Has anyone actually made a friend online?

1 from a mutual interest group over 20 years ago, friendship still going strong. There were others, mostly they just exist on Facebook now but he is still friends with 2 others from back then so I see them sometimes.
2 from a pregnancy group on here. There were many others, but just those two are still close. We have a couple more from pregnancy days, I suppose we kind of invented our own NCT group without the actual group or classes.

@Sakura7 Do it! The last weekend meet up we had (kindly hosted by someone with a big enough house) had attendees from London, Manchester, Devon, Jersey and most notably Australia!

Yes! Just giving a shout out to the May 2009 ante-natal group mumsnetters. We’ve long left MN but we’ve been chatting online and meeting up since 2008.

I started a petition in February regarding sexual assault and dv in the military and got chatting to a lady on fb , we have been getting on really well and see it as the beginning of a genuinely good friendship. We are not too far away from one another either so am planning a meet up soon. I have an extremely small circle so very unusual for me to make a friendship online anyway but I guess it can be done x

I've got several close friends of more than 20 years where we initially met online, but not on a site which was for that purpose. The group communicates almost daily and members meet up quite often.

Yeah loads over the years.

This is making me think I should try to get my old forum buddies back together! It has been such a long time though.

Years ago I used to play Farmville which was a game on Facebook. The more "friends" you had the more gifts you could send back and forth, etc.

One lady in New York, I became friends with on Facebook and it was really interesting seeing her posts because she lived in NY. I live about 40 miles west of London in a pretty boring town but travelled into London a lot and we ended up commenting on each others posts a lot because apparently her seeing my boring posts in Hampshire and London were as interesting to her as I was in her posts in NYC.

We had quite a few messages over about a decade. I posted that I was going to NYC when I went with my husband and we ended up having dinner with her and her husband. It was pretty crazy looking back and I wouldn't say we're mates but we still message each other now and then and its quite cool having someone the other side of the Atlantic to chat to sometimes. I think we added each other in about 2010 originally,

Yes several but through a shared interest forum. The forum itself closed down years ago but about a dozen of us are still in touch and meet up when we can (despite all living far and wide).

Yes, via my birth board on BabyCentre. Our children are 21 now and we live all over the UK but we have a WhatsApp group that’s quite active. I meet the woman who lives closest to me for lunch a few times annually and we’ve had a handful of meet ups as a big group too.

I have made two very good friends through Peanut, it helped that we had our babies due at the same time and spent our maternity leaves together.

I did in my teens and early 20s through a forum relating to a hobby. I ended up making some great friends, and we met up on several occasions and went to gigs and sporting events together.

However, we were scattered around various parts of the UK, Ireland and parts of Europe, and eventually lost touch as people's lives moved on. Still see the occasional FB update though and all seem to be doing well. Great memories!

I have met a few new friends on FB groups.
My mum rescued a dog and made loads of new friends via breed specific groups.

Yes but through my local FB community group.

I shared the same sense of humour with another woman and we started messaging.

Then eventually met for coffee (she only lived a few streets away) and we've been very close friends for almost 9 years now.

Yes, but neither of those. Borrow my doggy- but it was too much for me. I literally just wanted to borrow their doggy, not make friends as such. Life is already busy, my DM stays in touch with one lady.

Yes but through a hobby/ interest forum rather than a friendship site. It was sheer chance to find out we lived in the same area. She is probably my closest real life friend now.

I've never made a friend through a site specifically dedicated to making friends. But I have gradually become very good friends with someone I started out by following on Flickr. We commented on each other's photos over many years, eventually met up when we were both in the same country at the same time, have met up a couple more times since then and message each other nearly every day, including supporting each other through some difficult life events. I once asked my adult DS who he thought was my best friend (I didn't really think I had one) and he unhesitatingly named this person. We just have a lot of interests in common, a similar sense of humour and values, and things developed much as they might do once or twice in a lifetime in a real life situation too.

Edited. Sorry, didn't actually answer the question!