In the world where we have the Internet at our fingertips, it's only likely that relationships can evolve through connections made on social networking websites. While many people find internet dating totally normal now thanks to websites such as Match.com, but there's a large stigma to the idea of internet friends.
Internet friends are defined as a friend you make because of connections made online. Many of these friendships are formed through social networking websites like Tumblr and Twitter. A large portion of the demographic that uses the websites are teenagers who are connecting with other teenagers with similar interests. These website run off users following one another's profiles to see what they are posting. Many times a user following another user follows back and a relationship is made to that username when you see their posts pop up on that website.
This is how many internet friends start, following one another until one day they message each other. This is how I made some of my best friends. We started messaging one another over something the other posted and then we starting finding other topics to talk about, just how face-to-face friendships are formed. However, many times internet friends can be better than those friends we meet face-to-face.
While connecting with someone based on their profile, you can almost instantly see if you have something in common. For me and my friends, we all posted similar bands on Tumblr, so it was easy to start conversations off of that and learn more about each other as the conversation progressed. You can even find out that you have very similar interests, love the same music or TV show, and can fangirl 24/7 with at least one person.
Some Internet friends become amazing friends, and eventually will travel to meet each other for the first time. However, a majority of this friendship is formed through messages and Skype calls. This means you never have to leave your house to hang out. Skype can do wonders when you just really want to talk to someone, watch a movie together, or even do homework and study together from 2,000 miles apart (I've done this several times!). With non-Internet friends there's often a need to be in each other's presence to be doing something fun and hanging out with one another. However, with internet friends all you need is wifi and time.
Internet friends, you can also tell pretty much everything. Having a terrible day? Just rant to them, they're always there to listen to you and give you advice based on you problem and not what the other person would want to hear, because they don't even know the other person. Having someone you can tell anything in your mind to is amazing. With my Internet friends, we know more about each other than our non-Internet friends do and that's the best part. No one outside of your friendship knows much about them, so there is never gossip from friend to friend.
Internet friendships are as true of friendships as any other could ever be. The best part is when you finally meet each other for the first time. One of my Internet friends flew 2,000 miles to attend my senior prom with me because I didn't have anyone else to go with. If that isn't friendship, then I don't know what is.
