Why People Pretend to Talk as Their Pets

Kathleen began to suspect something was wrong when her stuffed animals started criticizing her. It wasn’t unusual for her boyfriend at the time to role-play as the toys, speaking for them in cartoon voices, but a habit that had started as cute and affectionate gradually took a turn. A stuffed turtle, the couple’s favorite of the toys, had had a childlike, innocent personality toward the beginning of their relationship, but it “started to get more judgy,” she told me. Once, the turtle even called her a bitch.

“I eventually became afraid of the turtle,” Kathleen said. (Kathleen, now a 38-year-old web developer in the Bay Area, asked to be identified by only her first name because she’s still friends with her ex, whom she dated in college.)