Imaginary Girlfriend Fever Sweeping America

A bruising linebacker on the gridiron, Manti Te'o might make his biggest impact with his creativity off of it.

In the wake of the revelation that the girlfriend whose memory he dedicated a triumphant season of play to never existed, Te'o has inspired millions of other American men to make up relationships with their own imaginary girlfriends and wives.

Commented one man: "Manti Te'o opened my eyes. His imagination led me to look at my own life and think, why should the boundaries of reality force me to be stuck with such a fat bitch wife? The heck with that. Now I'm married to 1989 Alyssa Milano. My friends are totally jealous."

Other men extolled the benefits of replacing their less-than-satisfactory significant other with a new-and-improved version pulled from their ass.

"My old girlfriend was ok, but she had an annoying habit of wanting to talk to me about things," remarked another Te'o follower, "So I told her to take a hike and started dating Lucia – a Salvadorean lingerie model who makes delicious horchata and lost the use of her voice box in some sort of accident."

Indeed, the strange story of Te'o's non-existent girlfriend has precipitated a mass epiphany among men, many of whom have let their imaginations run literally wild.

"After killing my wife I started seeing a hot young blonde I made up for a few hours, but then I figured why be tied down to one imaginary girl?" one man reasoned, "Now I'm sleeping with brunettes, redheads, blacks, Asians, flat chicks, busty chicks, chicks with dicks, Australians, whatever."