Some would say there is nothing quite like the pleasure of receiving what we now call ‘snail mail’ from a pen pal abroad. But do we have to sacrifice online speed and efficiency to achieve this ideal when communicating with pen pals?

The patter of crisp white envelopes falling on to the mat, the expectation of reading our pen pal’s letter… So it is with a snail mail pen pal relationship, but alas not something we can get from an online pen pal.

Then there is the buzz we feel from looking an unusual stamp on a piece of snail mail, a tiny fragment of the culture of our pen pal’s country or of its historical events. the postmark, too, with the name of the town or city of that foreign land — it all contributes to the feeling of receiving something special from other way of life so separate from our own.

Then we have the pleasure of occasion up our snail mail pen pal’s letter, of looking his or her handwriting and imagining that someone sitting at their desk putting pen to paper. perhaps also there will be enclosures in the envelope, photos of our pen pal having fun, for instance, or a newspaper clipping about a shared interest, or a leaflet about a local event — the possibilities that allow us to see into somebody else’s life are endless.

For many, this will be the ideal way of corresponding with a pen pal. Snail mail, as it is nowadays known online, gives us a link to a more former way of doing things, a hark back to a time when life proceeded at a slower pace and habitancy had more time for the prominent things. Yet nowadays many of us no longer live such a life, the pressures of our daily existence mean we have to resort to online technology to achieve our goals in the shortest time possible. And necessarily, this must extend to getting our pen pals online, if it is pen friends that we wish to have.

It seems at first sight that we must sacrifice the tactile feel of pen and paper in our hands in the name of increasing efficiency, speed, ease of use, not to mention a swift reply from our online pals. But, must the creativity and romance of the old-fashioned way of doing things for real be lost in the world of pen pals and online friends?

Here is a suggestion to get the best of both worlds. get to know your pen pals online initially, then once you have established relationships with a amount of pen pals, query them to see if any of them would be curious in the occasional transfer of snail mail letters. no doubt, with a itsybitsy luck, you’ll find a kindred spirit, or at least persuade one of them of the advantages of putting pen to paper.

You do not have to swap an online pen pal association for an offline snail mail one. You can keep your ‘snail mailings’ for special occasions such as Christmas, Easter or prominent ceremonies from your pen pal’s culture. Or just transfer a snail mail letter when you have an enclosure of some kind to send. It’s up to you. But this is one way to bring a former element back into a busy online relationship.

Snail Mail Pen Pal Or Online Pen Pals

Penal Extend

Snail Mail Pen Pal Or Online Pen Pals

Tags: handwriting, pen to paper

This entry was posted on Monday, September 5th, 2011 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Pen Pal Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.