Friends on the Internet vs. 'Real Life'

If you're a regular to internet forums like dA, you'll hear at least once that you have to "go outside and make real friends." Better yet, you get ad campaigns like this to tell you that your method of socialization is fake, even morally wrong.

Last time I checked, there are very few, if any, robots on this website.

If a lasting personal relationship can be formed through the Pony Express, so be it. Smoke signals? Morse code? Chains of bonfires on mountains a la Lord of the Rings? They're all equally valid, because they involve two people - and nobody can deny the result, even if they criticize how it was conceived.

The sacred "reality" of making face time is not that it's more real than internet relationships, but that it's more romantic, or that it would be easier to portray in a movie. When people think of "internet friends," they think of basement dwellers with acne on their back and buck teeth because of cartoons and movies. These stereotypes are people who "deserve" to be shut out of society because of their lack of "regular" social interaction.

I ask those who believe that stereotype this: if it's so wrong to not connect to other people, why are you going out of your way to alienate people that you think are strange?

There are friends that I'd die for on this website. Sane-Intolerant is the kind of guy that will never let you down. Dr-Paine's loyalty is undeniable. And of course, if I didn't get to know TheSylverLining  and her love and understanding, I would probably be in a mental institution. These people are everything to me, and so are the people I know in real life.

But if my friends are fake, then what about the people at my school who drench themselves in hairspray and call me a "creeper" like they're on the Jersey Shore show while they quietly sit in a corner and sip their Pabst Blue Ribbon? Are they any more genuine and real?

I don't care if I make a friend through radar signals. They're still my friend.