I do relate to the desire even though I was thinking more along the lines of body pillows, because I've accepted that I'm going to live out my remaining 50-60 years exactly as I am now with the closest I get to people being a pleasant conversation in the workplace. All advice has been followed, and no results have been had. I will never have the company I've put in years of self-improvement for.
It's hard to not give in to fantasy and soothe the pain when I will be alone and unnoticed if I do and alone and unnoticed if I don't. What difference does it make? People already see me as weird, and they do far more unsavory things than I when nobody's watching. Shame only has meaning to those who have something to lose, and a loner has nothing to lose socially other than things like workplace reputation. It's not like people could love, befriend, and spend time with me less than not at all if I were one of "those people" with a pretend companion.
Once crossed, though, barriers of reality and human relations can be difficult to cross back over. I often allow myself to feel closer to characters in movies, videos, podcasts, and streams than I should, and I once or twice caught myself about to speak as if I were an actual participant. Whether or not I've been left to die in the cold by the rest of my species, I don't want to get to the point where I don't recognize that we don't really know each other.