Flutterby™! : Shamelessly seeking imaginary friends 2002-10-08 21:52:45+00

Shamelessly seeking imaginary friends

2002-10-08 21:52:45+00 by Diane Reese 7 comments

Not that I don't like you as real-life friends... but seriously, folks, I'm trying to immerse myself in people's stories of imaginary friends. (Full disclosure: imaginary friends will be a major part of the novel I hope to write in November. You may stop laughing now.) So. Did you have imaginary friends as a child? (Or still?) Did your siblings, or parents, or friends, or children have them? What can you tell me about them? What were they like, what did you call them, when did they appear, what were some of their defining characteristics, how did you interact with them, when did they go away? Even if you'd like to make some up, I'll be happy for the inspiration. And we'll all be amused by your admissions. (PS: This does not have to be PG-13. I fully expect some of their hijinx to be X-rated, hence my question to Dan last week about what he thinks makes a good sustained erotic plotline...)

((Addendum: see below. No need to air imaginary friends in public, sending me email would be a welcome alternative.))

Yay! I've been trying to come up with a reasonable description of my imaginary friend, one "Daniel Wool", who owned most of the railroads and other industry interesting to me at that age, so that I could tie it to your question. Thank you for getting there first. Unlike my sisters I didn't have many interactions with this imaginary friend, he was just someone I knew; "The guy who does all that stuff? Yeah, we hang...".

So tell me about your sisters' imaginary friends, too! :-) (Hmmm, "someone who owns most of the railroads and other interesting industry," this has plot potential...)

Hmm.. no imaginary friends that I remember.. Imaginary selves are another matter. heck.. I can still be (am?) self delusional.

I killed my imaginary friend in a freakish bowling accident you insensitive bastard!

I killed my imaginary self in a freakish bowling accident. And I have to admit I'm not sorry to see him dead, officer, but I've no idea how one gets powder burns on the entrance wound of a bowling ball; why do you ask? Actually, I think it was suicide, he must've beaten himself on the back of his head with those clubs at least 20 or 30 times before Ihe succeeded.

But back to the point at hand, perhaps airing one's relatives' childhood neuroses without their consent on a public web site is a bad idea. I'll brainstorm on my own relationship with my imaginary friend and put some of this in email.

Email is just perfect! I welcome email as a communication method. :-) I guess rather than putting my email address here, you'll need to get to my user info page and thence to my weblog and from there send me email. (Sheesh: sorry for the run-around...)

Dan.. Don't kill your imaginary self, put him to work. Have him do things you would not normally do, and then when you actually do it yourself (because now you know you can) it's no longer an imaginary self, it's Deja Vue. :) { I could probably start a good cult based on this philosophy..silly as it is.. )