i use to chat to 100s of people thru icq over many years, only a few i considered friends, nothing more than friends, like the poster, i never actually meet any of them, so the only relationship was friendship, has the poster mentioned marriage or getting engaged to any of them??
over time, i made 2 really good friends my misses and a Chinese gal i had known b4 the misses, they both knew about each other, but that's because we were just friends.. even after me and the misses were married, i still chatted to her, as a good friend. i would be still now if i had not lost contact with her
but your right he needs to treat them with respect