Fictophilia

Fictophilia is a romantic or sexual attraction to non-real people. It's not something I personally have, but I think its interesting as a form of attraction that hasn't been normalized in today's society, yet seems fairly reasonable. From what I've seen online there are some resources on "overcoming" fictophilia, but on the whole it seems to be accepted as something relatively innocuous and not concerning.

Typically fictophilia refers to the attraction to characters from media. This is similar to "waifus", but with fully realized attraction. But I think it could similarly to relationships with LLMs, like Replika and similar services.

My opinions on existence lead me to generally find fictophilia as falling under "love is love" - not for me, but perfectly fine. No one is harmed here. I don't think it makes sense to judge people for fictophilia. After all, its okay for people to be aromantic or asexual which similarly don't involve relationships with real people. And indeed, I think these relationships can be a bit of a safe haven for those who are afraid of being taken advantage of or otherwise harmed by an IRL relationship.

I do think there is a bit of a concern of fictional relationships subtly reinforcing unrealistic expectations of a relationship, but by the nature of fictophilia I'm not sure that actually harms anyone in practice. But I'm not totally sure here. And it's not like we're born knowing what a healthy relationship looks like anyways, or how to navigate difficult moments. I think any of these issues can be pretty easily resolved by still having some form of relationship (including non-romantic ones) with real people still. I guess I just don't super approve of someone isolating themselves from all of society.

I suspect that a society that moves from individualistic to collectivist would likely see fictophilia diminish in quantity, as some are likely seeking companionship that is simply harder to find in an individualist society. There'll likely always be some number of people interested in fictophilia for that reason or others. While I would prefer it if everyone can simply find community within this world to be apart of, there are surely some number of people for whom that is not interesting or accessible enough, and those people still deserve love.