We're Best Friends... But We've Never Met In Real Life

These long-distance best friends prove that online friendships are the real deal.

Thanks to a pandemic that led to severe social isolation across the world, a lot of us have “online friends” these days: Maybe it’s someone you met on an online gaming platform, or someone you shared witty banter with over an Instagram post, then added as a friend. Maybe it’s a colleague on the other side of the country who you’ve never actually met in person but who seems to really “get” you and your sense of humor on Slack.

Unfortunately, even in 2022 ― 39 years after the birth of the internet ― there’s still a tendency to minimize these types of friendships; internet dating may be the norm now, but online friendships still somehow get side-eyed. There’s a ridiculous, lingering belief that a friendship is only valid if it’s established “in real life,” even if you’ve spent hours and hours DM’ing or video-chatting with someone.