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Originally Posted by Zerox  Real life and online are completely different. This is my opinion based on my experiences. I'm not that old yet, but I have been online since I can remember. |
Not in my experience. The friendships I made online happened pretty much in the same way as IRL ones. You post to answer someone, they'll answer you, a conversation starts. If you get good vibes and feel common interests or mindsets from that conversation, you'll remember the person in a positive way and want to answer their future posts more often than those of other random posters. Private jokes are born, you feel at ease writing in a more relaxed manner to that person - you're not afraid they'll misinterpret your humour, for instance. Hopefully you can tell if it is all mutual ; then PM, email, chat and, if the circumstances are right, IRL meetings don't seem creepy.
It's a bit more tricky through blogs, because you are a lone commenter among others, and can feel that you know the blog author really well when they barely have an idea of who you are. If you are mutual blog readers though (ie. they read and comment on yours too), it can work really well and really fast.
I have formed friendships online that became real-life friendships, I have formed OL friendships that never lead to anything IRL, I have maintained and developped IRL friendships online when I couldn't see the person IRL anymore (that happens a lot when you live around the world like me!) All this to say that online relationships can be as real and strong as real-life ones and are based on roughly similar social skills.