Interesting concept, obviously. At the core genuine relationships have to be built on honesty; at least something real, to actually be genuine.

Online relationships are rarely genuine consequently because they're generally born from the fake; a fandom, based on imaginary physical representations and the non-authentic personality people take-on online.

Of course this isn't a rule of finality. It depends on the people involved in every case. A percentage of people who enter into an online relationship have, or at least develope a real attachment to the person behind the 'game' they're interracting with, a small percentage even enter into an online relationship with immature but genuine feelings already developing.

This is where online relationships become the most interesting personal social mechanic. Because they universally perservere under three forms;

The online relationship transcends the internet, the contact-medium becomes simply that; a medium, the people shed their online persona in favor of interracting directly with one another genuinely, like on the telephone, simply through text. These evolve over time into voice and video chats where there is nowhere to hide and if the people's feelings truly are genuine, this reaffirmation only leads to one person moving to the other, and final step being achieved; the two people now live together, or near each other, and their real relationship continues no-longer dependant on that original medium.

For a far greater percentage, though, the transcendance fails. Partial increases in the genuine aspects of the relationship develop. Photos may be exchanged, voice-communication employed, maybe even webcam use coming into sporadic service. But the relationship is inherently bound to the medium it began on; the internet. The two people (or as more often the case, just one of them) have strong but ingenuine feelings for one another. This is often the case where the two people are openly together and comitted, but in reality one or both will have habbits of avoiding the other sporadically, opting away from frequent interraction to focus sporadically on other people. Usually one or both of these people have a psuedo-relationship with another person, or person(s) as the case may be. These are the online relationships that still have a chance to become real but in all reality, probably never will, unless on or both involved in it shed the selfish and dishonest aspects of their behavior to show the other they're ready to progress.

The third and more tragic form of online relationship is the one that never grows or evolves from the most basic start. It is a relationship born in an imaginary world in which both people in it interreact with one-another through imaginary personalities. They fabricate more complex false-identities to reveal to one another to further pretend what they have is meaningful and genuine but neither is serious. One or both people in these relationships are usually involved in frequent if not semi-frequent cyber-sex with other people and though they'll deny it indignantly are always looking for someone more easily manipulated and conthrived to fulfil their selfish needs.

Comparitively speaking; the first type of online relationship is considerably rare. The second type is quite common, but not nearly as proliferant as the third type; which the vast majority of the furry community participates in.

Why do I bring all this up? Not to take a shot at the furry community. But to share a perspective that I was ignorant to before I broke away from the majority of the fandom.

My meager advice is this; if you're in a relationship that began in, grew from, or intergrated into the furry fandom, read through this, and carefully consider what type of online-relationship you're in. If you're in the first type, you have only more reason to be proud of what you have. If you're in the second type, you need to acknowledge whether or not you're the one (if its not that both of you are) that behave in the way that keeps it from becoming the first type. And for god's sake, if you're in the third type, acknowledge it, and get past it, for your own sake most of all.

And to all those who see fit to vomit immature commentary at me for saying all this, I say simply this; the internet may be an annonymous playground where you get to insult and belittle others for the sake of your own fragile and fleeting ego, to you, but most people see it as a social interraction medium. And at the end of the day, I don't really care what some weak, fragile little person hiding behind their computer to take shots at people they wouldn't have the balls to even speak to in person thinks.

To those of you with the maturity and intellectual capacity to read this for what it is, I hope I've shared this perspective effectively.

-Dev.