Hot take: Social media is the means by which all relationships become parasocial. Even if you know a personal IRL, your interaction with them online is asymmetrical, because you only ever interact with a curated version of them: affection directed toward a shadow.
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The parasocial isn't just asymmetrical, it is mediated and mass produced. The priest, analyst, etc. is still someone in the same space as you, who talks back to you alone. The parasocial is addressed to a mass, and each in this audience imagines a personal address to themselves.
Perhaps a better offline example would be the performer or the politician, who addresses a crowd. I'm thinking of how Klaus Theweleit discusses the fascist speech-makers whose rants would be read as a personal address and vindication: "The labor is his, the intoxication theirs."
