Online friends are just as real as friends you see in person. You care for them. You have a bond with them. You have some form of positive feelings towards them. If you're close enough, you may even trust them with things you don't trust many others with. There is a consideration to take with internet safety, but if you have a friend who is purely online, they're not any less real than whoever you meet up with in person. There is a real person behind that screen. You're interacting with another human being. They're just not in your same tiny portion of the world. That doesn't make them less real at all. I hate people who say they're not real. My best friends are online, and I feel no shame towards that. They're great people and have been very positive in my life. The fact that I met them over the internet makes them no different from anyone I may meet locally.