It was 1998 when web relationships made their début in popular culture with the blockbuster You've got mail, by director Nora Ephron. In the movie, a sweet girl who owns an independent children's bookstore starts flirting online with a charming man, unaware that he is no one but the bookstore chain tycoon who is trying to ruin her business. It isn't well explained how the leading couple of characters had been able to start writing to each other, because we never get to know how have they have exchanged their e-mail addresses in the first place. But in 1998 no one really cared, as long as Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks would end up together in a fairy tale's version of New York. Probably because ten years ago a consistent slice of the audience had no idea of how e-mails work anyway.

Since then, dating and making friends by, or thanks to the web has stopped being an outstanding event to become a regular habit, too common to keep basing movies on that subject. Instead of that, the references to web relationships on the entertainment industry are more casual and subtle nowadays. Like something everyone knows is there and there's no need to make a big fuss about it, but still you can't ignore it. Because it's a matter of fact: the best place for meeting people, knowing them better, showing our best pictures and our most captivating wit seems to be the internet. And on the internet, the most organized and straightforward tools for doing that are social networks. Everyone is there, everyone knows who's there, everyone knows what other people are doing in there. It's like a human menu, in which each dish hopes to be ordered or at least appreciated by the customers (who are dishes themselves).

In the urge of being the best dish on the menu, social networks' users often start acting in ways that only ten years ago would not have been socially acceptable. Dramatically exposing their daily moods, using cheesy songs' quotes as status line and displaying pictures of themselves in private and embarrassing situations, to name a few. It's undeniable that the possibility to have an online alter ego has affected the way we relate to each other in both virtual and real lives. Oddly enough, social networking sites are relatively new, when compared to features like e-mails, the now almost forgotten chat rooms and even instant messaging, but during their short lives, they've made a bigger difference to human relationships than any other web tool so far. For some, they have introduced a more relaxed and democratic way to communicate. For others, they have made us become more shallow.

Good or bad. it's a worldwide phenomenon and there's no coming back.

Luis Cezar Pimentel, content manager from MySpace Brazil, believes that, at least in his country, social networks have helped a large amount of people becoming internet and computer literate.

"They start with networking and dating sites and end up understanding better what the WWW is and the many opportunities it can offer."

G.A, who works at MySpace Italia and prefers to be quoted here with his blogger nickname Eras3r, agrees with that./

"MySpace and its likes reveal one of the most amazing things about the web, which is the fact that there are no more limits to the number of people you can meet in your life, no matter where they live."

But, have the idea of closeness changed so much that you think you know someone just because there's a thumbnail picture of them among your contacts?

"The idea of belonging has changed as well. You may found out you have a lot in common with people from the most diverse backgrounds. And now you can actually make friends with them."

According to his employees, MySpace may as well be saving the world any moment, but but all this freedom and easiness, plus the possibility to know everything about total strangers, are forces that inevitably act upon the way in which we relate to each other. Relationships may be virtual, but the ones behind them are real people, with all their weaknesses and paranoias.

A sad proof of this are the so called Facebook murders, like the case of Wayne Forrest, the 34-year-old from Croydon who, earlier this year, has murdered his ex wife because she had changed her status to single and declared on her profile that she was interested in meeting men. Similar stories have happened over the world. Last October a 22-year-old from Sao Paulo, has kidnapped her ex-girlfriend for 15 hours before murdering her, after she had accepted a new male friend on her Orkut, which is huge in Brazil. But Pimentel denies the social network's responsibility in this kind of situation.

"Jealousy leading to a tragic ending is a story as old as the world, of course the killers can have used it as a pretext for what they did, but the internet can't be blamed for what happened."

Proving that the older are not necessarily the wiser, the most vulnerable to pathological behaviour are not the youngsters. So has noticed Eras3r.

"The younger they are, the better they know how to manage their online personae and are never overwhelmed by their virtual life. They use the web as an everyday tool, just like a mobile phone or similar. It's really not a big deal to them. The ones who really obsess, who let a social network affect their lives, are not the teenagers."

So says Chiara Calpini, director of Italian teen magazine Kiss Me!.

Eras3r also thinks the main difference between relationships that start on the web and the real world based ones is the timing. "Everything happens quicker. Meeting, fancying each other, realizing what the affinities are, getting thing done in reality or not and, if it doesn't work, going on to the next one."

For those less familiar, for a matter of age, but equally keen on online activities, the consequences might be not as extreme as murder but sometimes quite embarrassing. The virtual realm is a sort of paradise for cheating men and women, as parodied by George Clooney's character in Burn After Reading, the latest brothers Coen's film. But they must be careful for what happens on the web, doesn't always stay on the web. For instance, ask the British couple Amy Taylor and David Pollard, protagonists of the much publicized Second Life divorce that happened in November this year. Amy couldn't bear the fact that her husband's avatar had another woman and ended their marriage in real life. Appropriately, they had met in a chat room. Generally grown ups are the most amazed and carried away by the ways of communicating through the web, but also the most prone to netiquette gaffes. So has noticed journalist Michael Moran, books editor at the Times Online and author of two humorous books about the antics of modern lifestyle.

According to Eras3r, the future of social networking is most likely to be defined by revenues.

"They're not here to do any charity. It's the features that bring the better money that are going to be improved and empowered."

So, chances are that the next step will be an increase in the use of mobile phones for networking, taking the action outdoors. In that way everyone can be connected to each other, all the time. Which in fact, might sound a bit disturbing.