/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I don't have a waifu after being into otaku culture for over a decade now. I have favorite characters and daki covers for some of them. How did you guys pass from just liking characters like I do to having a waifu?
Now I can see making a doll your waifu. You can touch her, she is real, she belongs to no one else. That is understandable to me. Anime character waifu on your computer, I don't really get that.
Maybe a doll waifu isn't even possible? Like the doll is a real thing so can't be a waifu, which must be a character existing in a fictional world?