Imaginary Friendslist?

[sistermagpie]

Seems like every time I think of posting something recently I get sidetracked by reading even more posts in the on-going discussion about race and cultural appropriation. (See metafandom for links if you're interested--there are a lot of good ones.) This morning I was actually a bit saddened to read a post that dismissed a lot of it as so much "nonsense" from trolls and people with nothing better to do than attack white writers and their friends. I'm sure that person had just not read the same things I've been reading, because there was some really excellent stuff from all sorts of angles, including a really fascinating post that touched on what could be called the colonization of the imagination.

Also it introduced a new concept to me that I kind of love when someone referred to someone using her "nice white lady powers".

So while pointing everyone over to those links I was writing a story today at work that involved an imaginary friend. The friend in the story was pretty cool, though one thing that surprising me when I talked to the person to whom the story happened was that she was originally really freaked about it. Like she worried something was wrong with her son--turns out she had never had an imaginary friend and also she was just really nervous as a new mother and all that, but having had one myself and just thinking of them as totally normal I almost felt a little defensive! I remembering seeing a documentary once--maybe it was in Jesus Camp? where an Exorcist blithely described some little girl's imaginary friend as some sort of demon!

But I also remember once reading that what psychologists mostly believe about the phenomenon is that they're just ways that kids practice making friends. They're not for kids who are lonely, necessarily, but for kids who are interested in relationships with other people.

Anyway, that made me wonder if any of you (not restricted to the f'list of course) had imaginary friends at all when you were little and if so, what do you remember about them? I remember mine was a girl named Evelyn with blonde hair and a red jumper. In fact I seem to remember a point when she was two girls--Good and Bad Evelyn (which just hints at all sorts of psycho behavior, doesn't it?). Eventually Evelyn went away on a train.

I believe my mother once told me my sister had two friends called A and Gus and they wore bowler hats. So...anybody else have any imaginary friend memories to share? I always find things that come out of kid's brains endlessly creative.

Comments

[22by7.livejournal.com]

Good and Bad Evelyn
ooh, now, that's mighty interesting. when did they become the same entity again?

my imaginary friends were... think the cast of Monsters Inc. i liked to make dolls and toy soldiers and dinosaurs chat over tea.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good cast!

I can't remember how they came back together again--if they did. Maybe they were always two? It's funny that I can remember something of what they looked like and the important fact that it all ended with a train, but I can't remember some of these details.

[kittyjimjams.livejournal.com]

I am officially the SADDEST PERSON EVER, because I invented an imaginary friend in an attempt to be interesting! Yeah.

As I recall she was called Golden Hair and was basically a completely ordinary storybook princess, but she never actually existed to me - I would talk about her to my mum and my sisters as if she did, but it was all spur-of-the-moment stuff to get their attention.

*TRAJIC VIOLIN HEER PLZ*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! That makes you awesome--you were having a meta childhood. And expertly manipulating people with your mad imagination skillz to boot!

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

I never had an imaginary friend, and when I found out about them I was really bummed that I didn't. I felt that it was proof that I lack a truly creative imagination.

Although if this is true:

they're just ways that kids practice making friends. They're...for kids who are interested in relationships with other people

I can understand why I never had one. Even as a kid I was fairly anti-social. :P I liked making up stories on my own about not real people who were not me having adventures in a fictional setting, but I don't think I would have like an imaginary someone else who seemed real to me to be hanging around all the time...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It does make sense when you think of that explanation, doesn't it? Like I remember sometimes I would lecture my stuffed animals on certain social graces, like how to behave when you went out to dinner, and this is tangentially related. That's why kids manage to have fights with their imaginary friends and then make up.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

My imaginary friend was a boy named John (or Johnny). I had, at the time, a real best friend who was also a boy named John, but they were different people. (In other words, I do not remember the imaginary friend as an extension of or fill-in version of the real, live friend.)

Apparently, I lacked imagination for naming characters. Or perhaps the imaginary friend got his name independent of me and was simply a testament to the fact that there are a lot of boys named John in North America!

I don't remember much about him, except that he was so much a fixture of our family life, that when I got married (to a fellow named John, as it happens), my mother talked about my imaginary friend in the toast she gave at our reception.

ETA. I was 2 or 3 when I developed this "friend."

Yeah, I don't know about all the Johns. *shrugs*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh--I love little connections like that with the names. I definitely believe he wasn't an extension of your friend. But then, one of the things I can remember about childhood was not knowing many names. Like when a family moved in next door and we became friends I distinctly remember that we *all* thought the other had weird names. I mean, I thought their names were unusual (at least the two girls'--one of whom, to be fair, had a nickname that wasn't really a name so it was true) and they thought mine was. But really they were pretty classic names.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

How interesting, because just today I was at the bookstore near campus ordering my student's books (late, I'm always late, it's a thing) and I saw the new James Patterson book that is totally about imaginary friends!

I never had a consistent imaginary friend. Instead I made up all these elaborate scenarios, but they were more like narratives that I stood outside of. I was a big fan of Fisher Price little people when I was a kid, but I also made up a whole long Superman-esque story about the crayons in a 64-pack.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I was a huge fan of those Fisher Price little people too. I had a lot of the big toys that went with them too--still in pretty good shape at my parents' house (my mother will point out that mine were when they still made them out of wood). I often wonder if Evelyn's coloring wasn't inspired by one of those little people--the girl with the red dress and blonde hair.

I love the crayon saga. Now I'm wondering which colors played which roles.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

I had a group of three or four kid-sized mice that I palled around with in my pre-K days. They were called "my brothers"

(...and actually, I'm pretty sure I invented them in response to the early-passing of my real-life baby brother, so...wow, having mice as brothers is maybe not as amusing as it could have been)

Oddly - or perhaps not - the first story I ever wrote (my mother transcribed it for me and I illustrated it, was a tale about a kid who stopped seeing his imaginary monster friend when he started school and made a real friend (a girl who looked oddly like me...my first author insert!). The monster was sad, but then it met the similarly-abandoned imaginary monster friend of the boy's new school friend, and they went off together, so it all ended happily.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Somehow the story about your brother makes the mice all the more fitting--it's almost like a fairy tale. But not.

I'm so glad the imaginary monster had a happy ending too! Too bad those were the days before he could go and live at Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

[hadriana.livejournal.com]

I didn't really have friends so much as I had an imaginary studio audience. Sometimes I had imaginary guests that I would interview on my show. If that's how I developed my human interaction skills, well, that's pretty weird.

I couldn't speak English when I was younger either so I made up a gibberish language (mixed in with latin words from church) that I pretended was English. So maybe it was practice for interacting with Americans? Hmmm.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! Interviewing is a good skill to learn. And wow, the gibberish words is great too. That must have been some talk show.:-D

[misscake.livejournal.com]

I never really thought about it in any sort of analytical way, but no, I never had an imaginary friend. Neither has my son.

We both did/do a lot of acting out imaginary storylines but the cast of characters was/is constantly changing, so I suppose it's more like an imaginary supporting cast rather than an individual friend.

The theory on why kids create imaginary friends is interesting. I know I was very shy as a child but also quite content in my world of books. My son, on the other hand, could make friends with the wall and though he is an only child (which I think would make him more prone to imaginary friends), he seems to handle being alone quite well.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I really loved hearing that imaginary friends=/=lonely--or even imaginative. It's so easy to read that into it, but that's more like what it looks like to an adult. Really it's probably more like something like playing with baby dolls. I never played with them at all, but it was probably just because playing at taking care of something else never interested me. For many kids they just never happen to have a day when they're interested in this particular game. Or they just make up a new cast whenever they play it rather than having an on-going relationship with one person.

[leianora.livejournal.com]

I remember having hundreds of imaginary friends when I was very little. Mom used to tease me about making so much noise, so I told her that it wasn't all my fault. My friends were doing most of it. One of the reasons I had imaginary friends was because my three best friends in real life lived anywhere from 35 to 75 miles away from me. My sister had real life friends who lived within walking distance from our house. She was also able to make friends very quickly no matter where we were. I, on the other hand, don't make friends easily at all.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ha! I love the noise answer. That seems like it's another stereotype, the imaginary friend you can blame things on.

I could see how having a sister in such a different situation would influence the whole thing too, definitely!

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

My mom once told me I had three imaginary friends. They had ridiculous names, all starting with a B. I don't remember that, so I was probably less than 4. What I remember is that I used to play with my dolls and create convoluted stories for them.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think often parents probably remember the imaginary friends more than the kid does because they stick out for the adult in the way they don't to a child.

[q-spade.livejournal.com]

My imaginary friend Harry used to play guitar outside my playpen and sing to me! I guess I was around 2 1/2-3? He freaked my parents out at first; they were convinced the apartment was haunted and I was the only one who could see/hear the ghost. Harry only stuck around for a year or two – once I started school (I started at 4 1/2) he stopped coming around.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ha! Go Harry-you had a cool friend. It's like Rain Man in...well, in Rain Man!

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I had an imaginary friend named Susie until I was 4 or 5 - I don't remember her hanging around after I went to kindergarten, but I then did have a homemade stuffed rabbit toy I got when I was in the hospital for two weeks - his name was Scrunchy, and I slept with it until I was 10 or 11.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Susie--very classic. Scrunchy also sounds very cool.

[franzeska]

I had dozens of Mary Sue alter egos, but no imaginary friends. I've never thought it was weird for kids to have them though. They're such a fixture of children's books and whatnot.

...Come to think of it, I didn't actually like other kids very much, so maybe I wasn't very interested in making friends, imaginary or otherwise.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That makes perfect sense. I don't think mine was a very big deal either. I mean, I have no idea how long she was there or how much we did together.

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

I never had an imaginary friend. I obviously fail at childhood imagination. :(

Speaking of fail:

I'm sure that person had just not read the same things I've been reading, because there was some really excellent stuff from all sorts of angles, including a really fascinating post that touched on what could be called the colonization of the imagination.

Are you sure it would have made a difference? Because I've seen some truly *frightening* rationalizing of bad behaviour since the imbroglio started. Some people like to see only what they want, you know?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You could be right there. I think the whole thing even started with somebody saying "Yes, I was criticized and they were actually right so there's no need to defend when I said..."

[elizardbits.livejournal.com]

According to my mom (cause my memory is shit), I had a bunch of imaginary friends when I was little. Apparently none of them were actually human, though. This is probably a sign of terrible, terrible insanity. Hee.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think it shows you have good taste. Why stick with people when you can talk to non-people?

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

I don't remember having imaginary friends when I was little, but maybe that's because I channeled my imagination into writing and reading when I was just a kid. I do remember that I used to talk to the family dog Teddy as if he could understand every word I said, so maybe Teddy was my 'imaginary' friend. ;>

This morning I was actually a bit saddened to read a post that dismissed a lot of it as so much "nonsense" from trolls and people with nothing better to do than attack white writers and their friends.
Oh for Pete's sake. Miss the point much? As in, entirely? I've been following a lot of that discussion and most of the comments I read were well reasoned and thoughtful.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That's where the woman whose story it was was coming from. She said she grew up on a farm and just talked to the animals as if they were people. Whcih makes sense to me!

The comments have seemed really good to me too! But they didn't mention anything specific, just the "whole mess" which seemed to be referring to people getting angry at their friends. Which is their right to feel, but I don't think anybody could refer to this whole thing as some sort of wankstorm that won't die down. There's a lot of thoughtful posts about an important subject.

[dreaming-elise.livejournal.com]

I never had an imaginary friend. My little sister did, they were a pair, Shucky the Ducky and Kenner. My siblings and I teased her about her friends, (she was the youngest) and I have a vivid memory of my older sister and my brother "calling" the phone with our own number, and then hanging up quickly, which would make the phone ring. Then they told my little sister that it was Shucky the Ducky and Kenner on the phone. She was livid, absolutely sure her friends were not on the phone. I remember it well, because I didn't realize, as young and malleable as I was in this event, how very hurt my little sister would be over my siblings' attempts to ridicule her imaginary friends.

My only child, interestingly enough, has had a series of imaginary friends. I conclude much of this to be due to our traveling so very much and by incident denying her play time with friends, and by lifestyle choice, denying her siblings to play with. She is, I know, a lonely child, and loves to play. If no one else is available, why wouldn't you invent someone? her most lasting imaginary friend is known as Mr. Bruin. He is, as you'd imagine, a bear.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Mr. Bruin sounds awesome! It does surprise me when people think imaginary friends are any sign of a bad thing--even if it is a response to not having anyone to play with. It's healthy!

Your poor sister! I was the youngest too--I can totally imagine how that would upset me. I love their names, though. At first I thought it was Shucky, Ducky and Kenner and they sounded like a 60s rock group who would have their own TV show.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

i had a Pegasus named Peggy and either a lioness or a cougar, i'm not sure. We didn't interact though, they just ran alongside the car when we went places.

i also had an imaginary friend, a boy my age, named mark. while most kids test their limits with their parents by blaming things on the imaginary friend, i did the opposite... mark would do something bad, and i'd say i did it to protect him :-P we also didn't interact much- mostly remember sitting across the table and drawing/colouring in silence.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

How cool to have them running alongside the car! I read a book once where a girl had a friend who was a lion who also used to walk alongside her.

I am kind of fascinated by our blaming yourself for things Mark did!

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

called the colonization of the imagination.

Link?

I had plenty of imaginary friends, unsurprisingly. The first one, that I can remember anyway, was called Karolina and was friends with my best friend's imaginary friend "Trille". I think I probably had made her up before he told me about his, but I definitely changed her afterwards so that she could match. Trille was small enough to fit into our hands and also invisible, so Karolina became both those things, too. They were with us everywhere. My friend would be very persistent that they were real. When I told my sister about that (him insisting they were real), she'd inform me that they weren't, and since I viewed any words of my sister's as The Ultimate Truth That Must Be Obeyed By All, I'd spend day after day preaching to him about how neither of them existed. He'd be really upset with me and exclaim that Trille, at least, was real!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I knew somebody would ask for that link! Now I have to try to find it.

I love you and your sister. It's amazing how older siblings can have that kind of power sometimes. Mine didn't as much, but I think it was because they were so much older than I was.

I found the link! It's here:

I Didn't Dream of Dragons:
http://deepad.livejournal.com/29656.html?format=light

[roisindubh211.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I know I had an imaginary friend or two, but I don't remember him/her/it/them- my mother remembers me playing with 'em though.

I remember my alter ego-Paul. I think I had grocked that my voice was a little deeper than other girls (not much) and I liked the name.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I like the name too.:-)

I'll bet there are a lot of people whose parents remember imaginary friends more than they do.

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

No "real" imaginary friend, but...

I saw "Jaws" way too young and the shark was my boogieman. Lived under my bed, which made for uncomfortable bedtimes. So, I invented a friendly dolphin to be my protector, named (imaginatively enough) "my dolphin friend". :D My dolphin friend didn't actually fight the shark. Instead he claimed to be a really good sculptor and I just lay really, really still. I'd say it was a pretty good con, as I was never eaten. ;)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

OMG, that's awesome! Should I ask why being a good sculptor would help but I'm sure it made sense.

Sounds like you had yourself a landshark!

[anamirza.livejournal.com]

Wow - your Good and Bad Evelyn sound a bit like my son's imaginary friend, who is often really not very nice at all. And other times is a fun little guy. So maybe there's hope after all. ;) Oh, and I should mention that the imaginary friend has cousins. All the bad things - volcanic eruptions, dinosaur attacks, tornadoes - happen to the cousins.

I had an imaginary friend who went everywhere with me. I don't remember the name - Jenny or something like that. I do remember that once my parents took me to a gymnastics meet on campus, and I insisted that we were *four* not *three* - "don't forget Jenny, Mom!" I don't think Mom was too amused, but the cashier probably was.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh--have you ever read Shirley Jackson's books about her crazy family? One of her daughters has an army of imaginary friends all named Ellenoy--that's their last name, which is the same because I think they all married the same man. So they're all called "Mrs. Ellenoy."

[devimelete.livejournal.com]

One time I had an imaginary friend was actually based of some boy in class that I never paticularly liked. As a result, I never really named my 'friend', save the few instances of calling him Jerk.

And I'm not even that good at poking at people's nerves to this day, so I think that imaginary friend was there to let out some steam. Oh, the snark and the bitching we've exchanged.

Now my mom told me a certian incident that I don't remember this at all, but she once told me this story how I was in the bathtub one day, taking my bath, and I was talking in different voices.

My mom asked behind the door, "How many people are you partying with, Kate?"

I replied, "Seventeen."

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! Bathtub parties are awesome!

Somehow it's all the more perfect hearing about your jerk friend while looking at Toph in your icon.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Nope, no imagination means no imaginary friends.

Gran once tried to encourage me to make an imaginary friend up. Probably when I was complaining about having no one to play with and nothing to do. I'm afraid the whole concept struck me as totally lame and pathetic (I've never been particularly suggestible). But, after that, I would occasionally go out and push an empty swing of my swing set, *pretending* to have made up an imaginary friend, to make Gran feel better.

Mind you, there were the Joneses. They were an imaginary family, in an imaginary story. I think they must have spun off from Ma having once said something about "keeping up with the Joneses", so I made a stab at sorting out who the Joneses were. But they presumably had their own story, so I didn't bother to make that part up. And of course they never intereacted with me.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ha! I love the idea of you pushing the empty swing to make Grandma happy. There's sometimes a really big difference between kids who make up pretend things like that and those who don't. To a kid who doesn't it's like telling an adult to make up a pretend friend. It's not just something that comes with being a child!

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

Don't remember having imaginary friends in my childhood. However, I remember watching "Transformers" series and the film "The Three Musketeers" (both Russian, of course) and afterwards dancing to the music and imagining myself in those worlds, having adventures and interacting with other characters. It was fun! Even though, I was constantly having problems there, probably trying to make up something interesting.

think it shows you have good taste. Why stick with people when you can talk to non-people?
LOL! It reminded me of a lame joke:

- How do we know sentient life (aliens) exists outside the Earth?
- Because they've never tried to contact us.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee! I used to make up adventures I had with Robin Hood (the Disney version). I remember constantly trying to swing across things, tying strings to the lights and jumping off counters.