The conventional wisdom back in the day, about people on the Internet, was that it was a seething mass of predators and liars. Anyone you spoke to there, about any topic, was widely assumed to be producing at least some level of personal fiction, probably with an eye towards stealing your money or coercing you into an unmarked white van.
I never found that to be the case. If anything, the people I knew then were surprisingly honest about themselves and their lives, sometimes far beyond the point at which I was comfortable. Anonymity has a way of drawing that out of you, where you can explore just about anything there is about yourself in relative safety.
It hasn't really changed that much, to go by places like Tumblr or the various successor networks to Livejournal. It's certainly different, and perhaps more immediate, but the basic social mechanics are the same: you connect with people through shared interests, and those people are from all over the world, and sometimes you end up as surprisingly close friends for people who've never met face to face.
