I'm terrified that if people who met me online then meet me in person, their expectations will be too high and they'll end up thinking I'm weird or annoying or too intense and they won't want to be my friend in real life. I have had this actually happen to me before. It happened very recently, with someone I had known online for years. She didn't feel the same about me in person, she said it was because I'm not as articulate in person so I'm harder to have conversations with and she felt like she was talking to a child. More reasons to make me want to keep everyone at arm's length
you can either agree or disagree, but in the past when I used contact apps my thinking was like "better not write (too much) before, so that no expectations are build up and so that everyone can be genuine in the meeting."
I tried to implement that and it worked... partly. most people want to write for days or weeks before a meeting, even when they live in the same city. but I see the danger that they get a wrong impression and build up expectations and that the meeting can only be a disappointment.
and when you meet instant, you can not have any expectations and can not be disappointed. either it fits or not. sure some informations are important to share before, but not much.
and the meetings I had instantly developed sometimes to friendships. (without writing before that). the other meetings developed into nothing, even with much writing before that.
I wrote with some people in the past for many months and when we called, we don´t liked each other and the contact broke up. one of many reasons why I don´t want to focus on writing. writing creates a fata morgana, a view of a person who maybe not exists, because 95% of informations are not shown in writing (voice, undertone, emotions, mimic, gestic), so misunderstandings are very probably and it´s very probably that you get a wrong impression of someone.
phone calling is worse then meeting in person, but 100x times better than writing, because at least you have voice, undertone and emotions (from voice). mimic and gestic misses. also it´s a different feeling when someone stands in front of you. or when you can hug someone. the sheer presence of someone makes you feel different and it makes the "contact experience" different.
I know people who said that they only want to meet people in person, because they are convinced that this is the only good and healthy way to get contacts.
I´m similar. I think in person contacts are the best, but I think calling with people from online world and meeting persons in real life can complement each other. I would also meet online contacts in person, but it´s not possible because of the big distance most times. but I met a few people from online in person so far.
I once called with someone each day for weeks and when we met in person, it not fitted for her and she broke up the contact.
so what I learned:
when the person lives in the near and meetings are probably: meet, don´t write too much before that and don´t call too much.
when the person lives far away (most online contacts) and a meeting will probably never happen: don´t write too much, focus on phone calls.