<p>I would have been looking around the room for John Quinones.</p>
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<p>Those skits usually expect someone to jump in to stop something. This doesn’t really seem like it needs anyone to stop anything. </p>
<p>It’s obviously very weird. But live and let live right? I have seen some of these people before (he’s not the only one) on youtube talking about it. </p>
<p>Loved Lars and the real girl. Didnt remember it was Ryan Gosling!</p>
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<p>Years ago, I had a personal trainer who was always emphasizing that you had to be comfortable in your own skin. I’m generally oblivious, but one day I looked at his hair and realized he was wearing a toupee. I got another trainer. I distrusted him more than I would distrust the mannequin guy, who as far as I know has not been hypocritical. </p>
<p>Years ago, when spouses were more often invited to Christmas parties, I remember being introduced to many wives and husbands of co-workers who made an elaborate fuss about how much they loved their SO, when I knew who at the company they were diddling. The imposition on me of having to publicly validate their deception was more onerous, I think, than me having to ignore a mannequin at a restaurant. It’s not like he’s asking other diners to talk to her, is he? I would find that an imposition or violation of boundaries. </p>
<p>Same situation as above when an ostentatiously religious person, whom I know to behave less than admirably in one or more parts of their life, is making a show of their exemplary character and I have to bite my tongue. </p>
<p>I wonder, aside from this mannequin, whether this guy has a pretty healthy life? I might have to Google around a bit. </p>
<p>Ps: I officially retract any comparison I made between this guy and having pets that people treat like their children. I have not now, or in the past, had pets that I treated as my children, but I respect everyone’s right to do so and I don’t think it is weird :). </p>
<p>The rubber doll outfits are out there. There’s a company in rural central Florida making the doll outfits. The restaurant operator above would probably freak out if the guy decided to do a 'girls night out" and showed up at restaurant in a full rubber doll suit accompanied with the girlfriend mannequin as date.</p>
<p><a href=“Florida business discreetly serves unique female maskers market (w/video)”>http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/femskin-adds-a-few-kinks-to-the-bible-belt/2167457</a></p>
<p>“I would have been looking around the room for John Quinones.”</p>
<p>I would think Candid Camera. </p>
<p>Liz Lemon had a 3 way with James Franco & Kimiko- a Japanese body pillow.( fictional characters on 30Rock)
<a href=“Love in 2-D - The New York Times”>Love in 2-D - The New York Times;
<p><-- Seinfeld was the first thing I thought after Lars and the Real Girl.</p>
<p>“I prefer to think of her as… Elaine.”</p>
<p>There was a TV show a couple of weeks ago where the murder victim was a rubber doller. Out of curiosity I googled to see if it was a real thing. Wish I hadn’t - some things I could live without knowing. Damned internet.</p>
<p>Creepy, and maybe sad, but then again maybe he’s just doing it for the attention (i.e. to shock bystanders). In that case, it is just creepy.</p>
<p>If I were a restaurant owner, I wouldn’t let him bring it, or, more accurately, would not admit him if he insisted on bringing it with him. And I definitely wouldn’t tolerate the PDA that Pizzagirl describes. Yuck.</p>
<p>I’m with those who say it’s weird but harmless. Little girls bring their dolls into restaurants all the time, pretend to order food for them, and “feed” them. This guy is doing the same thing. Sad, but not dangerous.</p>
<p>My SIL worked as a waitress for a well-known Seattle restaurant back in the day and this guy came in regularly with his lamp. The lamp had a name and was his dinner date. He was a regular. One time SIL was waiting on him and the guy made a fuss because the lamp didn’t like her order and he was sending it back. That was a little too real for her and she made someone else take that table. But still, it was harmless.</p>
<p>Ixnaybob - from what I have been able to discern, he has some kind of normal job, gets up and goes to work everyday, props her up with a book outside (if weather permits) or inside with a jigsaw puzzle or other amusement, comes home from work, etc. In that sense, he is fully functional - this isn’t someone who needs to be confined to a mental hospital or who poses any danger to himself or others. </p>
<p>If she’d been a “real girl,” no one would have noticed anything odd about him otherwise. Normal looking, appeared to interact with the waitress appropriately, wasn’t asking other people to interact with the doll. </p>
<p>I’d bet cab drivers in Las Vegas most nights see a lot of stuff weirder than this guy and his mannequin girlfriend. </p>
<p>“I’m with those who say it’s weird but harmless. Little girls bring their dolls into restaurants all the time, pretend to order food for them, and “feed” them. This guy is doing the same thing. Sad, but not dangerous.”</p>
<p>The American Girl store / cafe does a booming business in little girls bringing their dolls into restaurants!
Nonetheless, even those little girls know the dolls aren’t really real; they are pretending they are, which is different from believing that they are! And there are developmental stages going on here - the little girl who loves her American Girl doll and takes it with her everywhere also has real, loving relationships (one hopes) with her parents, siblings, little girlfriends, etc. </p>
<p>You really wonder what’s behind this - did this guy lose a woman / wife, does he just not know how to interact. But there really is the part of me that says - well, if he can’t interact with women, better he do this to a mannequin than (potentially) try to hurt a real woman in some way. I wonder what therapists would say about this or what he suffers. </p>
<p>I am following this thread in anticipation of Cobrat telling us about his many friends who have relations with mannequins. And the lecture that mannequin is the French for model. </p>
<p>Or maybe he just views this as some kind of misogynistic performance art. </p>
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Well good, then, at least he cares for her and isn’t just using her :)</p>
<p>Thank you for the information. It is sad, in the sense that I wouldn’t want anyone I care for to be doing this, and he probably encounters a lot of stares and jokes at his expense, but I wonder if perhaps it was a good choice of coping mechanism for whatever his issues are. You have to play the cards you get dealt, and maybe this is as good as it can get for him. </p>
<p>If mannequin’s dad owns a liquor store, some men would say she’d be perfect wife not being able to talk back and all.</p>
<p>Maybe he’s no different than the folks who go around in full steampunk regalia, or wearing extreme corsets, or who wear anime character make-up, or even those folks who wear obsessively conceived vintage clothing. Or, even those wearing full body tattoos. In other words, maybe it’s just a style thing and he’s hoping to start a trend.</p>
<p>From googling, I see the mannequin appears to be pretty stylishly dressed.</p>
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<p>Or awcntdb telling us that if the guy had an airplane, he’d have a Sugar Baby instead of a mannequin, which is perfectly acceptable and treated with discretion at the elevated SES levels he’s accustomed to interacting with. We would simply not understand. </p>