Do you still have any pen pals?

A few days back, I came across a “Correspondance” section in a newspaper. Though times have changed, I was surprised to see that people still look forward to keep in touch with pal pals using the traditional postal mail.

It can be funny but I am sure that many among us here might never been in a Post Office to send a letter. I was one among those people, until I started to purchase my items on eBay. Since then, I made good friends in the Post Office 🙂

I never had any pen pals. Internet has simplified things so much. Everyone is talking about emails and of course, Facebook. And we now have blogs! I must be sincere : I hate writing with a pen (or pencil) nowadays. My handwriting has gone so bad. In fact, it was already bad during my studies, and now it became even worst.

Did you (or do you still) have any pen pals?
Does it really feel so different?

I am not talking about sending messages to your hundreds of Facebook friends but rather sending a handwritten letter through post…

 

Yashvin, pages of my life

14 thoughts on “Do you still have any pen pals?

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  1. Aaaww it brings back memories ..when I was in high school we used to have penpals specially from abroad .. there was a thing *i forgot the name about it* where we used to get profile of similar age group student overseas and then would write to them.No mOre of pen pals nowadays for i believe the younger age group… Everything is online now. But i guess there are still those people who believe to do it the traditional way as in the newspaper…N nt just in mru … its widely spread ..and all newspapers have a classified section 😉 …

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  2. No. Don’t have one.

    Why send letters when you can send/IM/tweet/facebook a message to a pal in 500ms?

    (Unless you’re interested in collecting stamps, small gifts maybe?)

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  3. Ah memories. When I was in the Emirate countries, before they became the UAE, I had many requests to send letters because of the rare stamps I stuck on envelopes. All that is just past history. These days it is all e-mail and social networks.

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  4. I used to have pen pals in India, Canada, Turkey…things which I started in 1994..AND an still in touch with them after all these years thnx to FB…

    Story is one of my pen pal lived in Turkey those days and we stopped writing to each other after the Earth quake…

    I was so heart broken to lose such a wonderful friend…

    Years later he contacted me on FB… it was among the happiest days of my life 🙂

    There’s an excitement in holding a letter and opening it…now I only open credit card bills…telephone bills 😦

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  5. I have lot of pen pals but I don’t write them letters much. ( Never to be honest). We mainly keep in touch using email and text.

    But I still post letters every year for Christmas to a few people.

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  6. Some of them reek of blatant racism/sexism!

    Just ask yourself: In real physical life, who chooses his ‘friends’ on age/communal/racial grounds so openly?

    I’d like to post something like this someday, juste pour faire chier: “Vielle peau de 31ans cherche pour besoin purement scientifique jeune fille illetrée de peau noire, minimum quatre-vingt quatorze printemps, maximum 60kg, vierge de préférence, pour photos d’art, et relation platonique et plus si affinité…”

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  7. I remember yrs ago i paid about Rs 35.00 to have 1 penpal. I got many frens from Germany, India and Africa. I used to keep my tiffin money to post my letters.. that was about 1989…I had a correspondence in Germany who wrote to me every month and she even sent many fotos but I have lost contact yrs ago coz of my exams and all….well what I can say dear frens….having penpals that time was smthing different like now. I agree that now its like “gajack” to have many frens ….but using a perfumed pad and a pen was an another sensation….;0)

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  8. @Rosh: Like!

    Yes, remember that song by Jagjit Singh: “wo kaagaz ki kashti*”…??

    Arrh… why does the nostalgia of childhood have to resurface like a stomach reflux through the eyes…?

    * translation: the innocence of the blank paper…

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  9. I’m coming late to this post. My pen pal became my best friend. She is from Austria and we try to meet as often as our lives and distances allow us to. My last road trip was for her birthday.

    It’s been 17 years now since we started writing. We tried to switch to emails but it didn’t have the same flavor. So we still send each other letters and cards.

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