If I could get married to it, I would, though I concede the sex would probably be somewhat anticlimactic. Perhaps literally, if paper cuts are involved.
The appeal of this poster to the heteronormative male gaze is self-evident: it's a cute girl in a skimpy bikini. She even appears distressed by the fact that she's being watched, which is, as they say, totally hot. However, the aforementioned male gaze that dominates this picture -- along with Louise's reaction to that gaze -- places in severe doubt the notion that any self-aware girl would even tolerate this poster, much less "love" it.
I could cite further examples, but you're all asleep by now, so I won't bother. That, or you're busy composing other threads about how the music of My Chemical Romance perfectly captures the feeling of being dumped, which no one else has ever experienced. Or about how incest is the greatest thing devised by man since Count Chocula.
My point, however, is simple: a girl might tolerate my figures, pillows, and posters, despite their targeted focus towards a heteronormative male gaze. However, that same focus would categorically prevent a girl from "loving" them, and would, in fact, cast serious doubt on the likelihood of my earier theoretical concession towards the possibility of tolerance.
Thus, for a guy in my position, there it little chance that a girl would tolerate my collection and even less that she would endorse it. My original assertion from >>23 stands. Q.E.D.