I've never really been much for online gaming for a number of reasons. Prohibitive use of time being chief among them (I like to diversify my game playing, I don't really have time to play one enough to get a good at it let alone multiple ones), but the fact that online users seem to be slavering lunatics devoid of social graces or even souls is a close second. However when Street Fighter 4 (and subsequently Super Street Fighter 4) swept through my group of friends and I was languishing at the bottom of our hierarchy, I knew that would have to change. Long story short (too late!): I bought it on PS3 (and later on the 360, long story) and started playing it, got pretty decent, yadda yadda, now HERE'S where our little tale takes off. 
I played a few matches, mostly against Shoto-by-numbers characters, so the first time someone beat me handily with someone OTHER than one of those three (I think it was Dudley, a character I was looking into using) I decided to send him a congratulatory message. To my shock, he replied with a positive. "Interesting," thought I, "but probably more of an exception proving the rule scenario." I tried it again under similar circumstances and HOLY SHIT! Same damn thing happened. Again and again I sent people who I had what I felt were great matches, and again and again I got either positive responses or no response. I've never been insulted, even by people I completely wail on, nor have I ever had a negative response. Hell my Gamertag is Lex Jewthor, I thought that alone would inundate my inbox with hatemail!
I am shocked, SHOCKED! Is my experience a crazy outlier, or have any of ya'll had experiences vastly better (or worse) than you expected?