When lurking around my usual online toy robot haunts, every once in a while I come across a forum thread that sparks some rather bleak personal introspection, I’m afraid. This particular thread did just that to me at TFW2005. “What good or bad things have happened to you while collecting Transformers?” the thread asked.

Good or bad things, huh? So I sat there for minutes, trying to muster up a personal “good thing” and to no avail. I don’t think I have had any “good” things happen as a result of my toy robot habit. I sure as hell have experienced numerous embarrassing moments in this hobby. For instance, I was once on a date and this girl asked me “What do you like to do in your free time?” and I literally struggled to find an answer that didn’t revolve around my certain toy robot compulsion and the obsessive desire to accumulate more of them. It was a first date, after all, and I didn’t exactly want to lie to her, but I also didn’t want her running for the exits, either.  So I took the safe route and said, “I collect old toys..and….uh, comics.” I didn’t bother to get into specifics. She sort of smiled and said “Old toys? Like what? Antiques? Star Wars?” Pensively I said, “Well, actually….Transformers.” She smiled again, softly, I don’t totally recall her exact statements, but her dismissive tone was becoming painfully apparent. I never heard from her again.

Of course, there could have been a number of reasons why I never heard from her again, but I can’t help but think it all wasn’t somewhat sabotaged by my admission of a predilection for plastic, transforming robots. I’m a grown man who buys toys—lots of them. And mainstream society finds that expectedly a rather weird compulsion/hobby. Every guy has to have a hobby, I guess, whether that’s fishing, collecting stamps, baseball cards—whatever. But there seems to be a much more socially acceptable angle to most other hobbies. I’ve broken no laws, haven’t hurt anyone (except, perhaps my self-esteem) and I’m honestly no worse off financially then I would be otherwise as a result of my hobby. But the mainstream can’t help but view us kid-dults as outcasts of sorts.

I collect toy robots because they actually DO make me happy on some level. I mean, why the hell would one ever devote themselves to something that only caused them pain, right? There has to be some kind of a payoff. I realize that it’s not my problem that society views me as “weird” or  “regressed” just because I chose the accumulation of toy robots over baseball cards or Hot Wheels. I simply love plastic transforming robots and while I can’t think of “good things that have happened to me” as a result of my collecting, I realize that the “good thing” I have is the enjoyment I get from collecting. As far as societal norms go, I’d always rather be interesting or weird than mature any day. I may get older but I won’t ever get old. Deep down I don’t care what others think of my hobby, even though at times I feel inexplicably embarrassed by it.