Second Life Encounter at BEA

So I'm at Book Expo America, strolling around the show floor and picking up galleys of this and that. I'm wandering aimlessly through the Wiley booth when a Wiley catalogue on display catches my eye. The cover of the catalogue shows two Second Life avatars and I swear that I know one of them. I check inside the front cover for a photo credit and sure enough, the avatar image is from the cover of this book and the avatar I recognize is fellow After a Fashion-ista Catherine Omega!

So I grab the catalogue and go racing off to tell someone, just as any excitable person would when they find out that an acquaintance's photo is on display. "Hey!" I say when I spy a friend. "Check this out, I know this girl!"

My friend levels her gaze at me. "Jen," she says as if talking to a crazy person, "this is a cartoon."

Is it odd that this didn't occur to me? I only know Catherine from SL and recognizing her avatar, whom I have "met" and interacted with was, to me, the same as recognizing a flesh-and-blood person. Does this make me weird or just hopeless?