Penpal sites on the net / opinions, anyone?

[ginny]

Hi everybody,

are there any penpal sites on the net that you prefer for finding new correspondents, and if there's any site you'd recommend in particular, why do you prefer it? How do you generally feel about penpal sites these days? Have you made any particularly good or bad experiences with specific sites?

In the past, I have used sites like Global Penfriends, Interpals and Penpal World (all places where you have to create a profile and that provide an in-site messaging service - and all sites have their pros and cons...) as well as 'open' sites where people just post an 'ad' along with their e-mail addresses so you could contact them. Later, there were Facebook groups - I'm not on Facebook anymore, though, so that has fallen to the wayside. I have made friends on other social media, though (Instagram, for example).

I'm curious to hear how others feel about penpal sites, social media etc. and look forward to hearing about your experiences.

[Gary S]

I've used Interpals and would classify it as an online dating site more than a pen pal site although I did come away with one Chilean pen pal. I've also used Maartin's Pen Pal list but the one Central American pen pal I picked up there just stopped writing. While that's not surprising seeing as I'm a bit off the wall when it comes to my writing style and those mailable creations I regularly drop in my mail box.

If you want just regular pen pals that don't need to be from some exotic locale then the folks on this forum are generally consistent writers. If you're into fountain pens then Fountain Pen Geeks web site is a good source especially around this time of the year. You don't have to sign up but they have a forum thread where folks list their addresses and if they're looking for new pen pals or are buried under a stack of mail they need to respond to. Those second type of people are still good potential pen pals as they are clearly into responding to the letters they've received already so go ahead and surprise them with a letter if they're foolish enough to list their mailing address.

I posted this year that I'm swamped yet have answered every new contact that foolishly sent me a letter as soon as I received their letter. I'm just too nice I guess but I do remember my first year when I started the challenge and not having a single person to write to outside a very small group of family and friends.

[Gary S]

Feb 16, 2020 21:30:29 GMT @dignum said:

We tried putting our name in the FPN (fountain pen network) forum but over a month later we haven't heard from anyone there.


D

I attacked the problem of getting new pen pals from Fountain Pen Geeks slightly differently. I didn't join their group so couldn't post my own pen pal ad but rather read through the thread to find those who were posting about sending and responding to incoming letters then if I could get their address I wrote them a letter. I'm a strong believer in the to get a letter send a letter concept. I have plenty of current pen pals, now, so I don't send out many surprise letters anymore but I DO respond to the letters that I receive. Especially if folks are just getting started because I know they're struggling to come up with folks to write to who'll actually respond. If I get a quick response in the mail they can often write me a second time before the month is out and thus not have to try to find another address to use.

[Gary S]

I don't mind seeming to be pushy but it really isn't as if anyone other than the letter recipient I've chosen as my intended victim knows I'm writing anymore than that solitary letter. I ended up sending 100+ letters but since I never posted an introduction or any updates about what I was sending there were just 100+ individuals each thinking they were special Well, actually they were wondering what in the world they'd done to deserve one of my letters but it's the same difference to me.

[voiren]

I got a good long term match on fountainpenpals on Reddit: you fill in a profile and the moderators match people up. (Though I only tried it there once so far!)

[mailartist]

Feb 16, 2020 21:29:36 GMT Gary S said:

If you want just regular pen pals that don't need to be from some exotic locale 

I don't know, but what you've said about Porum, it seems pretty exotic to me . . . 

[mailartist]

One thing I'm not sure about is folks withholding addresses, but instead saying something like "send me an email, and then we'll correspond." That only works if the email gets through, or gets noticed. Unless the individual thinks to check the spam folder, one's email request is likely to never be seen. I prefer to pick an address, and get the letter written and out. Having to wait, who knows how long, for an address to maybe show up seems anticlimactic.

I understand why folks might want to do it this way, and I'm not criticizing the method. It just not the ideal way, in my mind, to send a surprise letter.

[mailartist]

Feb 16, 2020 21:30:29 GMT @dignum said:

We tried putting our name in the FPN (fountain pen network) forum but over a month later we haven't heard from anyone there.

Of course, mail from anywhere else takes a while to get to Australia. From the US here (and I live in a major city), it can take up to three weeks for a letter of mine to land "down under." So mail might be coming, but just working its way through the system. I'm hoping that's the case. 

The best InCo's I've done are where address boards are up early in January. That way, I can write the international letters in advance, so they have some chance of arriving in February, when people are still jazzed and interested. I've tried this "international first" approach in other years, where boards weren't refreshed until February 1, and got nothing back in reply. One year, I started the first week of February by sending six letters off to Australia (wanting to get those out first, since they had the farthest to travel). I didn't hear back from a single recipient, but I assume that by the time the mail arrived, it was March, and folks were "letter tired."

[mailartist]

I think it depends on what your purposes are. If you're looking for regular correspondents, then I second Gary's advice that this forum is a good place to be. At least, folks here have a year-round interest in snail mail, and there's always something going on on the boards.

If you're just looking for addresses to send something to, then probably any other site would work. A lot of people have a nostalgic interest in snail mail, but not necessarily an ongoing commitment. Then again, beginners have to start somewhere, and I hope that some of those "maybe I'm interested in this, maybe not" folks might jump in later on.

[Gary S]

Feb 16, 2020 23:08:26 GMT mailartist said:

Feb 16, 2020 21:29:36 GMT Gary S said:

If you want just regular pen pals that don't need to be from some exotic locale 

I don't know, but what you've said about Porum, it seems pretty exotic to me . . . 

The wildlife for certain but we hillbillies don't get out to a lot of fancy restaurants or the opera. Last "fancy" food I et was some chopped brisket from the gas station at 4 mile corner. That's exit 270 on I-40 for you folks from outside of Checotah. When you live in Checotah the downtown stoplight is the starting point for all road designations.

[katiel]

One of my favorite places to find penpals (other than here), and where I got started, was at Students of the World, which is safe, easy and free. You can put up a profile, or search other people’s. You can even search by country, gender, and age if you have a particular interest, and there are thousands and thousands of people on there. I liked it because you could communicate on their internal message system before deciding if you were comfortable enough to be giving out your personal info. My longest running penpals are from there ...and one penpal (from there) and I clicked so much that we ended up doing a 10 day vacation together which was awesome, and we already plan to do another one again soon. 🙂

Fair warning though, that I did get a lot of requests from African countries (and two from France) where the men seemed to be treating it as a dating site (not cool with me, I’m not looking for romance in pen-palling, at ALL), but for the most part the rest were all on the up and up, and had tons of interesting perspectives, and I learned a lot from them, and I’m still enjoying their letters. So I’d definitely recommend this site. I’ll include a link below, in case you want to check it out.


www.studentsoftheworld.info/menu_penpals_home.php

[distractedmom]

My first year of InCo, I used the FPN group to send quite a few surprise letters. I have several long-term correspondences from that endeavor in 2016. Once I discovered this site, I have primarily used it. I have quite a few regular correspondents and as some drop off, I find new ones here.

[mailartist]

Feb 17, 2020 1:56:29 GMT @dignum said:

Feb 16, 2020 23:22:18 GMT mailartist said:

Of course, mail from anywhere else takes a while to get to Australia. From the US here (and I live in a major city), it can take up to three weeks for a letter of mine to land "down under." So mail might be coming, but just working its way through the system. I'm hoping that's the case. 

The best InCo's I've done are where address boards are up early in January. That way, I can write the international letters in advance, so they have some chance of arriving in February, when people are still jazzed and interested. I've tried this "international first" approach in other years, where boards weren't refreshed until February 1, and got nothing back in reply. One year, I started the first week of February by sending six letters off to Australia (wanting to get those out first, since they had the farthest to travel). I didn't hear back from a single recipient, but I assume that by the time the mail arrived, it was March, and folks were "letter tired."

Hi

That is very true.  We find that with our existing pen friends and those that we have written to previously that the mail to and from the UK can be less than a week and Germany is 2 weeks.  Everywhere else can be a little longer.  Sigh.

I struggle a little with people not acknowledging mail so I am sorry to hear that you met with such rudeness - 6 letters and not a single response.  That is not good, regardless of the timing.  Hopefully, you get a better response rate this year!

Cheers

D

We can soon give the "little longer" a try. I just finished a rather rambley response to your Feb 5Qs (you and your wife were on my February letter list). I still need to "envelope it up," but it should depart here on Tuesday (Monday is a US postal holiday, so no mail tomorrow). We have an international airport in town, so planes leaving all the time, but it'll be interesting to see if it gets there by March. I even looked you up on the map, to see where this is going (we didn't spend much time in third grade learning Australian geography, I'm afraid.)

[hoyabella]

I love the idea of Send Something: each member has a simple text page with profile, address and possible comments from other members. There is a basic search function that allows to find members according to the profile or location. You choose an address, send mail and the recipient has a surprise.
As in other penpal sites, most members are from the US but Europe is relatively well represented and there are people from exotic countries, too, more than at the current Incowrimo, I'd say.
That said, the response rate to my surprise letters/postcards is unexplainably low and sadly other members have a similar experience, so I am not sure I'd suggest the site to anyone.
Sometimes I wonder why I keep trying with that site and then I think that, in addition to all the disappointment, I have also found a few great pen friends there 😊

[ginny]

Thanks everyone for their responses - I was interested to hear about your experiences. I wasn't really referring to InCoWriMo in my original posting, but was aiming more for a general discussion, but it's certainly been fun to read about your thoughts.

Sometimes I think they good old Friendship Booklets (does anybody remember them? For more info, you might want to have a look here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_book ) were the best. You sent out a letter, and with some luck, you got a reply. I have made some great friends that way. You don't see many Friendship Booklets circulating anymore these days, everyone goes to the internet now.

I'm not 'actively' participating in InCoWriMo - meaning that I don't have my address out on the net somewhere. I'm not comfortable with that, so I just picked a few addresses... we'll see what will come out of that.