An interesting concept occurred to me the other day. In our world today, with various social mechanisms and online activities and games, the process of making friends and maintaining relationships has changed. The way our parents are use to it is old fashioned and out dated. Friendships can be forged without the need to meet face-to-face. We live in a world without borders and, as a result, its a little naive to think that a friendship can only exist if you have met physically. After all you are friends with someone for their personality, not their body.
In fact I would even go so far as to say that making friends outside your town, state, time zone or even country is a great way to experience different cultures. There is a significant percentage of people that never go to college which is a great place to meet people from different parts of the country and/or world. Therefore instruments like Facebook, Google+ and MMOs allows everyone the opportunity to meet other people. You never know what you might have in common with someone from California or New York. You don't need to be able to invite them out for coffee or lunch just to be friends.
I'm also not suggesting you throw yourself out there haphazardly. There are a lot of creepy people out there that give social media a bad connotation. Please be careful when you are handing out even your full name and email. The threat of identity theft is scary but use a little common sense and discretion and just be yourself. I have more friends then I can count on two hands that I have never met physically that I know I can trust and thinking that those people are not actually "friends" is just obtuse.