The latest Levar Burton Reads podcast story had to do with "parasocial" relationships. A new term to me, it describes people who are in 1-sided relationships with another; think a follower of an Instagram or whatever person with a million followers. The follower identifies as a "friend" of that person, has access to many intimate details of the life they post, and thinks about them often. But, if they saw that social media person on the street, the follower would be unrecognizable.
This could also be related to people who take anime too seriously and have waifus of their favorite anime girls. For the record I do watch some anime, but I'm not super into it and I don't have any body pillows or $1000 figurines of anime girls.
The story was pretty good and had a cool twist at the end. Worth a listen if you like shirt stories and/or podcasts.