Establishing and maintaining the virtual relationship

So I've figured that there are a variety of modalities in finally meeting someone in person on match. In my experience

1. Someone you started emailing rapidly while you were both online one night. You ended up chatting the next day and felt so comfortable with each other that you were gazing into each other's eyes few days later.
2. Someone you started emailing daily or slightly less. Took a slightly longer while for someone to throw out their personal email, yet the phone conversation started within a week and plans are made to meet in person
3. Someone you emailed because.. well.. they seemed vaguely interesting, but it took a while for fluid responses / banter, and because you've kept in contact for so long it would be a travesty not to meet because they're now the equivalent of your friend on facebook.

At present I have about 4 regular contacts on match. One was dropped a couple days ago.. which is another post I will write. Meet

1. Professional guy - lives in middle class area, well spoken, late 30s. Not incredibly attracted to his photograph, but we have quite intelligible conversations. I nearly let him go for the guy I subsequently dropped, but luckily he responded saying we should still keep in touch, hence I threw my number in for good measure after about a month and we had quite a lovely phone conversation.

2. Random funny guy - he winked at me, I enjoyed his profile because it was blatantly honest and funny so I winked back, and we've done the short course banter thing, hopefully leading to some drinks later this week. We had a phone conversation after a day or so which also went well, so who knows. I discussed this with my friend earlier saying that he wasn't really my type.. then she asked what my type was... ie.. I don't really have a specific type.. apart from the guys that I have to chase or result in being somewhat psychotic.

3. Clever travel guy - again, I nearly let him go for the dropped guy. He actually reminds me of my ex boyfriend visually, but after a phone conversation which, again, went well, I'm not so convinced about him, but we will be spending some face to face time later this week.

4. Out of town guy - so he doesn't live in London, but he has a similar profession to me. We emailed for a bit, but then I decided (while i was into the dropped guy) that he was slightly too quirky for me. I didn't respond to an email and then a week later he wrote to me again which was actually quite welcomed. I'm not looking for someone who lives in a different city from me.. my long term relationship was long distance, and i didn't quite enjoy the travelling although it wasn't any more than 2-3hrs.

Bet you're intrigued about 'dropped guy'. He embodied everything I'd fucked up in my previous relationships, yet I still went knowingly panting like a dog. It all began and ended within a mere week. Theoretically we're still friends.. but as I said, that's for another post.

None of these guys I'm overly excited about which is a good thing for me because it means I definitely won't be doing anything rash and it gives me time to get to know them. All of them sound relatively decent and they're completely different in their own ways. I wonder how my interpretation of them will change on encounter. And on one more note; those that keep in contact indepedently (ie when i sometimes get slack for one reason or another), will maintain connections (apart from clever travel guy.. who is kinda losing points now..). I definitely respect that. Dropped guy had that great habitual nature of texting occasionally, and even calling when i travelled to europe for a bit. I do that to people I care about, and having it returned to you in kind is deeply appreciated.