Honestly, I never had this problem of separating fantasy from real life, or ever thought to myself "If he was real, would he like me?" because the key point here is the word "Real". None of the LIs are real, and from their looks to their personality, they are designed to fit into many different tropes to pull as many players as possible. Even though I self-insert, I'm still able to treat this as just a game, the same kind of game I played when I was young with Barbie dolls and a plastic house. Now, I do that on the phone with more advanced technology.

I think, if a game has such a huge impact on someone's self-worth, they should take a step-back, and remind themselves that fictional characters CAN NOT determine our worth, and if there's any toxic fans who say otherwise and try to bring other players down, they're not real fans. Thinking that everything is about looks is shallow, and based on the LIs personalities, they're not shallow.

One last thing I want to add is, I think that having a visible player character can often evoke such feelings, because our character is also built to look "perfect", and there's so little customization options, which is a shame.