Did you ever have a pen pal?

lisajane

I came across a fan membership website for some country artist and they have names of penpals that you can write to. I thought that was kind of weird. In this day and age, don't people use e-mails?

Daemos

Nothing wrong with writing a good old-fashioned letter every now and again, it has a nice feel of nostalgia about it.

brummytom

I had one a few years ago, when I was 10 or 11; that I met through a forum I used a lot (I've always been a sad child). She was very exotic... she was from Yorkshire.

God knows when the last letter was, I just couldn't be arsed any more.


I think letters are great though, we get them every now and again from family in America. It's much nicer to open a hand-written letter than an email

phasers

No, my mam thought writing to a stranger was pervy

K-Ren

Yeah, mine was from Pen Island.

Seillejet

I did. Told my wife about this recently and she was cracking up laughing.

Little git was french and he came to ireland for a week. It was a school exchange thing. I think I was about 10. Anyway my then girlfriend broke up with me and started going out with him.

Then when I went to France for the week he got concussed (playing football) an tried throwing me out of his house when he came back from the hospital that night the little f^&ker. I took the opportunity to hit him a well deserved smack and then pleaded innocence blaming the mad frenchie

Girlfriend tried come crawling back too but I had none of it.

davyjose

phasers wrote: »

No, my mam thought writing to a stranger was pervy

Post: 7,019 .... rebellious much?

Alessandra

Yep I had a few and got bored of them around 13/14.
My sister is over a decade younger than me has something ridiculous like 20 penpals she writes to each week. It costs my parents a fortune in international stamps but it's great for children to improve their literacy and communicate through media other than internet.

Sea Sharp

Yes when I was around 11 some french dude came over to our primary school for 4 months. I wrote twice and never again.

(LOL, anyone who's too young to remember what it was like before e-mails won't get this thread at all.)

LimeFruitGum

I had one in Germany, which carried on for a while. Then by Leaving cert, just got too busy with studying and forgot to write back. .

My sister had a great penpal in the States and he was such a funny, witty writer. He's been over here to visit and everything

LimeFruitGum

GaNjaHaN wrote: »

(LOL, anyone who's too young to remember what it was like before e-mails won't get this thread at all.)

:eek:
/me feels feckin' ancient.

5starpool

I had penpals about 20 years ago. I can't remember how it came about that I did, but i had at least 2 that I can remember now.

VinnyTGM

I never had one, I feel lonely.

jigglywoo

In 5th class our teacher set us up with some school in the US.
Mine sent me pictures of herself, a necklace and letters written in pencil which she coloured over with crayons so all the writing was smudged and all I could make out was some story about basketball.

I was going to send her sweets but I ate them all.

citizen_p

nope.....and i wouldnt want to write... my hand writing is terible

marbar

i still have most of the letters my friends sent me as a kid
it'd be a real shamer actually if i put them opnline

must look into that

Dj Stiggie

In 6th class a teacher from my school at the time moved to a school in the very exotic of Cork and we each got a student from her new class to write to as Gaeilge of course!

Then in second year I went on a German exchange so I wrote to my exchange partner a couple of times before and after the trips

minidazzler

Yeah, a girl from Cabintelly, can't remember her Name! I do remember her address though! If you read this PM Me! Would be gas!!

g-whizz

had one... she sent a picture with her first reply. she was a munter so i never sent her a letter again.

Jay P

Yep, I had one in second class. He was from America somewhere. I sent him a St. Patrick's day card. That was pretty muvh it.

zoey

Yeah I had 2, 1 from Mayo and one from Kerry. Think I was about 11/12 and then it all fizzled out when we started secondary school I suppose. I'm not even gonna say where I got them:o

marbar

minidazzler wrote: »

Yeah, a girl from Cabintelly, can't remember her Name! I do remember her address though! If you read this PM Me! Would be gas!!

this post needs an address

marbar

zoey wrote: »

Yeah I had 2, 1 from Mayo and one from Kerry. Think I was about 11/12 and then it all fizzled out when we started secondary school I suppose. I'm not even gonna say where I got them:o

hang on, this past me by
where did you get them??!!!

BluesBerry

Yes I got one in school a girl in my class had this list and paid 50p to get you name and address down on a list.......... a few weeks later I got a letter from germany we wrote to each other on a weekly basis in fact we still keep in contact I email her regularly and it was fun seeing her on skype:) but we still write the traditional letters sometimes..... I love getting letters through the letterbox:D
we have become very good friends its like we grew up together she knows everything about me and visa versa

The schools should reintroduce this to get children's writing skill improved and keep the artform of letter writing alive and learn about different cultures

Yours Sincerely
Bluesberry:p

Novella

I had a pen pal once now I that I think of it!

I met her in Majorca when I was on a family holiday. Her name was Laura and she was from Shankill. She liked Green Day. That's all I can remember!

zoey

marbar wrote: »

hang on, this past me by
where did you get them??!!!

Oohh this is embarrasin...The Farmers Journal:o

Wazdakka

I had one in france for a while when I was in school.
Can't remember why I stopped talking to her..

Twee.

Mu aunt was a nanny in New York in the 90s so I used to write to the girl she was looking after. Met her a few times, proper upper-class New Yorkers they were. I googled her name a while ago, pictures and all. Oh the Internet

LimeFruitGum

Didn't The Den have a Penpal Corner, or something like that?

marbar

zoey wrote: »

Oohh this is embarrasin...The Farmers Journal:o

hahaha was it a random poster looking for a mate?

marbar

Twee. wrote: »

Mu aunt was a nanny in New York in the 90s so I used to write to the girl she was looking after. Met her a few times, proper upper-class New Yorkers they were. I googled her name a while ago, pictures and all. Oh the Internet

TINWOP

zoey

marbar wrote: »

hahaha was it a random poster looking for a mate?

I was 11..it was in a penpal section for kids..my friend got a penpal from it and then I wanted one:o

marbar

that's fair enough zoey
i remember typiung to my pen pal and thinking i was doogie howser.

KnifeWRENCH

I had one from Finland I emailed/wrote to for a while. Haven't written to each other in ages though, although we are friends on Facebook.

My sister has a load of them and I've met some when they came over here to visit. There was one from France, one from Poland and one from Slovenia. All really nice people.

Tar.Aldarion

KnifeWRENCH wrote: »

My sister has a load of them and I've met some when they came over here to visit. There was one from France, one from Poland and one from Slovenia. All really nice people.

'Yes brother, these are my, um, penpals, Jacque, Fabian and Anton'


/goes to bedroom

pawrick

Had two pen pals when I was around 15 and learning French. First one turned out to be Italian - not sure how she got to be my pen pal - it was through school. suffice to say I couldn't be arsed, since I was only doing it to help improve my French vocab. 2nd was a French guy who I did an exchange with. He was creepy as was his family. I stopped replying to him when I was 17 and the last letter I got from him when I was 22!!!! Telling me about his girlfriend etc.??? I didn't reply, honestly never met a creepier person.

I do have email friends - but these are people I met in real life first but no longer live in the same country so not sure if that counts.

Pygmalion

Exchanged letters with a Canadian girl a few times, not a regular thing, we'd talk online so the whole "here's the story of my life since the last letter" seemed stupid (though from what I gather that used to be the point), it was pointless, but amusing stuff.

There were items sent as well (Just cheap "I saw this in a pound shop and thought you'd find it funny" ****, think Hannah Montana diary).
But even without the items there's just something interesting about waiting on a letter, reading it and writing back. Even if it's just stupid **** it seems so much more interesting than it would be just talking about it in an efficient way.

Ah those were the days, also got some kool-aid from it, which is amazing stuff (although will destroy your teeth and health).

SeekUp

I had tons of pen pals back in the day . . . I think at one point I'd reached 100. I had about 10-15 "good ones" though, people who I'd actually write more stuff than, 'what food do you like best?' or 'what did you do last weekend?'

I even had little information sheets for all of them to keep them straight.

We got new pen pals from these little things called friendship books (FBs). Basically, they were just little scraps of paper stapled together, and on each little page, you'd put your address label (yes, we had address labels), and a few other things, like your age or a quote you like or whether you're taking on new pen pals. And then there were slams, which was the same idea, except on the little scraps of paper, the person who started it would write a (short) question on each page and you'd go through and answer them (usually they were either/or questions). And then you'd stick them in your envelopes and pass them along to your other pen pals.

I had one pen pal from Spain -- she'd write to me in English and I'd write to her in Spanish, and we'd help each other out with little language things. That was a good deal, I thought!

And then everyone used to get creative; not only with the address labels, but with the stickers and the stationary and sometimes you'd put little confetti in the envelope or other little fun things.

Eventually, it got to the point where I didn't have the time to keep up with all of them. I kept a handful for a while, but when I entered high school, it pretty much fizzled out.

I loved getting mail though.

butterflydream

Yeah I did. Met her at the National Children's Choir when I was 10 we kept in contact until 2nd year of college with the letters, then moved onto email. Have pretty much lost contact now. Was great fun though, I looked forward to getting my letters.

InKonspikuou2

I did years ago and because i was signed up on a bunch of sites i still get emails now and then but i'm too lazy to even read them these days. In recent years i've used couch surfing for picking up foreign tourists. Think that's more so e-pimpin rather than pen paling though.

Agent Smith

Novella wrote: »

I had a pen pal once now I that I think of it!

I met her in Majorca when I was on a family holiday. Her name was Laura and she was from Shankill. She liked Green Day. That's all I can remember!

I know a laura from shankill who likes greenday...

Insect Overlord

In 6th class we were supposed to set up a penpal programme with a school in California. They all wrote to us, we all wrote back, they never replied. Possibly because most of them could barely read or write...

ToniTuddle

There was something like that in 6th class. We all paid 50p for an address and it could be anywhere in the world randomly picked.
The age group was from 12-20 which is very bloody stupid. You would at least think they would put a 12yr old with another one!

I got some Egypt dude. Very up himself from certain things he said in the letter. Kept going on about how his father was a doctor and he was going to start his first year in medicine. I wrote but he never replied.

Then there was an American address I wrote to some girl. Pretty boring stuff in her first letter.
My name is blah
My sister plays basketball
blah blah blah.

I wrote back and knew something was very wrong when I got a reply from her.

• Her handwriting had completely changed!!
• Wanted to exchange currency notes
• Wanted me to send these notes first -.-
• general weirdness in the letter.

I replied back but she realised then she wasn't going to get any money out of me and so never wrote back.

Actually came across those letters last year think they are still up in the wardrobe!

Cupcake_Crisis

I had a french one when i was younger. She came to stay with me one time. Was fun!

spurious

I've had a penfriend in Poland (Gdansk) since about 1977. We used to write to each other in German about Abba.
Now she's learning English and I'm learning Polish and we communicate by text and email. We've met up a couple of times and still get on well.

Lirael

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

'Yes brother, these are my, um, penpals, Jacque, Fabian and Anton'


/goes to bedroom

Fabian? That's a Polish name??????? quite unusual

I had 4 penpals from Belarus when I was in primary, it really enchanced my Russian I can speak it almost fluent now

Saibh

Had 2 penpals - French and Canadian.

We only wrote a few times to each other - I wasn't great at writing letters

pearliefan

yep.. I had one in New Hampshire in America for about four years. She even came over to Ireland to visit! I had one in England for about three years and one in Germany for about a year-but we'd write very often.
I was so bad at writing letters back in time.. but I stayed at it!!

Lirael

spurious wrote: »

I've had a penfriend in Poland (Gdansk) since about 1977. We used to write to each other in German about Abba.
Now she's learning English and I'm learning Polish and we communicate by text and email. We've met up a couple of times and still get on well.

good luck with that

Polski jest trudny

sashafierce

This post has been deleted.

Abi

I did have a pen pal in national school, our teacher arranged one for everyone in the class. I think she was from Pennsylvania... the memory isn't the best. Could have been Transylvania either :pac:

We used to send each other a letter or two a month and that kind of craic, but she was painfully boring, bless her heart.