morgan5: Depends what it is, it takes time to get to know a person and develop trust

But for a romantic interest, it takes meeting in person, and getting to go visit them too. For friendship, it works fine.
And I agree with Ruben...their consistency will tell you if they're being real or not. I've gone into threads and answered them, not realizing they were old threads and I'd been there before, only to go back and discover that I wrote almost exactly what I did the first time months previously.