When someone spends a good while talking to AIM and MSN, and have discussed life troubles and feel like you can trust someone with things.

If I've talked to someone repetitively and we can hold conversations.

I consider someone a friend when we talk regularly (if circumstances allow, that is) and can talk to each other about our lives. There needs to be at least a small portion of trust for me to consider someone a friend, otherwise they are seen as a friendly acquaintance. A lot of people throw the word "friend" around, but I kind of see friends as people you can really talk to. When it comes to the internet, especially on art communities, there's just too many people and whatnot to call them all friends. Sometimes when a person considers everyone a friend, they lose the meaning of the word and can't differentiate between the real friends and the acquaintances (or, sometimes, in cases with artists on the internet, the fans that just want your art.)

I hope I'm making sense, I'm kinda out of it. ;_;

I'd have to say I consider someone to be an internet friend when they take the time to actually comment on your stuff as well as joke around with you on a IM.

pretty much what everyone else has said. Once you find yourself talking to each other pretty much every day is a good sign

I personally don't think you can ever be as close to someone you met online as you could to someone you know face to face(at least if you never physcially meet them), and I think this because I believe it's human nature to have to make eye contact with someone to establish true trust, and what's a friend if you can't trust them.

Tho', the peeps I know online I'll call friends but with a different meaning behind the word "friend". If that makes sense.

http://allmyinternetfriends.com/

:3

I've known one person trough internet for 5-6 years and even that she lives on the other side of the world I feel "real friendship" towards her. We've even sent stuff to eachother and so on, and when she found new friends just few months ago and stopped talking with me I've really and hinestly felt lonely. We talked almost every day for YEARS trough msn messenger.

Still, those who I know only trough art sites I am ready to help over hard times even with words and so on, that's kinda how you get known to people after all, right? But those who are closest I interact with on my main LJ name which I don't let people who I haven't talked to before on.

In other words; LJ is enough for me to consider people as "friends" and how long I have known them and how much I talk to them daily affects how close we are. Like, I consider you my "snark-friend"(a'la LJ communities) but we're not really the closest internet-people ever :P



..and I'm over-analyzing again. I need to stop NOW or I'll write a book.

For me it can be exactly the same, i am closer to some people I only know through the internet than real life friends. And it's not the "oh people are different on the net" because everytime i have met my internet friends irl I enjoy their company as much.

The people I talk to on a regular basis via internet are my internet friends..

I consider them friends when I meet them and share a good amount with them. Nothing in the internet is certain or safe. So I wouldn't trust anyone here unless I knew them in person. Is nice to meet people here and plan for the future, get advice, and general information, but nothing more.

Who I think of as a "friend" is very much a gut feeling kind of thing.

People that I've talked a lot to online (galleries, msn, etc) but never talked to on the phone or met in real life, I think of as "penpals"... Generally, I assume I can't really get to know someone until I've at least talked to them on the phone. As a rule, people online tend to get more "unreal" simply because I can't see them or hear them.

I've got a bit of an allergy against the whole "wanna be friends" routine where someone wants to decide we're "friends" before they've even asked my name, and it feels like they just want to add me to a collection on a bookshelf, sort of.

I consider sites like dA and FA an opportunity to 1: get feedback on my drawings, inspiration from others' art and other general art stimulation, 2: a chance to find peers (on some level, at least).
Which means I don't primarily come here looking for "friends" - but if it happens, that's an added bonus and it happens much like in the real world (those people I attend class with are my classmates, but I don't talk about them as "friends" until that something happens that takes us closer than just our mutual goals for the year).

I can do an art trade with someone I've talked to only once or twice, "friends or friendly acquaintances" doesn't really affect that. I just go for the feeling I have about it.