Need for connection yet fear closeness

There are so many things I find fascinating in this life; however, the most fascinating to me is the human behavior.

What is it about humans that somehow need, want or desire connection with another human yet fear the closeness? How does one set aside their fears of past ‘baggage’ in order to move forward in their life?

I have a friend that lives around the east-coast of the United States. We have never ‘officially’ met face-to-face, but have been on-going email, chat buddies for a couple of years. Love this person’s sense of humor which has probably drawn us to one another. He divorced sometime last year, and now is single again. For most Americans this would be the opportunity to go wild—that’s if, of course, they didn’t go too wild during their marriage. Seems to be an all to often topic with American relationships----absolutely no respect or boundaries. Anyway, my friend comes from a Muslim Arab background, which to the average American standard would equate to ‘conservative’. How sad! Anyway, he’s now a single man living in America. Good luck, my friend!
The fun part about our friendship is we can each coach one another from a gender standpoint. It’s been rather fun giving him advice and assistance on what women want, need, like, don’t like, etc, and he the same for me from a man's standpoint. Of course, I’m no guru in this area nor can I speak on behalf of the entire female population, but I feel a good general overview is more helpful than not.

What I’ve learned and continue learning through life is the on-going difference in communication between men and women. For instance, women get together for an afternoon to drink tea and visit. We can talk about the tea itself for a good period of time (i.e., the type we like, the type we don’t like, what others have tried, which ones we want to try, etc. the list is endless). However, if men were to gather for an afternoon of tea and conversation their conversation regarding the tea at best might be acknowledging the tea is good.......PERIOD! So, is it any wonder we (the two genders) struggle to get along, yet somehow through this cyber-space world we live in, we manage just fine. Why is that?

My friend and I can spend hours chatting about just about anything, AND both seem to be enjoying the conversation and time. However, I wonder if things would differ if we were face-to-face with one another. Would one get on the others nerves? Would he hear from me, "blah, blah, blah", and would I hear from him "silence"?

Comments welcomed.