I have made some friends online through the Lord of the Rings which have become offline friendships as well. One person in particular was a rock and great support during a particularly bad time in my life and though we have had our ups and downs since, he remains one of the best friends I have ever had .... maybe it is because we live continents apart that we can talk about stuff you wouldn't talk to someone in the same room about.
To balance out the warm and fuzzy stuff, I should say I have also made some enemies and met some truly horrible people through Tolkien - inconveniently one of the enemies was the b/f of one of the good friends ..... I was so relieved when she dumped him....
