When I was just a girl I had a pen-pal in England and we wrote back and forth for about three years then she just stopped responding, I always wondered what happened to her. Another friend of mine formed a life long friendship with her pen-pal in Minnesota and they have met and get together from time to time. So our internet friedships are very much like that, except as you said, quicker and also we can meet a groups of people at once who share similar interests in places like LJ, chat groups etc.