I think you missed my point. The electron is something which is actually there, which we can measure. It is quantum mechanically described by a probability density, but it's nevertheless something that is real in the sense that we can measure it. A virtual particle however is something entirely different. It is something we cannot measure, and its "existence" as a particle is due to the interpretation of
perturbative quantum field theory in terms of Feynman diagrams, which is definitely useful but completely arbitrary. It is not needed to talk about particles being exchanged in any way.