Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/25925
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I was having a discussion over coffee with an aspiring author friend of mine and we had an interestingly productive but annoying argument about in-novel crushes.

He said that he had never had romantic feelings for a character in a novel and that he never would because that would be technically impossible. That you can't fancy a character that you can't see and because they aren't real.

I strongly objected to this for many reasons (which I listed until he rolled his eyes and conceded the point out of boredom) and personally have fallen in love with fictional characters many times, perhaps more intensely than real people. I have had romantic crushes on fictional characters and have a weakness for omnipotent alpha males, vampires, werewolves and all sorts of impossible-don't-exist-in-real-life types. Mostly strong, dark and troubled characters. Pretty classic really.

Is it really different for men and women? Do men ever fall in love with characters from novels? If men fall in love with fictional characters, what examples are there? I can't think of a single case.

_Note: I mean "fall in love" in the form of romantic, sensual or desirable, not "fall in love" in the sense of "really liking the character and being upset if they die, or "fall in love" in the sense that "I really love the new iPhone"_

Original score: 6