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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"
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I agree that it is possible to fall in love with female characters. I have on several occasions including that of shows. It isn't that I want THAT particular character, it's that I see many traits in the character I really want in a partner. This manifested with the right given personality makes it easy to fall for. Just like with everything else, not all personality and traits are appealing to everyone.
As you stated in OP, some people simply don't because they can't justify why someone can fall in love with something fake. Just like some people don't like long distance relationships because there is a lack of physical element to it even if the conversations and the person is real.
Although the question may refer to writing, I recall Lara Croft winning a magazine poll of the world's sexiest women. The poll was conducted before the release of the Tomb Raider film so they were not voting for Angelina Jolie. Croft was omitted from the published listing because she wasn't real.
I'm not sure about 'falling in love', but as a teenager I used to eagerly anticipate any mention of Elayne in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I was definitely infatuated with her character, especially when written from the perspective of other characters (so you could see her cutesy mannerisms).
A gorgeous, young, intelligent mage who just happens to be a beloved princess and a passionate redhead to boot!? She was expertly designed to be incredibly attractive to males of my age group.
I have written lots of sexy/romance/erotica stories, and I have created lots of compelling female characters that I have fallen in love with (and hate with, etc). I think many of my readers have done so too. This is a genre that generally begs for such a response -- and it's challenging to make a character within that genre who is not a cliche or stereotype.
In the last 30 or so years I think people are more inclined to fall in love with a TV or movie character than a character from a book. (The last book character I have fallen in love is Scarlett O'Hara!). In today's world, literary works tend to appeal more to people's intellectual side than to their emotional side.
Let me add that I WISH I fell in love with more female characters I read about. But I tend to read very odd things.
The good-girl-bad-boy thing has always bothered me philosophically. Yet, this scenario fulfills itself endlessly in real life. Perhaps it is a benefit to the OP she exercises this part of her psychology in a fantasy as opposed to an abusive relationship.
Men have other problems. Don't get me wromg, there's lots of other problems. Chief among them is the over-reliance on comeliness to develop global feelings of love.
One of the curiosities many people have is if there is a difference between "love" and "in love with ," and where desire fits into the equation.
I love lots of characters, think about them, even dream about them. But I've never felt desire or lust, even after spending dozens of hours (or hundreds of hours in my own work). I don't think I'm special--a pretty average dude, actually.
I've avoided porn for several years now for my own reasons, but there was no question of images producing desire and lust.
So, is it Men Are From Mars, and Women Are From Venus? Does attraction and desire follow love or in-love more often in one gender? What about the inverse: Does love or in-love follow attraction and desire more often in one gender?
I don't have these sociological answers for you. However, I can tell you women purchase 90% of the print books listed as Romance in the US. I'm not sure what conclusion I can globally draw from this. But I (personally) agree with your friend: Dudes may love characters from their books, but they don't love their characters. I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions.
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