That's really interesting that it works so strongly and for any person who mentions the show, but only in person. I have a theory:

Maybe being made aware that other, real, offline people watch it destroys the illusion for you. So the characters feel less real because in a way, you can't help but see the show through the eyes of specific other people. Boring, everyday people who can't help but feel less real and important than either the hyperreal, exaggerated characters on screen or the anonymous mass of countless "not in person" people, who are watching, who might recommend online, but who are abstract enough not to dirty the vision like your friends do with their mundane, limited and singular gaze. While watching, you know they probably like this character or that moment, but doesn't it throw shade at the show to know they too see it from the outside, never fully part of this fictional world, just like you?

And worse, aren't they also watching you at the same time? Surly they'll ask later, how you liked the show and about specific moments. Sartre describes how being aware of another's gaze prevents us from losing ourselves in the moment. But what if losing yourself is precisely what you're looking for in a show? To forget your live and who you are, even if just temporarily. Then it just won't work if a real person, who has also seen it, knows you're watching it and might ask about it later. So no wonder you hate recommendations.

If it's that, then please forgive me for "recommending" to try some grounding meditation exercises to practice keeping in touch with basic lived reality and for accepting who you are. Or maybe it's something else, I don't know. I don't know you and this whole thing is just a random idea I had when reading your comment and it probably has nothing much to do with you, really.