I've never understood this mentality that says things that aren't realized in the actual physical world aren't real. Certainly in a world where we can have emotional responses to fictional characters and stories and as people who claim to have a real actual relationship with an invisible God, this concept of becoming attached through interaction at a distance shouldn't be so difficult to comprehend.
I've also known people who simply had a much easier time connecting with objects or people in their physical world. People for whom a letter was more "real" than an e-mail and for whom face to face time was much more valuable than a phone call (and if distance prevents face to face then they really really want the video on on the video chat). I don't pretend to understand that mentality, but I know it exists and that some people just can't feel the same closeness for a long distance friend as they do for one who is part of their everyday life. I'll acknowledge that the interactions and nature of the friendship / relationship may be different, but that doesn't make one or the other less real in any objective sense, only in the personal perspective sense.
The internet may make some things like deceiving yourself or using people without suffering the social consequences easier, but when it comes to questions of reality and our internal and emotional worlds, I think the only honest judgement we can make is that it's as real as you think it is and there will inevitably be disappointment and sorrow when you realize that it wasn't really the way you thought it was.