Wait...You Mean They're NOT Real??

This happens to me all the time. I read good books, and the characters seem so alive, so real, that you can't help falling in love with them. And then, for me I find myself thinking, "I wish I could meet him" And then reality comes crashing down on me, and I remember that they aren't real. I think of all the characters I love, they don't seem to me like the inhabitants of an imaginary world made up by another human. They seem like real people who I could actually meet if only I could manage to run into them. There's always a moment, when I think about my favorite characters that I feel like they ARE  real, a moment when it seems that I could meet them, and sit down with them and talk to them. And then after all to short moment, I remember that they're not real people. I always find it heartbreaking that as soon as I close the pages of a good book the characters vanish. They remain, forever encased in some thin sheets of paper and ink letters. They don't follow me out of that world into the other., and it is only in this world of paper and ink that I can find these dear friends. Because that's how I view them: Not interesting characters, but as dear friends that I feel as though I've know all my life. And in that moment, when I remember that they're not real, or the moment I remember they will stay encased in ink, or that the series is over, I realize by the empty feeling inside me, how much I love fictional characters. There is a pleasant side to all of this, however. When I close the pages of a book, however sorrowful it may be that they cannot come with me, whenever I re-open those pages, those friends will be waiting for me, no matter what. We can pick up just where we left off. And no matter what happens, these people will stay the same, in the pages of a well worn book, unchanging, just waiting for me to return to them and pick up where we left off.

Does anyone else have thoughts like these, or am I just really weird??

Until I manage to travel to other dimensions and meet fictional people,
Robin