What were their reactions?

[jana89]

My whole family hated the idea. They told me I am stupid and what not.
It took us months of talking about it over and over until they finally accepted that there is someone in my life that makes me happy.
Now my dad loves him, because he knows how depressed I was before him. My siblings accept him, yet they don't want to get to know him.

All my close real life friends stopped talking to me. My online friends knew this was coming as it developed right in front of their eyes :P

That is really sad to read :/ They should not condemn you because of your love, just the opposite, they should understand how difficult this is and how much of patience and perseverance it takes to make this work. Do not let people around you change your view, just hang in there. People who really care of you will accept it. And always there is LFAD

[hopefulteapot]

It was TOUGH. My friends were completely fine with it and oozing to know more about him/meet him as it was so that wasn't an issue. My parents were the complete opposite. I couldn't tell them I was "seeing" someone over the internet so I didn't tell them. I'm an adult and I felt I made the right decision as they would freak out and definitely persuade me not to see him as they'd surely think he was a 60 year old man. But when the time finally came, he was in a hotel down the road from me (conveniently enough the hotel was JUST opened two months before he got here). Right before I broke the news, my heart was POUNDING out of my chest. I knew they'd react in a very negative way and I was correct. They immediately, without knowing him, bashed him. "He's obviously a psycho, are you sure he's from England or is he pretending to be?", "he could be a criminal, do you know his history??", "I don't like him already", etc. And it hurt, it hurt like hell. I was so upset that I ended up crying on the phone to my boyfriend telling him I needed to calm myself down first. They were just so harsh and not understanding at all. But after the initial freak out, when he finally came through the door, I could see their attitudes change. They became slightly more relaxed and within two hours of talking to him here and there, I could tell they liked him. After he left, my parents told me how they really thought he'd be the complete opposite. They were still slightly untrusting of him but a few days later, they really took to him. After he went back to England, my father told me he really liked him and wouldn't mind seeing him come back to visit again. He then told me that my Mother said he seems to be the perfect guy and she thought he was smart, charming and down to earth but she never told me to my face.

She never mentions him to this day but my father asks me about him here and there. I think my Mother doesn't understand how serious this relationship is to me. She probably doesn't take it as a potential long term partner so she doesn't bother to get involved but she is so wrong. This is the man I'm going to be with forever. It's insane how I've been in several relationships before and I was iffy about it but with this one and with LESS time, I just know he's the right one and I love him to bits.

[BlueCat]

I got the same vibe that a lot of you seemed to get. My parents were supportive, but it seemed that they didn't take it all that seriously, like it wasn't a super long term thing. I got that with a lot of new people I met too, and to be honest, I still kinda dislike meeting new people because inevitably you end up asking about each other and my engagement ring gets noticed and then it eventually leads to this story about how we met online even though we weren't looking and he's from overseas... and most people just don't seem to get it. Fortunately where I work now, everybody is super supportive, it just seemed to confuse everyone at my previous workplace, lol.

My friends were all supportive, but mostly just eagerly curious as friends tend to be. My family loves him now, all my friends like him, so I must have done something right, lol.

[Malaga]

Even though it's my first 'proper' LDR, I don't think anyone was surprised much. I'd been travelling a lot, chatting to people online, I had loads of international friends visiting me and I was visiting them. I didn't really talk about our relationship much while it was still early days, I wanted to keep it under wraps. Parents knew early on but just accepted it without many questions really. (I was 27 at the time so that made a difference as well.)
Most other people found out by the time we were about a year in so even if they had any doubts about it, they realised it was already quite serious and 'proven'. I guess I'm lucky that I'm surrounded with fairly open-minded people, or at least 'minding my own business' kind of people. Which is all I was hoping for really.