Internet And "real Life" Friends

Seeing as I've had close Internet friends for ages now, I was thinking about this quite alot. Why do people see having online friends as so bad? Especially if you balance the internet and real life, what is so bad about it?

I find that my Internet friends can help me through some problems my real life friends can't because they have never experienced what I'm going through or just give useless advice. My mum asks "Why waste your life on a chat room or forum talking to people you've never met?" My answer to this: Friends are friends.

True, not everyone online you talk to can be trusted, it's your choice/risk to meet and talk to people online, but still. Heck, the fact that we are even here in these forums is because we wanted to talk and get to know people who share a similar interest in Pokemon, as well as many other things. Also, an online friend of mine left one day saying we were "avoiding reality" - I don't see what's so bad about it, as long as you're balanced (I'm semi-balanced, but definitely not anti-social).

I'd like to hear your opinions on this.

The biggest reason why many people don't trust internet friends is that it's so easy to lie online!. You may be lucky and meet a few good people on the net but the majority of the online relationships (including friendship and others) are based on lies. And it's hard to spot who's lying and about what, unless you meet in real life.

Meeting people online is actually an interesting process, because the people you meet are from all over the world instead of being across your street! But there are all kinds of people out there - some friendly, some sulky, some dangerous, etc. and you need to be prepared for their reactions if you want to chat with them.

Personally I don't mind meeting new people online but I take care not to drop my guard and do something silly. For example, some idiot might be in an idiotic mood and comes onto sites like omegle.com where strangers chat. This idiot may dish out his anger by trolling, which irritates the other guy. But responding back in the same way is of little use and may even lead to something unsatisfactory. That's why online chats need to be taken care of carefully. Making new friends is awesome, but it should be done with care

ok it depends on what do you call a "friend"
a real friend, either on internet or in real life, is a "person" that has a deep knowledge about us.
An identity that answer about technical problems is not a friend, is a partner, a colleague, anything but never a friend.