Net friends are for real...?

I do consider some of my online friends real friends, whether I've met them or not. However, some of them are just fun while it lasts. It just depend on the person, just like IRL.

yes.. i do....



there are people on here id like to meet... in the UK and abroad
hopefully one day ill get to.

Tricky question. You don't really KNOW people when you know them online. No matter how genuine you are, or how genuine they are, real life personalities don't always come across. I had a "friend" that I met online and talked to for hours on the phone and thought we were really good friends and she was a great person. But when we met and hung out for a several days, she was really mean-spirited and that I realized I was only good for tranportation and a place to stay.

I can be articulate and wordy on line, but in real life I listen much more than I talk.

I have met dozens of "on line friends" in the past year and found that very few are true friends. We're really just acquaintances. Liking the same music isn't basis for a real friendship. There has to be more to it than that.

That's not to say that if I ever got the chance to meet some people from this board that I consider online friends, I wouldn't love to do so, but I wouldn't go into it with high expectations because I had such a bad experience with that one girl. On the other hand, I've met two other girls from online and found very good friends in them and we weren't all that close when we met in the first place.

Online may be a good place to start a friendship and it may be a way to maintain a steady friendship with someone, but it doesn't mean that it will translate into a excellent relationship offline.

Becky

Perhaps you've found this to be true for you but I know that more of my personality comes through online, as offline I'm quite a shy and reserved person. I've found that I can connect well to people online, sometimes even better than offline.

That's exactly why I say real life personalities don't come across, no matter how genuine you are.

Becky

OK my "real life" personailty, that my offline friends and my family see, doesn't appear online, but what appears when I'm online is a truer representation of the real me. My "real" personailty shines online, I can express myself much easier and can connect to people without worrying about if I'll say or do something wrong (I don't have a stutter but sometimes I do tend to have trouble talking)

I've never in "real life" had any friends who I have ever talked to about anything I'd consider serious, perhaps I'm experiencing it more at Uni with friends who I talk to about politics, religion, more intelligent than discussions over tv or film, which I enjoy but sometimes I grow tired of.

Online however I've found at least one friend who I can talk to about anything and be completely open and honest with, who I can really open up to and really just be myself. With others I tend to only show certain sides of myself.

That's exactly why I EXACTLY!!

No.

People I meet and talk to online only are not what I'd call friends, as I'd never do for them what I'd be ready to do for a friend.

They're just "people I know and appreciate", but that doesn't make the conversations less interesting. The fun, the piss or the indeference less sincere. It's just that to build a real friendship, you need to share more than thoughts or jokes, you need to go through common experiences together, in real life, where the unsaid can build stronger ties than a million PMs ever will.

Ponrauil

I do consider most of people i'm close to at net as real friend... even knowing some of them don't think that way.... If i didn't feel that they are not real, i'm not at all bother to give so much time for them in the first place...

Its sad that some people who claim that they consider net friends as real, after some time just walk away like all the things were just meant nothing at all...

IRL friends can do this as well.