Yeah, I’ve made a few friends through Funtrivia, the SDMB, Steam, and a couple of Classics sites. I’ve only met two of them IRL, I think, and only after we’d been friends online for five years, or something crazy like that.
Sometimes it feels kind of surreal to have known someone for years and years and have supported them through some of the worst things a person can go through, and still not have any idea what they look like or what their voice sounds like.
This guy did, sorta…
Oregon is where all the cool people live now.
You should consider moving to Oregon.
I am on meetup so this can’t possibly be true.
I’ve made friends through No Kidding!, which is a group I found out about online (it’s a social group for people without kids), Chowhound.com, and through the retired racing greyhound adoption network, which formed in the days of email listservs before the 'Net was a thing.
If you can find a group for something you are really interested in, that can help get things started.
I actually did once make a platonic female friend (I’m a straight woman) through Match.com. 
I was looking through the local women’s ads, just kind of checking out the competition, and came across a profile of a woman my age who sounded really very cool. How cool? Cool enough that I sent her a message, stating that I wasn’t romantically interested in her but I loved her profile and didn’t know many people in the area (I’d only been living in Virginia for 2 years at that point) and wondered if she might be up for coffee or a beer or something…if it wouldn’t be too weird. She loved that I had the balls to send her a message like that! We met and got along pretty well, and hung out for a few months – we started meeting each other’s friends, etc. – until she suddenly disappeared on me. So I didn’t make a good/long-term friend, but I still count it as a friendship.
Me, too! Just the one so far, but one IRL friend in 9 years is a pretty good record, IMO. And through him I’ve made some other very good IRL friends, so it’s an important connection.
Probably 15 years ago I had a friend I talked to, I think we first talked in a music chat room or something like that. We talked for years before we lost touch.