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Post by ginny on Feb 28, 2023 10:51:31 GMT
I haven’t counted lately. I appreciate everyone who has the patience to wait for a reply from me because all of the letters that land in my mailbox make me smile. If I had to guess, I’d say 40-50. As I said in another posting, it is hard to pinpoint for me. There are people who write once a year, once in two years or maybe for Christmas and my birthday (which is in May, so that's convenient for contact twice a year!) which most folks would hardly count as penpals. Still, we mostly communicate via letters, so what are they, if they aren't penpals? I keep an address file, so I guess I could count the cards there, but what difference does it make?
I think it's a highly individual thing how many people one can keep in touch with. It depends on personal circumstances just as much as on individual energy levels, average length of letters and many more factors. Also... there are people who can meet up with four different friends in person every evening of the week without getting tired or needing a break while others get exhausted by the very thought of it. The same goes for exchanging letters - some have 'mental space' for much of that, others don't. Different strokes for different folks
distractedmom, I can totally relate to what you're saying. I'm not a prompt writer at all, but I'm also very lenient with how long my penpals take to write to me - and each and every letter is a welcome ray of sunshine in my life. For me, it's about the connection, the content and the communication - not so much about the amount of letters or the timespans in which they get exchanged.
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Post by summer87 on Mar 6, 2023 18:52:19 GMT
Im surprised to know that people write to 100s! Wow! Thats amazing.
I write to just 8 people. +2 digital mail pals. Lol 🤭
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iamtdogg
Pencils
Posts: 76
Looking for Penpals?: Yes. Global penpals welcome
Country I live in is: Scotland
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Post by iamtdogg on Mar 6, 2023 20:32:31 GMT
Having only began really in January and so far, from a facebook group, i have written to 25 pen friends and received letters from 14 of them, i fully expect some to fizzle out quickly and others to go on for life.
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Post by distractedmom on Mar 6, 2023 22:41:50 GMT
Having only began really in January and so far, from a facebook group, i have written to 25 pen friends and received letters from 14 of them, i fully expect some to fizzle out quickly and others to go on for life. I think that’s a fair expectation.
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Post by radellaf on Mar 8, 2023 17:55:42 GMT
If I have 40 in the reply pile, and only Becky writes more than one letter before I reply, it's probably around 40. I did a Christmas cop-out to those I felt guilty about and I think that was about a dozen. Guilt level, I'll guess, is related to how many exchanges, over how long, and words per letter. OTOH, a couple of times I've gone through the pile and replied to the one-page letters because... it's quicker.
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Post by allanorn on Mar 13, 2023 20:45:47 GMT
I don't really keep track of how many penpals I have because I get irregular letters from a lot of people. I keep tabs on how many people write regularly so I can identify if I should attempt to add more regular correspondents around InCoWriMo.
I keep about two dozen penpals plus some family on the "postcard" list for when I travel. I treat vacation postcards as extras, so I don't expect a response or expect others to send travel postcards. I really appreciate those who do send postcards to me while on their vacation though!
If I get more than a letter from someone (e.g., they wrote more than one InCoWriMo exchange), they get a Christmas card at the end of the year. This also acts as a check on who's actively writing. If I don't get a card or a letter back, I assume they've dropped off into the irregular list or have had to pause correspondence. Sometimes I'll get apology letters during the next InCoWriMo that they dropped off the face of the planet for a while!
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Post by purplemaze on Mar 14, 2023 3:53:30 GMT
It’s hard to say exactly how many penpals I have. But I noticed that I have about 8 penpals who I correspond regularly within 1-2 months. Then there are about 10 people who correspond anywhere between 3 months to 6 months. There are also several others who write only once or twice a year. I stopped replying chronologically. I try to write sooner to regular correspondents and sort of match reply time to occasional writers with theirs.
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Post by bananenschnitte on Mar 18, 2023 21:42:11 GMT
I have 0. but I have always wanted to write letters and send it out to people, and I got reply from them, and we keep writing each others regularly. on that note, I am signing for that, but I am a bit confused on how to find it? isnt it like Postcrossing, where we match with random stranger and get address from the website?
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Post by Mia on Mar 20, 2023 16:30:40 GMT
I have 0. but I have always wanted to write letters and send it out to people, and I got reply from them, and we keep writing each others regularly. on that note, I am signing for that, but I am a bit confused on how to find it? isnt it like Postcrossing, where we match with random stranger and get address from the website? I'd love to see a letter version of Postcrossing. There are and have been organised penpal matching elsewhere, and I've found a couple of penpals that way. However, this site is more for discussion, although some people do find penpals here. You've just missed the month of February when there were two letter writing projects: A Month of Letters (https://lettermo.com/) and International Correspondence Writing Month (https://incowrimo.org/2023/01/incowrimo-address-exchange-2023/) - the latter has a public discussion thread where many have posted their postal addresses (and it takes a while to load all the comments).
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Post by ginny on Mar 21, 2023 9:27:16 GMT
I have 0. but I have always wanted to write letters and send it out to people, and I got reply from them, and we keep writing each others regularly. on that note, I am signing for that, but I am a bit confused on how to find it? isnt it like Postcrossing, where we match with random stranger and get address from the website? Jocelyn from thereadingresidence.com/ does a penpal match-up every year, I think. You might want to check out her blog and have a look at the 'bring back paper' community. There's a newsletter in which Jocelyn announces activities etc. I think that most of them take place on Facebook, and she also has a youtube channel, plus she lets you sign up for her penpal match-ups (of course you need to know when it takes place, so the newsletter is a good thing to sign up for, even if you're not interested in all the things she writes there).
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