Board Thread:Wiki Discussion/@comment-39447774-20190514202810/@comment-27136653-20190602225434

He uses the "player of a game" concept as an analogy mainly to what he's seeing: he's seeing that the world looks very much like a videogame, and that the way he manipulates it reminds him of playing a game. Not that he really is the player of UT, which itself is an unproven concept anyways.

As for Papyrus, it could just be interest. Interest =/= attachment. We have attached ourselves to the characters because we love them to a certain extent. Flowey can't feel love, so the most he can do is to find new things to probe and examine, to shake of his boredom for a moment... such as Papyrus, who is full of surprises. As Flowey said, it took him "a long time to get bored of him" - so, as you can see, it's not attachment, it's just interest.