While I am sure it is real, I just think some folks are more susceptible to the possibility of getting it.

My wife gets eaten alive every trip. She was using off with deet pretty heavily this trip, not many bites. I used off the first day, pretty much forgot about it after that, and zero bites the whole vacation. We have had so many trips where her legs look like she has been rolling around in thorn bushes, and if I am getting bit, there is zero reaction. One year, at pushcart for dinner, we were sitting 2 feet from one another, and the mosquitoes turned her into an all you can eat buffet. I got zero bites.