Frankly the "serious" waifu concept is a bit terrifying. <_<
It's nothing new. People have been idolizing famous characters since...well, always. What was that japanese female author who spent her whole life daydreaming about how awesome it'd be to marry Genji? I forgot, anyway that is the point.
There is however an addendum to this that correlates to the current world we live in. The desynthe..si..thi..zation(I have no idea how to type this word)towards social relationship, the incapability often to create one at all, the widespread of bullying behaviours that further alienate teens; people are drawn more and more towards a cybernetic world and less towards the real one. The waifu obsession is a direct correlation to this desire for an ideal while leaving with deep emotional struggles of inadequacy. It's not something that didn't exist "back in the days", but it's rooted much deeper now, and paradoxically the age of connection makes it all the harder to get out of one's shell, cause back then you were kinda forced to interact with others eventually, while now you can just as well disappear forever from the real world and live by proxy.
Not that everyone talking about waifus is like that. Mind you some just do it for shits, others just really like some charas but that's about it. But sure there is also a portion of this subset of population that is actually dealing with something more serious and that should probably require help more than ridicule.
That being said if you don't wanna stay virgin for life you should probably stop talking about waifus around real girls!