It's tempting to think that physical meeting is the ultimate in 'reality' in relationships, and maybe that is why some people are worried about relationships in cyberspace. Surprisingly, however, some people are able to be more 'real' about themselves in a letter than in person, so to meet with them rather than have a correspondence with them can be to know them less well. Being physically present with someone can give the illusion that we are sharing ourselves, when in fact all we are doing is sharing some geographical space. Because they are 'there' we assume a communication which has not actually taken place, perhaps through inattention or superficial sociability. Conversely, written communication gives the illusion that a message has been sent and received, when it might not have even been read.
Relationships that exist in cyberspace are real relationships. They often exist solely for the purpose of giving and receiving information, but they can be more than this, like the case of the men who became friends through their email correspondence. For example, they may have asked what each other thought or felt about music or the political situation, about families and about the weather. This is much more than just a reactive response to moves in chess, or a request for information of an abstract kind; it opens up a life rich in realities beyond what we already know.
As humans, we exist in a particular time and place, as bodies which need their physical being affirmed in a variety of ways, through food and exercise for example. If we thought of humans as pure spirits, which happened for the moment to be tied to bodies (as some Greek philosophers thought, but Christians do not), then we might see cyberspace as liberation into true relationships, a glimpse of a higher 'reality'.
It is because of this essential physicality of human being, bound up with our locatedness in space and time, that any relationship that is fully and truly human must be a relationship which exists in and through space and time. The most real relationships between people ought to include, at least potentially, every aspect of human presence, which means that the physical dimension should be includable. Sometimes that is only expressed as a lack, as something missing when we send an email or make a telephone call.
The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation teaches that Jesus was not simply a projection of God into the world, but was really and fully human, and thus able to enter into the world of relationships with those who are fearful or ashamed. Christian doctrine also insists that Jesus will return and fully reveal the kingdom that he proclaimed; a kingdom in which human beings will again relate to him 'in the flesh'. What that will be like, we do not know; certainly the bodily nature of Jesus' resurrection life appears to have been subject to less of what we might call physical limitations. But still it is bodily, bearing the wounds of the Cross, and touchable.