I think I can survive without friends, but why should I try to do that, if that's an extra amount of torture and stress that I have enough in my life? It's like to eat coal while you have chocolate. 

To me online friends are like those I know personally. With some of them we meet just in order to have fun together, with others we have deep conversation and we are quite close. People online are also people. With the same feelings and ways to express themselves as if they were here next to me. To the top of that it's even interesting to meet people from internet in person. Yeah, it can be the first and the last meeting, but usually it's not so, if you have common interests and mental mutual understanding.

so true, i also believe that this virtual world is one of the biggest escape from the real world . We want to cut ourself from reality then we come to the virtual world for satisfaction.