online friends ?

and others are trolls who could benefit from evening ESL classes.

what's your point?

Sometimes online friends just take those last little tiny shreds of innocence a person has left and flushes them right down the head, too.

Especially this crew...

Just sayin'.

;)

<<often they are just people socially handicapped
without the ability to go to real life >>

Might be trolling. Might just be a poorly worded and sincere observation.

Indeed, I came to tribe when I was feeling socially isolated. Got hooked and the addiction has outlasted my the severity of my vision problem. I also found my focus moving from issues and discussions to friendship.

Due to my particular circumstances I was interested in this issue for a time. I was also acutely aware of tribes importance to me for socialisation. I posted on it in a few spots and found that for many tribe represents the opportunity to access a social network for instant and deeper interaction and that for some - tribe was the only way of doing so. People like stay at home mums, unemployed, "disabled" and the lonely can switch the computer on to find friends and that is really important. The value of tribe to so many socially isolated people should not be forgotten nor underestimated.

Having said that - tribe is also just good place to break the working day and have some fun and lean things and access special interest groups and I would say people doing those things far outnumber the "socially isolated".