Do you have “penpals” How do you find them?

TinaM

TinaM

Member
I’ve always enjoyed communicating by letter (now email) and had penpals in the 80s and 90s. I wrote to some African children that I sponsored for their schooling and I also had a few prison penpals.

I find most of my days rather lonely with no family nearby and no close friends in the same state. I wouldn’t mind striking up some long distance friendships by mail. But how do you find someone?

My interests are reading, crafting, animals, nutrition, and interesting science topics. I hate talking religion or politics.

Any resources? Nowadays, I am very suspicious of the internet because there are so many scams so if you just search for penpal organizations, you really don’t know what you’re getting.
 

horseless carriage said:
You are sensible not to trust the internet, but flagging up on here might not be such a security risk. There's a forum where you can post as you have done and then move on to a one to one penpal basis. It's called The Flourish Forum. Have a peruse and consider it safe or not.
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Thanks. Never heard of it. I’ll check it out.
 

There was a time in the late 70s and through the 80s/90s that I had tons of mail penpals... around 80 at one time. Slowly it dwindled over the years but I had one sweet friend in California remaining and we connected online. Sadly she died a couple of years ago and I don't do snail mail at all any longer.

Email pals... I tried but there was just never enough in common to make it exciting like it used to be.
 
CallMeKate said:
There was a time in the late 70s and through the 80s/90s that I had tons of mail penpals... around 80 at one time. Slowly it dwindled over the years but I had one sweet friend in California remaining and we connected online. Sadly she died a couple of years ago and I don't do snail mail at all any longer.

Email pals... I tried but there was just never enough in common to make it exciting like it used to be.
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I’m sorry about your friend. I know what you mean about it’s not the same as it used to be.
 
TinaM said:
I’ve always enjoyed communicating by letter (now email) and had penpals in the 80s and 90s. I wrote to some African children that I sponsored for their schooling and I also had a few prison penpals.

I find most of my days rather lonely with no family nearby and no close friends in the same state. I wouldn’t mind striking up some long distance friendships by mail. But how do you find someone?

My interests are reading, crafting, animals, nutrition, and interesting science topics. I hate talking religion or politics.

Any resources? Nowadays, I am very suspicious of the internet because there are so many scams so if you just search for penpal organizations, you really don’t know what you’re getting.
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I have a pen friend in Germany who I first met at an online philosophy forums. I think we both felt that comments by most of the other participants were mostly a distraction so after exchanging a PM or two there we moved it to regular email. I don't see why you couldn't do the same here if there is someone you click with.
 
I have a friend/pen pal from Australia who I met on InterPals Penpals. Our communication is mostly over Whatsapp, but we exchange cards on occasion.

The site does have its scammers, but there are nice people there too. I think the having of scammers is going to be true for most sites. It's like all waters are shark infested now. They're even on Words With Friends, for cry'n out loud.

You know, though, I haven't seen any here.
 
Medusa said:
I have a friend/pen pal from Australia who I met on InterPals Penpals. Our communication is mostly over Whatsapp, but we exchange cards on occasion.

The site does have its scammers, but there are nice people there too. I think the having of scammers is going to be true for most sites. It's like all waters are shark infested now. They're even on Words With Friends, for cry'n out loud.

You know, though, I haven't seen any here.
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Interpals has a score of 1.5 on Trustpilot. A lot of negative reviews. Guess I’ll keep looking.
 
I've used InterPals and still have an account with them, though I'm not currently using it. There are a lot of scammers on it, but also many decent, "normal" folks as well. You can block countries that tend to have more scammers that others and it's not very difficult to spot the fakes and block them, too.

I've set it aside for the time being because I can't devote myself to being a consistent writer of "letters"... not because of the scammer issue.
 
Ted01 said:
I've used InterPals and still have an account with them, though I'm not currently using it. There are a lot of scammers on it, but also many decent, "normal" folks as well. You can block countries that tend to have more scammers that others and it's not very difficult to spot the fakes and block them, too.

I've set it aside for the time being because I can't devote myself to being a consistent writer of "letters"... not because of the scammer issue.
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I'd forgotten about the blocking feature.
 
I remember getting setup through school with a pen pal from Australia when I was in grade school. It was pretty neat.

I then, on my own, started writing to chambers of commerce from places all over the world. Got some responses (from US locations) but never heard back from Spitzbergen, as if my 10 cent stamp would even get it 1/10 of the way there to this baron location with no population!
 
Michael Z said:
I then started writing to chambers of commerce from places all over the world.
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My daughter did this at one point... she loved getting brochures and travel booklets from all over the world. Neatest thing, though, was a town in Germany (can't remember what it was) had a packet of sunflower seeds in the travel pack and they actually grew for her. She talked for years about her "sunflowers from Germany."
 
Michael Z said:
I remember getting setup with a pen pal from Australia when I was in grade school. It was pretty neat.

I then started writing to chambers of commerce from places all over the world. Got some responses (from US locations) but never heard back from Spitzbergen, as if my 10 cent stamp would even get it 1/10 of the way there to this baron location with no population!
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Here in Miami messenger pigeons are popular , it's like pen pals who write coded messages .
 
dilettante said:
I think if you've been in the habit of giving your address (and who knows what other personal information?) to convicts, Internet security is the least of your problems.
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Way to jump to conclusions. When I was writing in the 80s/90s, I had a PO Box.

Nowadays, with email, it’s usually pretty anonymous.

I was writing to convicts because I teach English to adult learners. I’m a retired teacher. And I’m smart enough to know how to stay safe.

But thanks for your “insight.”
 
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TinaM said:
Way to jump to conclusions. When I was writing in the 80s/90s, I had a PO Box.

Nowadays, with email, it’s usually pretty anonymous.

I was writing to convicts because I teach English to adult learners. I’m a retired teacher. And I’m smart enough to know how to stay safe.

But thanks for your “insight.”
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''I teach English to adult learners''

Huge here in Miami and retired teachers are highly sought after , a lady few blocks away in mid 80s is now working again part time and she had her pick from 3 High schools .
 
I met one guy on a fishing forum and we corresponded for years. I met another guy on a fishing forum that was local to me and we became great friends and fishing partners for many years IRL. It turned out the 2nd guy I met was the son of our oral surgeon, quite a coincidence in the NYC metro area.

Based on my experience visiting subject matter forums that are of interest to the OP or others interested in corresponding is a good opportunity to develop friendships.
 
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I haven't heard the term 'Pen Pals' in years. I used to see it advertised a lot in the 80s and 90s for prison inmates and people from other countries. I wouldn't mind trying it, as long as it's paper and pen and paper and not online.
 
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I got talked into being a prisoner pen pal. The guy was a lifer, without the chance of parole. His letters were rather odd, it was clear he had "issues". Convicts are convicts for a reason. Yes, there are human beings, but they are also want to have outsiders filling up their prison store accounts, and maybe doing them favors. Unless you are very familiar with prisoner scams, and the pit falls of a prison pen pal, I'd write to someone else.
 
It's good that you know that you need to be very careful. I'm not sure if I had a pen pal. I seem to remember having one, but can't remember any details. Maybe it's a false memory or I dreamed it (my dreams are often very vivid and realistic). If I did, it would have been when I was a teenager.
 

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