Imaginary Friends

[Paul Whybrow]

I've jokingly referred to my novel writing as playing with my imaginary friends in various threads. Many children have imaginary friends, and I was no exception.

I had good cause to create an ally, for when I was three years old my privileged world was invaded by twin sisters. I loved them, but the attention definitely shifted from toddler me to entrancing babies. My role altered too, for suddenly I was a helper and protector.

To cope, I invented Peter—an invisible brother, who did all of the naughty things that I wouldn't ever do. He stuck around for a couple of years, until I went to infant school, where I suddenly had battles to fight alone.

Peter returned to me last night, as I waded through another round of editing my WIP. He came into my mind as an idea for a short story about a writer being haunted by a ghost that looks like himself.

It made me wonder if writers are prone to having kept company with imaginary friends when youngsters—an early manifestation of their creative powers, perhaps....

Did any of you have friends that nobody else could see?

Are they still around?

 

[Bluma Bezbroda]

Yes and Yes I had a big need for companions, and since reality didn't provide a lot for them (I had quite a troubled childhood) I just had to invent them. In fact, the "Imaginary friends" from those times and the adventures we had together are the basis for the book I'm writing right now

 

[Kitty]

Oh yes, most definitely - they're all still around and they're all in a way different expressions of me! sometimes I like them so much that I become one of them for a while

 

[Madeleine Conway]

Oh yes, I had a whole family, my mother remembers all their names, but I remember Auntie Nora, and Uncle Really-Odd-Name such as only a three year old would come up with. And that was just the beginning....bwahahahahahaha.

Many thanks to all who posted Birthday wishes - everything has been swamped by last few days of teaching/coursework marking/exam admin and tidying. Now for three weeks of exam marking, writing like fury as editor has asked for second draft of current WIP to be submitted by April 15...and I hope some reading and other forms of R&R.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I would not like a ghost who looked like me. She would be my Fetch. I grew up the oldest of 5. When I was 8 and 9 I got a baby brother and sister. There was always someone to look out for. I gave them bottles, changed nappies, bathed them, sung them to sleep at night. My mother worked too, and we all had to help a little, which was a good training, even if we resented it sometimes. I loved them all and was very proud to do these things but I need space. I needed space sometimes, rather than an imaginary friend, but there were odd little things sometimes. What people might call poltergeist manifestations. Sometimes I was scared about things.

 

[Patricia D]

Yes and no. My imaginary friends were three peacocks that lived in a stand of pines beside our house. My family moved away when I was about ten; the peacocks didn't come with us. Years later, my husband and I were in that town. He asked me to show him where I'd lived. I had no trouble finding the old house, but ... He pulled up to the curb, and my mouth fell open. I stared in shock at the five scraggly pines in the side yard.

"There were no peacocks," was all I could say. My husband teased me about that for years.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

I don't remember having a specific imaginary friend that stayed with me for a long time. I may have had a couple different ones here and there, but no long lasting ones. So I don't have any imaginary friends now, but I do enjoy the characters I create.

 

[Madeleine Conway]

Uncle Step... it comes back to me. Once I started reading properly, I had a host of friends - mainly alternative gangs to Famous Five or the Blyton Adventure book gang. I sympathised hugely with George at the way girls were always forced to be ladylike and a bit stupid. I wanted a dog desperately and later, I'm afraid to say, horses. So there were many imaginary animals.

 

[Marc Joan]

My imaginary friends stopped speaking to me after I grassed on them over the infamous 'Drawing on the Wall in Red Crayon' episode. And yet it was still me that got into trouble.
Seriously, I've no imaginary friends (is 'imaginary' redundant in the previous clause? discuss) but I DO have a doppelganger. I've seen him. People kept telling me there was a clone of me walking around, but I took it with a pinch of salt until one day I was walking into a bar in Bristol just as he was walking out. Totally spooky - not just similar, but virtually identical -- hair, height, build, taste in clothes, grumpy expression, everything. I often wonder where he is and what he's doing. In no hurry to meet him though -- it'd probably end up in fisticuffs ('You're a damned impostor, sir! Take that!' as we punch each other's identical noses).

 

[Sea-shore]

I didn't have imaginary friends (though I wished I could have had one - seemed like such a nice thing to have) but I had imaginary places I would go to: secret tunnels (under the stairs), whispering woods (just one gigantic old tree with wide-spread roots), a forest den (some elderberry bushes), magic kingdoms and islands (park roundabout and climbing frame), and just looking up at the sky there were boundless possibilities. So naturally, in my stories, the lands are as important as the characters.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

My imaginary friends stopped speaking to me after I grassed on them over the infamous 'Drawing on the Wall in Red Crayon' episode. And yet it was still me that got into trouble.
Seriously, I've no imaginary friends (is 'imaginary' redundant in the previous clause? discuss) but I DO have a doppelganger. I've seen him. People kept telling me there was a clone of me walking around, but I took it with a pinch of salt until one day I was walking into a bar in Bristol just as he was walking out. Totally spooky - not just similar, but virtually identical -- hair, height, build, taste in clothes, grumpy expression, everything. I often wonder where he is and what he's doing. In no hurry to meet him though -- it'd probably end up in fisticuffs ('You're a damned impostor, sir! Take that!' as we punch each other's identical noses).

I've met my doppelganger too, and it gave me great pause for thought. I lived in Southsea as a student in the mid 80s, which has a village feel to it and is the part of the city next to the sea. Occasionally, a passing car would beep me, and I'd think "I don't know anyone with a white VW—who was that?". Once someone hailed me from the other side of the road, and even started to cross over before changing their mind.

I didn't think too much of it, until I went out to my neighbourhood store for some Saturday night snacks. Standing patiently in a long queue, I suddenly felt a hand creep between my legs and give my undercarriage a friendly tweak! I turned around to see a complete stranger, a woman some years younger than me who blushed furiously saying "I'm sorry, I thought you were Robert. You look just like him from behind."

"Well, do I feel like him from behind? I asked. It turned out she'd been picked up by this man in a club, spent the night with him, and he hadn't contacted her since. She told me that he worked in a local wine bar, so I went along to have a look at him one lunchtime. He did indeed look like a version of me—though not as tall, handsome or sexy (tee hee), and could have passed for my little brother.

When I told Robert about the incident in the store where I got goosed, and described the girl, he replied gracelessly "Oh her, she's a bloody nightmare."

After meeting him, all of the cases of mistaken identity fell into place. Then I had the dreadful thought of what would happen if he robbed a bank—eyewitnesses would finger me as the culprit!

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Doppelganger...creepy. There is always the possibility of astral projection, I suppose. Someone once told me he saw me walking towards him in a country lane in Suffolk. I was smiling, he said, looking as usual, then I disappeared, and there was no one else in the lane. Where do we go when we sleep? The Russians threw shamen out of helicopters. Show us how you fly, then, they said as they pushed them out. It's obvious how we all 'fly.' People do tend to get stuck on the most literal meanings though, don't they.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

I have a twin, too! Not quite a doppelganger -- we can be identified individually -- and she's not my literal twin. But everyone calls us sisters every time we meet. Our parents have even unofficially adopted the other.

 

[Bluma Bezbroda]

Wow, I never met anyone who would look even remotely as me... We don't even resemble each other with my siblings! We are 7 (I'm the second) and people describe us as "different the same". Meaning, we do not look alike, but we supposedly have the same smile gestures etc. One girl told me "You even tilt your head in the same way your brother does!". So, there is a familiarity in movement, but if you'd see us on a photograph you'd think we're all from different fathers

 

[Patricia D]

@Marc Joan My sister had, Cheechen, who was to blame for everything someone might have thought she did. Cheechen stuck around for years, taking the blame for every bit of spilled milk, broken pottery, whatever.

 

[Marc Joan]

I have a twin, too! Not quite a doppelganger -- we can be identified individually -- and she's not my literal twin. But everyone calls us sisters every time we meet. Our parents have even unofficially adopted the other.

View attachment 1244

You're looking very posh there, Nicole. So's your twin.

 

[Marc Joan]

@Marc Joan My sister had, Cheechen, who was to blame for everything someone might have thought she did. Cheechen stuck around for years, taking the blame for every bit of spilled milk, broken pottery, whatever.

Couple of years ago, my daughter had a similarly useful sidekick - "Mr Fox" - responsible for, inter alia, covering various household fabrics with lipstick.

 

[MichaelBlackbourn]

I've always had stories running around in my head, daydreams. No specific friend but always alternate worlds or scenarios. That's why I've always been partial to this quote by TS Elliot:

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

 

[J. Rook]

I've met my doppelganger too, and it gave me great pause for thought. I lived in Southsea as a student in the mid 80s, which has a village feel to it and is the part of the city next to the sea. After meeting him, all of the cases of mistaken identity fell into place. Then I had the dreadful thought of what would happen if he robbed a bank—eyewitnesses would finger me as the culprit!

Short story coming on?

 

[J. Rook]

There is a person who physically is almost my clone. We lived in the same town for thirty years and met each other at functions. Her life unfolded along lines very similar to my own, but apart from that, we are two completely separate individuals. Neither of us has ever seen anything particularly significant in our twin-like appearance. It's just the genome making sure that such a highly intelligent, attractive, genetic collection gets repeated.
Doppelgaengers are another thing altogether.

 

[Geoff]

My children used to have lots of imaginary friends. Whenever something happened that might be considered naughty, or anything accidentally got broken all by itself, it was never my childrens' fault. Yes those imaginary friends certainly have a lot to answer for!

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Short story coming on?

Already written, a novella called 'A Man Out Walking His Dog', about a man doing just that who discovers a murder victim floating in a river. The story was prompted by my experience of mistaken identity, and hearing that phrase so often on the news—dog walkers are often the first people to find a corpse—something they don't tell you in the pet shop when you buy a puppy.

A pushy detective tries to frame him for the crime, as he resembles the real killer who's seen by unreliable witnesses in the area at the same time. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously fickle and, all too often, shockingly inaccurate—a situation made worse if coerced by a biased policeman. My accused man escapes by the skin of his teeth, thanks to a video of the killer that his victim made on her iPhone.

We all like to think we're unique, but we have replicants walking around somewhere—doing good and bad things without our permission!

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I never had imaginary friends--I just simply took in every stray animal within 10km of home (much to my mother's dismay).

I once met two women who looked just like me. I was running an ecotourism operation in Panama, and two German women showed up one day. We looked at each other and laughed--we could have been identical triplets. But then I've always thought that blonde girls all look the same--I used to have a terrible time picking out my own daughter from the crowds at school when she went to a school with uniforms.