Hi everyone, I dunno who to turn to and I need some genuine advice. I'm 23, just graduated college and have been collecting figures for about 6 or 7 years. Currently I have a collection of just over 70 figures and up until about a year ago I was rather proud of my collection. I mainly get figures of characters that mean something to me or are from series I am especially passionate about.
However, my family is not to keen on my collection, or well any of my hobbies. My father thinks its childish I'm still into games and cartoons (anime) and toys (figures) and he makes the occasional jab at me that no woman will want to get with such a childish adult, my aunt thinks the same and makes this rather well known with jabs at me whenever she gets the chance, on top of that she outright tells me repeatedly that my collection is a waste of space and money. She especially likes to remark that she doesn't want me to end up like my uncles (her brothers) who are elderly, never married, virgins who have star trek and star wars models lining and hanging from their rooms. She even says that collecting anything (games, anime, manga, figures, etc) is pointless since once I get a girlfriend and in turn get married I'll just have to get rid of everything anyway. Heck its only my uncles who think my room is remotely neat.
These repeated remarks have really started to get to me, and even made me loathe my collection at times. A part of me kind of wants to put them all back into their boxes, drive out to my local anime store and sell them all. But I cant bring myself to do that and thinking about it just makes me sadder, but at the same time I cant stand the repeated remarks anymore.
I've tried explaining to her and my dad why these are important to me, why I collect figures and nerd stuff in the first place but it just goes over their heads. I dont get why its ok for my dad to spend hours of his free time watching tv everyday after work but god forbid I have a hobby like gaming, anime or figure collecting. Its been like this practically since I was 16 but has really ramped up after I turned 20. I cant move out, I'm broke atm due to the virus causing me to lose a month and a half's worth of work and due to that I'm behind on bills and barely gonna be able to make some payments. I am at such a loss for what to do. I kind of want to put them in their boxes and leave them there for a bit just so she shuts up about it till I can save up the money to move out.
What do y'all think? What should I do? Is there even anything I can do?