I last made an internet friend in middle school, when so few people used AIM that my real-life friends and I traded contact lists and began chatting strangers. One time a boy asked for my number and called my house. I panicked a few seconds in and hung up. We never spoke again.

But I have always been fascinated by online communities, especially connections that begin behind anonymous handles and then morph into real world friendships. From time to time, group pictures from meetups float to the front page of Reddit — person after person who felt strongly enough about their online world to bring it into reality.

I had never felt that intense of a connection with the people I encountered online.

That general stranger-danger opinion of online contacts feels like it has started to lift in recent years with the proliferation of online dating sites. My friends talk…