I do not know how you think the adult world works, but, hopefully, one gets experience when they are 17 that will help when they are 23, 37, 41, 55, etc. One does not meet someone, fall instantly in love and live happily ever after. It's like school where you have to do 1st grade, 2nd, 3rd, etc. in order and it may seem like you don't learn anything specific (think fast, what did you learn in 7th grade? :-) but you are learning incrementally? Social skills work that way too; I was just thinking yesterday of my grown nephew, he's in his 40s now I think, but when he was a toddler he would wake in the morning come down the steps and wish us a "Hi morning!" He had learned to greet people (Hi!) and was learning that when you wake you wish people a "Good morning" but hadn't quite got the "good" going yet?

Your Skype friendship is just as valid as any other. You are learning to share yourself with another and listen to them, etc., all good skills. Yes, you are 17 and it is not necessarily an "end" relationship that will last a long time or an in-person, dating practice relationship but it is definitely not worthless. Look what you have learned that is good just by articulating it here: you know you really like this guy but that a lot of what you see/know is in your head rather than playing out in reality (always good to keep track of your imagination, like with the, "he has more girls probably" and think about what such thoughts mean to and about you and what you might want to "do" with/about such thoughts) and that love is not an instant thing (that's attraction, not love) and you are learning how your mind works and now can think how you want to work with it. Unless you "see" and talk about these things, you cannot work with them one way or another, they just are there in your un/subconscious and cannot contribute and help move you forward in life.