Idealistically, yeah, but sometimes it doesn't work out. I think it's good to have both friends online and offline, and to not reject one group for the other or consider one lesser and the other better.
One of the major problems, IMO, is a misunderstanding of the word "friend." For as much as everyone gripes that LJ "friends" aren't true friends and how dare they use that word to describe one's reading list (which isn't true for me, I *do* have some true friends on here), it's just as easy to have "fake friends" in real life as well. The usual advice for making RL friends, in fact (e.g. "become prettier/more handsome, make more money, don't be too different") is, ironically, the best way of attracting completely false or "only here to take advantage of what you can give me" friends.
Re: 1
One of the major problems, IMO, is a misunderstanding of the word "friend." For as much as everyone gripes that LJ "friends" aren't true friends and how dare they use that word to describe one's reading list (which isn't true for me, I *do* have some true friends on here), it's just as easy to have "fake friends" in real life as well. The usual advice for making RL friends, in fact (e.g. "become prettier/more handsome, make more money, don't be too different") is, ironically, the best way of attracting completely false or "only here to take advantage of what you can give me" friends.