Pen Pals!

[Obscene Symphony]

I want so badly to have a pen pal! A good, old fashioned, snail mail pen pal, who I can send handwritten letters and other fun stuff to. I just got a lovely new fountain pen, nice ink and quality stationery - I want to use it!

So, am I the only one? Do any of you guys have pen pals? How did you find them? What do you send to them? Tell me!

Are you looking for a pen pal too? Hit me up! (Maybe read my bio first, to learn a bit about me before you decide). I'd love to talk to you a bit and see if we mesh!

Pen pals! Exclamation marks! Tell me I'm not the only one!

[Hostile]

Sending physical letters by mail costs quite a bit, you know.

[Genkai]

If I hadn't just moved to a new country, I'd love this idea but international postage is a bit more costly, depending where it goes. But if this was just in the USA, it would have been a very doable thing. I can understand someone wanting physical mail that isn't junk or spam. :)

[Obscene Symphony]

Sending physical letters by mail costs quite a bit, you know.

@Hostile

Yes, I'm aware.

[Lady Absinthia]

Nah, actually it isn't as much as you would think to mail internationally if you use the general post office and are only sending letters. About $1.15 US for a letter or card to send international first class - That is just 3 Forever Stamps. There is also second class and third class mail that takes longer to deliver but cheaper.

I used to have a penapl in in Japan when I was younger. We corresponded for nearly a decade via post until we drifted apart. It was set up with the school I was attending to start. How to find one now? I am sure there are plenty of places you can look up on the net. There is also plenty of programs for people to write to Military folk stationed over seas.

[Obscene Symphony]

@Lady Amalthea Oh my gosh, hi Amalthea! It's been a long time! I see you watched M*A*S*H. Good choice.

As for finding a pen pal, I've had an oddly difficult time with it. The sites I look on seem to be full of people willing to email back and forth, but not actually write, which is the whole reason I want to get into this. Although, writing to someone stationed overseas could be interesting, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find someone close to my age (call me biased, but big age differences freak me out a bit).

A pen pal from Japan, eh? That must have been really cool, writing to someone in such a different place (assuming you're in North America, judging by the use of USD). Would you care to tell me a bit about that? Such as, what would you write about? Did you send only letters, or small sketches and other lightweight things I see people talk about mailing? How long did the letters take to circulate?

[Lady Absinthia]

@Obscene Symphony Well mind you we started mailing back and forth during the 90's but it continued for well over a decade passed high school and college. Mikae and I were paired together as part of a school program between the US and Japan. Both of us were in the same year and it was part of a program for Japanese students to better secondary language.

It started out simple enough - letters back and forth, about once a month talking about basic things such as what we liked, our favorite colors, bands, clothing. The usual teen stuff. I remember she always wrote on the most colorful rice paper, it was so beautiful. And sent me these drawings she would find around her town that depicted Americans - they were hilarious - we always had the biggest feet!

She started teaching me a bit of Japanese through the letters as we got older and our letters became much more personal as we got to know each other. Who we were dating and so forth. During holidays in either country we eventually started sending packages to her. She would send me Manga's and souvenirs from her travels all over her country, even clothing. I would send her CD's and Levi's from the US LOL. It was a lot of fun.

Sadly life got in the way the older we got. Marriages, kids, work - all lead to us drifting apart but I still remember it fondly to this day. Might want to check out your local university and such, talk to exchange students, the administration of your own school or even work if they have divisions over seas. Never know what you might find.

[Genkai]

Not sure if this is still in the works but after some unforeseen conflicts, I am back in the US and as such, able to commit to this if anyone else might be on board.

[Iuniper]

Look on /r/penpals. It's been pretty useful for finding snail-mail penpals in my own experience. I would offer to be penpals with you, but I'm not sure that I'm that culturally different from you. : )

[Genkai]

I have been thinking about posting to there actually! Though I don't necessarily need someone from a different culture or walk of life, anyone to talk to and get to know would be fine with me. I'll probably make a post there tomorrow though, just gotta present myself in an interesting way haha.