If you respect your parents opinion, which it seems you do, you will certainly give weight to what they are saying. In hindsight, I've found that my parents are often right about many things. And they know you better than anyone. Having said this, they are individuals too and see things through their individual "prisms". I've also learned to sound out both parents as individuals. Together they may respond with one voice but separately, their opinions may surprise you.

I've had a few relationships which began online but sorry, I think it's a bit ludicrous to call someone a boyfriend or girlfriend if you've never met in person. As Confused has said, all of us have different personae online, so until there is a face-to-face, can you really fall in love with the person? More likely, you are "in love" with his/her online persona. And I think that's the real danger with this online thing; people invest so much time in it, that when the actual meeting occurs, we have almost unwittingly conditioned ourselves to like the person. That is to say, by that point, we've got too much time and effort invested in the "relationship" for it to fail-even if, perhaps, we see that the online and in person personae very rather widely. To truly love this person, we really have to start from scratch. Which unfortunately means letting go of some of those mental images we have developed in the course of the time spent exclusively online.

LDRs are tough. I'm in one at the moment. And they won't work forever, that's for sure. So, if you're going to pursue this fellow, I would step it up or it will surely fizzle.