I was just sitting here thinking about how neat it would be to "email" or "write letters" to someone I've never met before and have continuous interesting conversations with that person. Getting to know people through the works of words rather than speaking or meeting. How many of you have pen pals? How many of you think it would be neat to have one? Where would you find one?
I had one or two pen pals as a kid. Those kinds of things used to be organised by teachers at my school, who had connections to schools in other places etc. Communication usually fizzled out after a while though... kids. I've never consciously looked for friends online, but have a handful of times found interesting or like-minded folk (i.e. via forums) to communicate with. A couple have since become real-life friends as well.
I love penpals. I've had a few but they never really got beyond a few emails/letters each, I guess partially because most were from other countries and we happened to start it off at a busy time in our lives or something. It's hard to maintain, in my experience, because it's easy to forget to reply and be like 'I'll reply later'. I usually remember but the other person doesn't. I did manage to write letters with a friend for about a year though which was cool. I found my penpals on Postcrossing where originally you send postcards to random people all over the world and you can receive them, but if you go on the forum you can also send notebooks, get penpals etc. I think it's pretty good because you can get little snippets from all over the world and it's nice hearing about other cultures.
just be aware that if you do it by email or other internet venues, the really cool, good-looking person your age who seems soooo nice might actually be an ugly old perv who's trolling for victims... remember the craig list killer! same can happen with regular mail [such as the postcard thing], too... it's a sad fact of life that people often are not who or what they say they are... so before you start spilling your guts to a total stranger, do whatever it takes to find out if you're being conned...
Of course, that's something to keep in mind. Not sure how old you are, aimi, but for proper 'pen pals' you could go via people you know well (family/friends/teacher etc), and they often know interesting folk in other places. As I mentioned above, this was how it was done pre-Internet days, at least where I'm from.
Yeah, mammamaia makes a good point. Personally, I haven't really had any problems with anyone online like that. But definitely be careful, especially about how much personal information you give away.
I've had a few penpals over the years. There are actually a lot of really cool sites for penpals. You can swap letters, little gifts, packages, etc. www.interpals.net www.penpalworld.com www.penpal.net Those are just a few of the many sites for penpals.
Yeah, I've never had a "pen pal" exactly, but I've met plenty of people on forums that I swapped e-mails with and continously IMed and got to know via text. That's how I met my future hubby, but mammamaia is right. You have to be careful.
From the 4 books I have written, the most boring part of the process is not having someone to discuss and share ideas. If i was to have a pen pal, it would have to be a writer.
I'm 18 years old, by the way. And I'm fully aware of the dangers out there. But I was talking more like "old-style" pen-pals. Definitely not "this-day-in-age trolls and pervs". Lol.
Probably the same thing, lol. I'm sure meeting your penpal (via mail) didn't always go to well either.
