Personally I think there is a place for online relationships. For instance, I just got home from work and I can't go out but I can compose an e-mail. I can say things to an internet friend that I don't have to worry about following me. I think the issue that is coming up for me lately is the poor quality of them, as opposed to what they used to be in the past.

Perhaps this is a bigger issue.

In general I think the quality of the internet is going down and that is a shame. My guess... more *good* / *quality* people have gotten off the net and are trying to forge more real life relationships because of issues like you have had.

While the bad quality remain. I just had a thread like this on another message board I belong to.

We also commiserated about the fact that message boards seem to be going by the wayside and how, it does seem, that people don't want to (or can't) write a lot. They are happy to write the Twitter line but not an entire e-mail. I also lay this at the feet of phones because you can't really write a long e-mail on a phone.

So most of the high quality people on the net end up on facebook or twitter and don't really make lasting friends there. They connect with their real life friends on there.

This board seems to be a bit of an exception but still you have the occasional troll. I have had some amazing internet friends and some bad ones. I am sorry to say though all the amazing ones were from about 12 years ago.