Various types (Score 2, Insightful)

The idea that relationships online aren't real is, as said multiple times above, is absurd. A relationship regardless of where it forms and in what form it takes is real. You can compare online relationships with relationships you develop at work. You encounter those people only at work and have varying degrees of intensity in the relationship between simply saying hi to each other out of a sense of "we both work here" to inviting a dude over to your cookout. Most work-born relationships stay at work. Online relationships are very, very similar. Most can be quite small in flavor and don't mean much, but like any place where you interact with people, they can develop into greater things. I have a lot of online relationships that don't mean much to me and that truly exist only online. And by the word relationships I'm talking about interaction varying between acquaintances and life partners. You can break it down into stimuli > response and get into arguments over "what really constitutes reality?" The main thought seems to be that if you meet face to face, you're meeting for real when in fact a chatroom is really interaction between multiple people. So why do I have to see their face in order to say I know them? I can say I know several without having met them or seen a picture (or having had hard evidence they are who they claim to be). But to counter that same statement, I don't think I would be as good a friend with my best friend (the one I met online) if I hadn't met them face to face. Meeting someone irl does have an impact, I believe, due to the intensity of information you gain about someone by seeing them. You immediately know their gender, relative age and appearance and can then tell things about their personality by their movements, the way they speak and form their words talking to you without the advantages or disadvantages of typing (the latter you can get from a phone call as well...). In an online relationship you can control what information gets to the other person, and it's harder for them to read nuances and subconsciously judge you. But none of this means that a relationship between you and another human being is any less "real" if its is online. Insert some more stuff that sounds soapbox-esque.