How do you feel about that? Some online communities can be very supportive, but others...Online "communities" are really not even a close substitute for the real thing. Unless you get to know people from the online forum in person, but even in that case the scope of the online forum does not truly match what a real community offers each other. At least I do not feel it is a legitimate substitution as I long to have the type of community I once had (college, living with a big group of people vs. one person, groups and activities I no longer belong to, etc.). There is certainly the potential to develop some sort of community online. But out of all the forums I participate in, I have found the greatest community with people I have met off line to pursue our shared interests in person.