Gestures Online

It's so easy to put an emoticon or to use punctuation to express how you feel when you are online. While it does seem that you are getting your point across, more times than not, the real emotion and feeling of the conversation is not being relayed to the person you are talking with online. Especially for people who are not familiar with the lingo of online conversation, it is very hard to understand their attitudes and emotions because they have not adapted to expressing themselves without making eye contact, hand movements, and facial expressions. It is practically impossible to understand that they are being humorous because without the "lol", who knows what's funny and what isn't?
A perfect example of this is the first time i met my brother's fiance, we were online. I did not even know what her voice sounded like and we were chatting on facebook chat. She had never really been online like that before and did not understand any of the chatting lingo that I am so familiar with. She was asking me questions and stuff and I began interpreting these questions as being invasive and rude. I had no idea what her facial expressions were so I couldn't tell if she was joking and I couldn't here the tone of her voice to identify any kind of rude attitude. Unfortunately that gave me a very bad first impression of her and I still have not met her in person so I think that until I do, I will not like her.
Lack of real human gestures online has taken away from truthful expression and while it does serve it's purpose for a quick chat, it really undermines our abilities to express ourselves the best way we know how.