I've had a couple insensitive people make comments to the effect, "well, why should you care they're "just" online friends"? Right, because it's obviously not possible to become invested emotionally with someone who's there for me day in and day out, whereas the people I know in "real life", I never hear from?
SO MUCH THIS. My "online" friends have helped me out and been there to talk and so many wonderful things. In person, I almost never see anyone, at all. I know more about online friends than offline friends. I have offline friends who will drop in and give me an "update" on things they never told me about in the first place; meanwhile I know what many online friends' day-to-day is like. How is that less real?
Exactly! It's totally not less real