Imaginary relationships / friendships

Sometimes, you need the help of a wise friend.

A discussion on Facebook gave me the idea to write about imaginary relationships (which includes friendships, too, it's not all about love). Most of us had such a relationship at some stage in our life, some of us had a more detailed one, and others just had thoughts like "What if...?" Some kids had imaginary friends, other kids didn't.

An imaginary friendship is defined by the fact that the person you day-dream about either doesn't exist or has no interest in the kind of relationship you are interested in. In many cases, the person of desire is a famous person or a fictional character that simply is too good to really exist in life. And this is what I am writing about here: I am not going into imaginary relationships with people you actually know - because I think that can be quite a dangerous topic, and it can also create problems in relationships as they actually are in reality.

But what about your daydreams about being in a relationship with the main character of your favourite TV series, or date the hero from your favourite book? What about the imaginary discussions you have with wise characters from movies and books?

As a child, I had plenty of conversations with Michael Jackson and Captain Picard. Later on, I also imagined what it would be like to meet Xena and Captain Janeway. To me, it was a good way to keep my sanity in a way because I could "talk" to them about things I couldn't talk about with a real person. It never was about romance though. When I started writing fan fictions that included a friend of mine and me as characters, we both ended up having fictional relationships (because my friend wanted me to add some romance to the writing, and I reluctantly tried it). My fictional relationship was with a character called Taiki Kou (from the Japanese manga and anime "Sailor Moon"), but even though anything is possible in fan fictions, I always kept everything to a minimum and focused on the actual stories I was developing (which was just more interesting to me).

Later on, as an adult, I still had plenty of imaginary conversations, and tried to come up with what characters other than myself would say about different problems and situations. It's basically a good way to try and see your own problems from a different perspective. And if you are good as visualizing things, then conversations with characters you love can be quite encouraging. I loved it when I was able to just sit in a room with Janeway. I usually did these kind of "meetings" just before I went to bed, you could probably call it a sort of meditation.

What shall we talk about today?

I never really got into the romantic side of imaginary relationships though. Yes, I sometimes imagine what it could be like to meet certain people (like Bard the Bowman, Xena, Dominic Keating, etc.) but it never goes beyond just normal conversations - maybe I'm just too respectful even in my fantasy! The odd thing is that even with my "imaginary" friends some topics don't come easily. My best conversations I used to have with Janeway because I guess she's the most accessible person of them all.

However, I know that for some people it can be quite comforting to be in an imaginary relationship, and I guess as long as no harm is done in any way, fantasies should be fine. What do you think? Have you ever been in an imaginary relationship? Did it stop you from communicating with "real" people in a certain way?

The big advantage of such friendships is that those friends are always available. They will always have time for you, and they can be with you within seconds. They would never tell you that they are too busy watching their favourite TV show, and they would never come up with some excuses about not being able to help.
The second advantage is that you can basically talk to them about everything without having to worry that they will not be your friends any more afterwards. They will be as accepting and loving as you allow them to be.
The other advantage that I already mentioned: They will help you to gain a new perspective, and can even help you to see sides of a problem that you might not have considered yet. But of course you need to be really good at imagining other people's ideas and perspectives if you would like to do this.

And sometimes, you just want the company of someone very special.