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Post by alcyone on Sept 22, 2017 4:21:59 GMT
Yes some suffer from poor record-keeping at the other end and ask the same question as 3 letters ago I usually only read one or maybe two letters back, so I suppose I could do that. Generally just trying to figure out whether I covered a topic at all and usually on the side of what I'm writing about rather than questions I'm asking. Musta been some dupes in 5Q by now. Trying to avoid them makes every month harder. I do have records, but not all together. Mostly use them to see if anyone wrote some 5Q I missed, or when I get answers where the person doesn't remind me of the questions. Yes, it's hard to remember what's been asked and especially if the round trip time is weeks. I keep telling myself I'll get one of compact document scanners so I can scan letters and replies and review the thread before I write to someone. I think it's better to ask the same question than no questions, though sometimes I avoid topics that I am afraid I have asked already but maybe it was someone else I actually asked instead.
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Post by radellaf on Sept 22, 2017 4:42:41 GMT
Yeah, had that same problem. Who did I tell the new dog story to? The dead laptop? Some other animal story... That's the main faux pas I want to avoid. I guess with some questions if I asked it again a year later there might well be a different answer. The most fun combo was "what did you get for christmas?" and then "it being almost christmas again, did you get any use out of that router you got last year?" (they did)
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mskafka
Crayons
Posts: 40
Looking for Penpals?: Yes. Global penpals welcome
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Post by mskafka on Sept 22, 2017 5:39:25 GMT
I don't think there are bad letters for me. If someone takes the time to sit down, write and think of me I can't complain about that person. We all go through stressing periods in our lives. I've been quiet for a very long time. Some might accuse me of being a bad pen pal, but if they knew what happened to my family in the past months they would probably change their minds about me. If I get a too short letter, or too "superficial", I don't consider it a bad letter, I know that my friend is busy or going through bad times. Not everybody tells when they have problems, especially if they're too personal. I've been guilty of that too. I have pen pals who don't have kids, or who are retired and have all their free time for themselves. And I have pen pals with 3 or more children and a full time job. It's usually the ones without kids or the ones who are retired the ones who complain more to me about my letters when they're too short or not regular. I've had a couple of pen pals who demanded long, regular letters and when I didn't manage to send one per month they asked me what was wrong with me. Penpalling is not a job, it shouldn't be stressing. There's a real life besides letters and well, some of us might write bad letters sometimes Also, if I told here about letters I didn't like, I would feel as if I was gossiping about those pen pals, and I don't feel too comfortable with that. Ooooo....now, complaining about letters to the one who wrote them is something I would consider Bad Form. That's true. It was something like "If you don't plan to write me once a month let me know, so that I can delete you from my list of friends". Or "You're always out of home, or working, or with the family... don't you have a life of your own to answer my letters?", or "Sorry, I threw away all your letters because I didn't hear from you in two months". But fortunately, this only happened to me with two or three people.
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mskafka
Crayons
Posts: 40
Looking for Penpals?: Yes. Global penpals welcome
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Post by mskafka on Sept 22, 2017 5:44:24 GMT
I suppose for me, a bad letter is one you find difficult to respond to, excluding those with bad/sad news (death, illness... in the family). Boring letters perhaps, not that my penpals need to live exciting lives 24/7, but ones also all about the sender showing little or no interest in you. I don't write many questions in letters, but there should be something for a penpal to comment on, just as you do in spoken conversation. Perhaps also letters that you can barely read, even if the handwriting is neat (there was one letter I received a few years back in a calligraphic script I found difficult to decipher), however some handwriting style take time to be able to understand and the letter needs to be read more than once. I agree that there are letters that are difficult to reply. Whenever this happened to me, the friendship ended soon, as the other person had no interest in my letters or my life, we simply didn't match. About the handwriting, I remember once, when I got a letter from Egypt. The name of my new pen pal was illegible, I couldn't decipher half of the letter. A few months letter I found out he was a guy, not a woman, and that he had been asking for my hand from the 2nd letter. As I had always responded his letters he thought I had accepted and that we were engaged:D
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Post by stormymorning on Sept 22, 2017 20:36:05 GMT
I'm pretty picky when it comes to friendships (= penpals), but it doesn't mean anyone writes bad letters. Some are just not very interesting to me, like very non-personal ones. That just doesn't work for me. Also, illegible ones annoy me a bit, to be honest, but luckily I've very rarely received such letters. Super-short ones I just don't get - why spend the paper, envelop, stamp and energy on a letter that has next to no content? Even weirder when it has being sent from a country with poor mail connections to mine, so I've waited 6 weeks for... almost nothing! (Happened recently, very late InCoWriMo penpal from Mexico) Maybe this sounded a little harsh and I don't mean to be - when you're a penpal of mine, I'm pretty loyal and I really don't mind a distracted or short letter (guilty!!) once in a while! Just not all the time
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Post by Mia on Sept 23, 2017 13:08:21 GMT
I hadn't separated uninteresting letters from "bad" ones.
I do too wonder why some people write really short messages...
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blushinpen
Crayons
Posts: 45
Looking for Penpals?: Yes. Global penpals welcome
Country I live in is: Germany
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Post by blushinpen on Sept 24, 2017 10:14:27 GMT
I haven't necessary received "bad" letters. But I have received short ones, when I initially wrote at least two pages. What bugs me more is when I don't get a respond when there has been a good correspondence before. No word as to why the penpalship has ended.
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Post by tramplingrose on Sept 24, 2017 14:22:21 GMT
I wonder how many "too short" or "bad" letters are from people trying their best to keep up with their correspondence. Or picking certain letters to reply to, just to get a reply out. I personally try to wait until I can devote enough time to my replies (or will work on them over a period of a couple days, during breaks at work). I posted about my dad passing away rather unexpectedly this summer, so my letter-writing came to a halt for about a month. I'm just now feeling up to tackling my reply pile, and slowly but surely, I'm getting caught back up. I had one pen pal I started writing to through InCoWriMo, whom I thought was a bit of a dud, and I'd prepared to just let that penfriendship slowly die off. However, though she only ever sends note-cards, it turns out she's got some health issues she's been dealing with, and letter-writing is a bit difficult for her to concentrate on. She was one of the first I sent a letter to, when I felt like writing again (I'd gotten a reply from her back in May, right before my dad got sick). A couple days ago I got a rather sweet and sympathetic reply from her, still a just note-card's worth of writing, but she stuck a bunch of cute little ephemera inside as well. So maybe I was hasty in thinking I should let it go - Quick note-cards might just be her style/personal preference.
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Post by distractedmom on Sept 25, 2017 17:16:55 GMT
So much to respond to here! 1. I realized earlier this month that I wrote a duplicate 5Q question. Whoops! Oh well. Let's see if you all give me the same answer the second time around. 2. I would never complain TO a pen pal about their letters, or their rate of response. To me, any letter I receive feels like a gift. 3. For me, a "bad" letter would be one in which there is no personal touch. If I receive a letter that is generic and could have been sent to anyone, that's a little disappointing. It doesn't feel like a correspondence then. It feels like someone shouting about themselves out into the void. I know a first letter will always be a little more impersonal, but after exchanging 3 or 4 letters, if you never ask me a question, or share a story that is building upon something I shared, I feel like there is no connection between us and the writer is just looking for an excuse to use pens and paper. Not that there's a problem using your pen pals as a justification for buying more pens and paper.
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Post by radellaf on Sept 26, 2017 3:20:52 GMT
With some people you can get a lot out of talking about which pens and paper you bought. Or ink. I don't buy that much paper. (IMHO, anyway). Been looking on eBay for some interesting card packages, like 12 with some theme and a few designs. Barnes & Noble has some like that but they're kinda rare and overpriced ( >$1 per card) on eBay.
Reading like a form letter would be the worst maybe, with, yes, some allowance for 1st letters when they had nothing to go on like InCo 2017.
What qualifies as too short? Maybe 1 outta 4 or 5 I write are a card about A5 size, with smaller than average writing. I think it's too short at about half that much, or a full A5 side with wide-rule density.
I love long ones, but past a few pages more length can mean longer to reply. More a thing with email than written letters, though. The paragraph gets a reply in a few days, the screenful in a week or two, if it hasn't been lost below the fold and forgotten about.
Depends on the content, though. Sometimes a long and interesting story only needs a paragraph reply. Discussions of tech or philosophy can grow pretty large.
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Post by hoyabella on Sept 26, 2017 11:57:40 GMT
This thread is very interesting! In theory, I could agree with those who say that every letter is a good letter, but reality is that I had a couple of penpals who *always* wrote what to me seemed "bad" letters (at least those few times they wrote before our correspondence ended), so much so that more than once I said to myself in front of my mailbox: "Oh no, it's from her again!". No leap of joy, no expectations about the content :-(
Being short, sloppy or even impersonal does not necessarily make a letter "bad", imho, nor a letter is "bad" if the writer does not comment what I write or answer my questions (to some extent...). If more of said characteristics are concentrated in a letter, it's hard for me to appreciate it. One penpal (to whom I stopped writing years ago) wrote very short, sloppy letters telling next to nothing about herself, well next to nothing about anything, actually. On the last envelope she sent, I saw that she lived in another place and had a different family name and she didn't even mention it :-O
Strange to say, while sometimes answering was as little pleasant as reading them, in other cases replying to these "bad" letters was unexpectedly easy and rather enjoyable. Vice-versa, on multiple occasions, I had a relatively difficult time in replying to some great letters (without bad news). It beats me.
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Post by erin on Sept 27, 2017 18:32:40 GMT
This thread is very interesting! Strange to say, while sometimes answering was as little pleasant as reading them, in other cases replying to these "bad" letters was unexpectedly easy and rather enjoyable. Vice-versa, on multiple occasions, I had a relatively difficult time in replying to some great letters (without bad news). It beats me.
Yes! You've summed up how I feel so nicely.
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Post by stormymorning on Sept 29, 2017 18:51:21 GMT
I haven't necessary received "bad" letters. But I have received short ones, when I initially wrote at least two pages. What bugs me more is when I don't get a respond when there has been a good correspondence before. No word as to why the penpalship has ended. Have you tried contacting these people in other ways? Maybe their latest letter got lost...
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Post by DJW1066 on Oct 2, 2017 9:54:45 GMT
"If someone takes the time to sit down, write and think of me I can't complain about that person. "
If exchanging letters is like having a slow conversation, then there may be times of silence. Often such silence is preferrable to a vacuous letter sent just for the sake of being sent. But it can be disappointing when the writer clearly hasn't invested any time, or much thought, and the resulting letter feels like it was a chore or obligation. But, thankfully, I get very few such letters.
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Post by richila on May 8, 2018 13:57:27 GMT
The only letter that I considered a bad one is one that doesn't give me anything to respond to, no specific comments or questions about what I wrote last and tells me nothing of their own life to respond to-I don't expect details, but if I wrote about my cat at least say that you like them, or don't because you prefer dogs or you are allergic to fur or dander or something. I should be able to tell that the letter was written to me for more reasons than my name was on the envelope and in the salutation.
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