The Internet didn't exist before 1989, so how could you meet someone on it in the 80s? Even if they count the ARPANET as the internet, the 1980s figures are still ridiculously high considering how few people used it.
Edit: According to this: https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1980s/ there were about 10K hosts in 1987. Let's be generous and assume that there were 10 users/host, that's still only 100K people online in 1987, so the 1980s numbers are definitely bullshit. That's without even taking into account that the overwhelming majority of those users were male.
The Internet didn't exist before 1989, so how could you meet someone on it in the 80s? Even if they count the ARPANET as the internet, the 1980s figures are still ridiculously high considering how few people used it.