I'll add my own 'success story'.

I met my Mistress/Owner/wife via alt.com. I lived in England, she in the USA, which was what I was looking for at the time - wanted to keep it all online and safe!

We played online for over a year, IMs and webcam, the occasional phone call. It was very up and down as I was also having a real life vanilla on-off-on-off relationship of sorts with a lovely girl, which complicated matters of course.

Ultimately I decided to end my vanilla relationship because I am a slave at heart, always have been really, and it was time to go for it. So the online relationship took a new level; exclusive, a contract all that stuff. And I coudn't wiggle out of meeting her, any more.

I visited her three times in the space of five months, and by the third time had committed to moving over the Atlantic. Two months later I did.

We found that after well over a year of online contact, meeting each other was amazingly easy and natural. As for me making the decision... it was quite hard. I am very attached to my home town, and I still miss it a lot. 3500 miles of water between me and my friends. But I'm living the life I always wanted to, deep down, and that is too good for words.