A while back there was a post on this subreddit about how listeners feel when they find out about a VA having a partner.

And I think most of the comments - or at least most of the highest upvoted comments - stated that they had absolutely no to very little emotional response to this. That they were completely neutral.

That surprised me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

I wondered if these commenters really were completely neutral on these VAs' lives, if they really viewed them basically the same as any other actor on TV. Maybe that’s the best, maybe those people are more stable than me.

I also wondered if they didn’t really mean they were totally neutral on it, but that they didn’t mind if a VA had a partner. That they didn’t feel…. jealous, or something. That makes sense.
But I idly wonder about VAs I listen to all the time, usually when I’m listening to them and multitasking. Cooking. Cleaning. I don’t think it’s inappropriate - this idle wondering - but maybe it is.

I wonder if they sink a lot of money into audio equipment, I wonder if they went to school for acting and if so if they are Stanislavskian or Brechtian, I wonder if they have Ideas and Hopes and Dreams about sexual liberation, I wonder if this hobby/job gets very stressful at times for them... I really wish them the best - and this wishing the best for them does go a bit deeper for me than the sort of just wishing the librarian or the barista or the grocery store clerk or the nurse well.

Is that inappropriate?

I don’t know. But it really seems like they’re giving us a gift. It seems a pretty substantial gift to me too, to be honest. A lot of risk involved. Emotions involved, too, honestly. Time. Effort. And I know they like doing it, but I think they know we like it, too.

So I do extend a kind of mental “thanks!” to the VAs. They’re swell and doing a nice thing for the masses.
(And yes, I know I probably could squeeze my budget and pay more of them which is probably a nicer gift than an unasked-for-post-on-r/AuralFixation or all the mental well-wishes in the world but listen. I’m pretty broke and childcare costs literally only $100 less than my mortgage a month. And I really like going to the coffee shop some time and buying lipsticks and blah blah blah.)

(I also have Theories about the way “parasocial” is used in these spaces - it seems to be used only to describe a highly negative and inappropriate level of investment in someone with whom they have a parasocial/one-sided relationship. (“Extreme parasociality”, I think it would have been called in other circles.) The way I was taught the word is much more nuanced and neutral. In this understanding of the word, some degree of parasociality in a person’s life is actually pretty standard and normal.

Being even somewhat invested in a sports team, caring when a celebrity gets married or what their wedding dress looked like, hoping a VA you like is doing well - these are “symptoms” of a parasocial relationships. I don’t think it’s weird to have some degree of parasociality - throughout history people have often had them with people of authority, celebrities, religious figures etc. I suppose you could say smash those hierarchies and no one should feel connected to sports professionals, actors, politicians, etc. OK. I get that theoretically/cognitively. I don’t think I could do it, though. I feel warmer towards Bernie Sanders than I do Biden and I’ve never met either of them, for example.)

TL:DR I sometimes have an outpouring of gratitude for VAs and who knows it I’m right or creepy or wrong or the worst or fine or cringe or whatever. I'm muddling along.