relationships with inanimate objects

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

And no, I dont have a vibrator. But please, share stories about yours! :smiley:

Mine is with my Broadsword. You’ll all be introduced to him soon, once I get some pics flowing. His name is T’ton, and he’s a work of art.
Now, I have a few rules regarding T’ton. First, I am the only one allowed to wield him. By wield, I mean, basically, to hold him in a battle-ready position and/or swing him about. Second, noone, and I mean NOONE is allowed to touch his blade. The only things that ever touch his blade are the polish, the polish cloth, and his sheath. That’s it, with VERY rare exception. Even I never touch the blade with my bare hands.

I have these rules because I feel very close to him. I’m a born warrior, and the second I held T’ton I felt a very strong sense of belonging, like we were meant to be together.
Now, I regularly show off my collection to friends who happen to be over. And I always tell them the same thing. They may play with any of the weapons in my room, but they are, under no circumstances, to touch T’ton, and I point him out when saying this. Usually I reiterate this several times.

Today, someone crossed that line.

He reached out, and before I could stop him, ran his fingers along T’ton’s edge.

Immediatly, I felt several things. First of all, rage. Second, I felt very, very violated. And third, it actually hurt a little bit.

I roared at him and ordered him out, and rapidly whipped out the polish to clean the contamination off. I polished the entire blade to a spotless sheen, and polished his brass guard for good measure. It took a good half hour before I started to feel clean again, and was comfortable replacing him in his spot on the wall. For several hours afterward, I felt very uneasy, and slightly nauseous.

Now, I had known that my relationship with my sword was close, but this I did not expect. I know it was more than likely all in my mind, but still, I hated it. I couldnt stand it. So, apparantly T’ton is closer to me than I had thought.

So like, am I nuts? I felt violation. I felt pain. I refer to my sword as ‘he’ rather than ‘it’.

Also, does anyone else have a relationship like this with something that’s not really alive? I feel like he’s part of me. A lot of people would (and are going to, I bet) say I’m crazy.

Thoughts?

2

[Dr Ruth voice]

Ah yes, what you have here is a phallic symbol. What you really need is a good cigar. Have you tried masterbating?

[/Dr Ruth voice]

3

Actually, I get even worse with my guitars and my banjo…at least where kids are involved. I’ve had to hold myself back from SCREAMING at various kids and their friends that dared to touch my precious instruments.

Don’t get me wrong though. I do not play that great, despite having played for well over thirty years. It’s the fact that, for my acoustic, I carried this damn thing through Desert Storm with me and I don’t want their grubby damn hands on it. As for my electric, its a POS but sounds amazingly great! Again, I do not them touching it. As for my banjo, well, it was my Dad’s and it’s damn near the ONLY thing I got after he died. The damn strings are at least 20 years old on it and I have no idea of the proper tuning for it anyway :smiley:

The point of all this is that whatever the object may be, trying to explain it in simple terms to another person is virtually impossible. I have many more reasons than the above for why I don’t want people messing with my instruments, but those are the main ones.

Also, it isn’t just because they’re my instruments as I let damn near anyone bang on my piano and I play it all the time :smiley:

4

For me, it would be the doll I got when I was a baby. The only dark haired doll with blue eyes that could be found at the time. The other thing would be the small china cup that my great grandmother had when she was 3 years old. It’s tiny, (about 4 ounces) white, with gold trim on top and a small chip on the edge. Just looking at it, you would never know how old it is, but even touching it, you’d find out how valuable it is to me :slight_smile:

As far as my vibrators… that’s for another time :smiley:

5

Well Mnementh, I have to admit to being really intrigued by the concept of knowing you are a ‘born warrior’.

How can you tell?

Also, your obessions are understandable, but silly if you think of swords and what they were used for and in what contect.

But more on this ‘born warrior’ concept… what does it take? I feel I am a warrior, although I won’t know until I am tested. I didn’t used to feel this way, but I do now. What makes you feel that way?

If you would rather, you can e-mail me… I’m really intrigued by this…

Tristan@gothland.com

6

[hijack of own thread]
It’s really not something that’s easy to explain. I say that I ‘know’ this, but I’m the first to admit that I could be wrong, just because (as you mention) there’s no ways of testing it. I live in a society where, if I am what I think I am, I’m not needed.

Most of my stories, however, are a bit far-fetched. And having had my honesty repeatedly questioned on these boards already, I dont feel like posting something quite this personal here.

Suffice to say, I seem to feel certain things that others don’t. Y’know how sometimes people will go “Y’ever feel like this and that and the other thing?” and everyone goes “oh, yeah! Totally!”. Well, sometimes I’ll do that, and say for example, “Ever felt like your blood was on fire, like you had some kind of hidden power inside you?” and everyone will look at me funny.

Now, I cant tell what other people feel on a day to day basis. I feel a certain energy. I feel very powerful some days. I had always attributed it to the young person’s natural feeling of invincibility, until I tried talking to people about it, and got a lot of blank looks, along with the people who thought I was either a) lying, b) totally crazy, or c) Hi Opal! (Couldnt resist :D)

Anyway, there’s a LOT more to it than that. And if you promise not to accuse me of being a liar or making it all up to garner attention, I’ll tell it to you if you like. And I’d like to listen to yours, too, I’ve never, EVER met anyone who felt what I feel.

7

Son, the Army’s looking for men like you. But try not to get disappointed when they hand you a mop rather than a broadsword when it’s your turn at KP duty.

8

uh… mine WOULD have to be my vibrator.

9

I wouldn’t call it a relationship, but I suppose for guys the following is pretty common: DON’T TOUCH THE STEREO WITHOUT ASKING, DAMMIT.

Oh, and I silently groan a little every single time my girlfriend grinds the wheels of my Peugeots gearbox. I mean, come on! It’s a modern car. It’s got a five speed manual. It is NOT hard to drive, silly git.

Yet I still love her. But not for her driving, that’s for sure.

10

Mine would have to be my two raggedy old bears (well, they’re kind of bears. I’ve never really worked out what they are to be honest). But to me, they’re real. I hate anyone playing with them as if they’re toys. I’m usually not weird about posessions, but with these two i feel like because I believed in them so much as real little beings when I was little, I’ve kind of imbued them with a life of their own that they now have independantly of me.

I took them to university with me and one time a friend of mine was in my room and picked them up and threw one up in the air - I was furious and stormed out of the room. He was quite surprised to say the least, because I’m usually a very laid back person. Strange how we do that isn’t it?

Fran

11

Ehm - Mnementh - I think I know where you’re coming from with your sword - lots of people feel something when they first heft a real, bad-ass weapon. I sure felt a touch of it in my younger days, but spend some time in any armed force and you’ll realize that to most warriors, weapons are just utensils that are a pain to carry around and never, ever clean enough to make the sergeant happy. Still, a lot of people with special weapons name their guns. (I kinda liked the name “Finesse” for a machine gun: “We fight with Finesse”.) As JonScribe says, if you’re convinced you’re a warrior, consider making it a career. Precious little use for those skills elsewhere.

On a more peaceful note, many motorcyclists will form some bond with their scoots, including yours truly. (Yeah, I got caught blowing her a kiss, you may laugh.) The cliche with the crashed motorcyclist ignoring his own injuries to see what happened to his bike is more than a little true.

Apart from that: While I’m quite attached to my collection of books, very few individual books are that bloody valuable to me. Prints & paintings are, of course, precious to me, but I haven’t “bonded” - and feel free to play with my stereo anytime.

S. Norman

12

Spiny, obviously, you haven’t seen my stereo yet. :wink:

13

…You know what they say about polishing the broadsword…

14

Hmmm - I’m getting this vision of Stonehenge-style speakers connected by two-inch cables to a set of amplifiers painstakingly hand-built of radio tubes and precious metals by a self-taught blind Uzbekistan audio engineer on his deathbed, so reality is probably going to be a downer :stuck_out_tongue:

S. Norman

15

My green, cheapo, Schaffer fountain pen. I’m even thinking of naming the damn thing, although that might never happen. He’s currently helping me write my book. About two days ago, I went to the new Wal-Mart near our house and got a new fountain pen: Parker. It’s also green. But the nib never had ink flowing out of it as well as Schaffer. But I used it all the same, and I felt like I was comitting adultry. Everyone liked Parker. “Ooh, Parker is a REALLY good brand,” they said. They oohed and ahhed, when before they could not understand why I kept Schaffer (“It leaks, and it’s hard to manage. Why don’t you get another one?”). Then there was my First pen, sitting alone in my Spagetti-O’s can where I put all my reject pens and pencils. Then last night, as I writing, I said, “ENOUGH!” I put Parker in the can, and I started writing with Schaffer again. We’re friends again!

16

My car is sporty. It has lots of buttons and readouts on the dashboard. They are all set exactly the way I like them. When you ride in my car, Do not play with the buttons!!. It is possible to ask “what does this do?” without touching it first. Please do not touch my buttons. It makes me want to kick you out of my car.

17

Times this joke has been made now: 7.

Time I want to hear it again: unlimited :smiley:

Spiny: I know what you mean, I got a rush when I held my first sword. But I work with swords and knives, and have an impressive collection which I play with regularly. The rush, the feeling of ‘whoa’ is gone now. With my sword, it isnt that. It’s something different.
My plans, as far as what to DO with what I am? Cultivate it. I may never get to use it (I plan to be a physiotherapist), but I still want to make it stronger. Martial arts when I have the money. I take more joy in using it and improving it than in using it usefully, since I long ago resigned myself to the fact that mine is a mentality that is long outdated in common society.

Tassie: Hey… How YOU doin’? :smiley:

18

Okay, apparently I have to be the first to say it. Mnementh, you’re a complete nut-job. If one of my friends spazzed on me like that over an inanimate object, I would find it hard to forgive them for it. Those who think their pets are “people, too” are irritating enough, but ascribing human traits to inanimate objects to that degree is just whacked. As for that business of being born a warrior and feeling surges of inner power - I don’t know, maybe you’ve just been watching too much Dragonball Z.

19

… I know exactly what you mean, as I used to get the same sort of feelings.

Confrontations give you a rush… working the bod is one of the great things, the sheer feeling of power over life and death during times of confrontation, the slowing down of time during crisis, making it seem like you have all the time in the world…

The important thing to know is that it’s fine to have these feelings, and it is a good thing to know what you are, but to attempt to do these things, without guidance and training can be dangerous… it’s taken me years to be what I am… and part of who I am scares the shit out of me.

Like I said, feel free to e-mail me… might be interesting to converse. And no, I won’t make fun of you, unless you turn out to be a total nutjob with way to much time spent making D&D characters. :smiley:
back to the OP: I really don’t have a physical thing that I value above all… my weapons maybe, but in the end they are things that can be replaced. Maybe when I finally get the car I want it’ll be different… until then, the most valued thing is my wife, the other woman I love, and my children.