Family against online friends?

[ezri]

I'm a 15 year old boy. My father and sister are against long distance. I don't know what to do. They've made me deactivate Facebook, Twitter, and I can't go on the chat site I've met a lot of friends on. I've even met this girl there who if we had the freedom to date, would be my girlfriend. I love all of my friends, and I love that girl too. I've grown attached to them in a way. Some of them I've known for months, some for a year and beyond.

My dad, sister and brother in law seem to think of them all as online predators, people that are just planning to ruin my life somehow, yet I honestly think they are real. They think that they are the ones putting the ideas of feelings and attraction in my mind, when actually, there is no peer pressure of any kind, these feelings are my own. When it comes to attraction, they prefer that I wait until after college to have anything to do romantically with girls (now) or women (later).

In my mind, there are as many real people on the internet then there are online predators, or else the predators would have no purpose. Yet if I bring that up, they would find some way to counter it or dismiss it. They might even get mad for me trying to defend them.

I feel really bad now. I had to deactivate everything a few days ago. My dad will take my phone away during the day. As a matter of fact, I let my mom take it, since if I kept it with me, it would bring back memories. I sent the girl a goodbye text before that and explained the situation, then told her to tell the others. The next morning, I started crying, which seemed to make my dad annoyed.

I don't know what to do anymore. I love them all, but I have no idea when we'll all be in contact again. By the time we do get back in contact if we do, I bet they would have left the chat, Twitter names may change so I don't know how I'll be able to follow them on there, and as for Facebook, some of them don't even have Facebook and as for the ones that do, there isn't any guarantee that by the time I talk to them again in months, most likely years if I even talk to them at all, that I would be able to find them.

I just feel bad now. I feel like they will forget me. I know that it would be better for them and for me to move on, but for me that will take a long while. Their names will be in my head most likely everyday. Please, any advice, anything at all would be appreciated..