>>19818941A waifu is a character that a person can project what they find attractive onto. You'll rarely find a real person that is exactly what you like and can also change depending on what you want from them. It's unrealistic to ever find someone as malleable as a fictional character. Impossible, even.
Maybe some waifufags actually dislike real people, but maybe they just can't find a person that they really like, or their standards are unrealistically high. Everyone's entitled to their imagination and fantasy.