Yes! There's only so much time you can spend chatting and writing with someone before your lives intertwine – especially once you find interests and common ground beyond that shared hobby of roleplaying, and get to know and care about folks as more than a username.

I met some of my closest friends here when I was seventeen, so five-ish years ago now. (6 for some, which is a scary thought!) While we started as just roleplay colleagues, it has extended into a routine of regular bad-awful-trash movie nights, video games and online boardgames, tv marathons, and for lack of a better word, 'normal' friendship stuff, just over a great distance. We've been friends since roughly the end of high school and through all of college/university, which means even if we're separated by an ocean, we get to enter adult mundanity and hit milestones at the same time. Growing up and going through such formative trials and tribulations together honestly makes it feel like some kind of familial bond.

^{Our plans for a 2020 meet-up were put on hold because of the Rona, though, so while I might love and treasure them, still gotta cross the hurdle of meeting the Americans face to face ._.}