I met my wonderful Dom, Chris, online, but we met in RL fairly quickly after that and now spend as much time as we can together with a view to moving in with each other. At the time I met him, ironically I was not looking, in fact, I was actually determined to stay single. I was very skeptical when I did meet with him the first time and I still can't really explain why or how I felt so comfortable with him straight away. The poor man had a bit of an uphill battle to get past my defenses earlier on in our relationship

I came out of my previous 18 month online relationship badly, having completely believed in him and trusted him. We spent hours on skype video and voice and I really thought I knew him. So much so I had bought plane tickets and taken a month off work to fly out and visit. But it ended very badly, luckily before I landed in the US, and I was extremely hurt and disillusioned and lost all confidence in my ability to trust my own judgement. It wasn't the first time on-line proved to be disastrous. Twice before I was taken in by guys who seemed genuine and didn't show any of the "obvious" red flags although the previous ones weren't as long-lasting as 18 months and whilst I was hurt at the time, I was not heart broken.

My experiences mean that there is no way I will ever contemplate an online relationship again (although I am not looking for anyone else now). Meeting online is fine, but I will always want to meet in person and at some point fairly soon into the relationship. Before I met Chris I had a few guys trying to persuade me that online would work and actually a few got rather nasty just because I insisted I was only interested in RL, and especially only someone in the same country as me.
In my experience, cynical as I now am, it appears to me that too many guys (and possibly girls) see online as some sort of role playing game and they give no consideration to the real person on the other end of the computer.

All that said, like you I have met some great people online. My best friend and the nearest thing to a sister is someone I met in the library and I am positive we will be life long friends even though we are in different countries. I adore her and we talk pretty much every day. I have kept in touch with three or four other people who I consider friends although we only know each other online.
I have also met some in here that I have now met in person and consider them to be very good friends too, one Dom especially has given me excellent advice and support for a couple of years now and it was wonderful to meet him and his sub in person and to be able to introduce him to Chris.

I know a number of people who have had online relationships, but the few that have worked out all seem to have culminated in meeting and continuing in real life. That said, there is no guarantee that meeting in real life is the answer. Like any relationship vanilla, D/s or anything else - they need work, communication and the luck to meet the right person who feels the same about you.

I wish you lots of luck in meeting someone genuine and hope things work out well for you.

x