Online friendships, do they really happen?

I have met some guys on dating sites online with good success. One I went out with for 6 years and we had 2 daughters.

I have a group of online friends that I met six years ago when we were all pregnant and due with babies in the same month. We have stayed in touch and our children are all five years old now. Many of us have also met in person too. You definitely can make good online friends if you have something in common to keep you connected.

i have not made a friend online.

I've met some friends online before I met them in person. I'd say most were through animal rescue groups and stuff.

Absolutely!! In 1997 when I first got my computer I was working on my own selling products through a mail order company. I had joined the messageboard for that company and instantly became friends with this one girl. She ended up giving up that business but her and I still talk today and it's 10 years later but we have never met. Now I also got to know 10 or so other women through that site and I have been fortunate enough to meet 5 of them and again we still talk today even after 10 years. I cherish my online friends because they have really talked me through some tough times and hopefully I have done the same for them.

I have online friends that I have had for 10 years now. =) I feel very close to some of the people I talk to online. Not all of them, of course. There are casual friendships for me both online and off. But I'd say many of my close friends are ones I only know online. In my case, visiting them isn't much of an option. I have some major transportation issues. However, there is one group of friends I met online that I do know offline now as well, including my husband, the woman I consider my best friend, and several other friends. It started when I was going to college in Kentucky, and I became so ill I couldn't continue going to college. I wasn't going to have a place to live, because my grandmother said I couldn't live with her, and essentially my family expressed the wish that I would go away and die quietly. Well... I did the going away part. At the time I was talking online to my best friend, who was in Oklahoma when we started talking. Later she moved to Michigan to be with a man she met online, and met the group of people that are now our friends. One of whom she introduced me to, I fell in love with, and I wound up coming to Michigan too. So if I hadn't believed in online friendship, I wouldn't have had a place to live, I wouldn't have met my husband, I wouldn't have my child... *shudders*

Yeah, that would be really nice. I've never met anyone online that became my friend afterwards. I don't mind trying that sometimes to see if it could really happen.

My years on the net have not yielded a close friend per sey. If you count my spouse then it would be something close to that. I have conversed with likely thousands of folks on many different sites, channels, and topics. The closest I came was a local camping group. Which turned out to not jive either.