It's generally pretty easy to determine if someone is being authentic.  In ten years of these interactions, I've never been fooled.  Sometimes I'll continue interacting with someone despite knowing that they're lying...and eventually they either come clean or go away.

It's not just blogs ya know. Gamers have been doing that sort of thing for ages. And there are all those dating sites now too. I haven't really done anything with the dating sites...other than emails so I can't say really...lots of folks seem to find their "true love" on those...they do have to actually meet them though. As for me..I have met two folks I knew from games...both of those have sort of faded out...I still email one of them...thier kids are growing and they got busy with other stuff and so did I. So sometimes it's not real I guess. One of my best friends is a guy I met in Asherons Call and have never met in real life...He lives on the other side of the country and I will probably never meet him...I expect we know more about each other than many of the folks in real life know about us though...from what I have seen of friendships online...whether they become real depends a lot on the type of interactions...most of the folks that I know of who had connections online that were more than just friendly..didn't stay friends..not online or off. Those that didn't get into the cyber sort of stuff tend to stay friends..if only in email. There may be a difference with gamers though...they tend to go to gamer parties and conventions...and lots of groups tend to stay toghether for years even in different games...like the Cult of Feh or the Runeguard from AC...both groups were multi game guilds...and they still exist after 6 or more years.

Not sure what my point was.