You know why it sucks to get to know someone through a book? Because you had to put absolutely ZERO effort into it. Oh ya you had to buy it and travel to the bookstore or go order it online.. but the personal effort is ZERO. So if you ever meet or talk to that person.. though you think you know how they will react, how they think etc. you have yourself never made them react or think a certain way. You want them to act towards you like they do to the narrator, etc. but they can't. They know nothing about you, did not experience the event with you, and even now are living in the future of that event not the present. You were a voyeur, that is how you experienced it, and they are a survivor, or at least a future self of their past self you know "so well"

You can still think they're cool however...