A little over a year ago, I discovered this website called internationalpenfriends.com. Being the nerd that I am, I was intrigued and excited at the thought of having a pen pal, and proceeded to pay $30 for 14 addresses of nerds like me who were also in the market for a pen pal. In study hall during my senior year of high school, my best friend and I got on Google Earth and plugged in every address, narrowing it down to the three most interesting candidates.
Nothing. I sent very polite letters to three people in the U.K. asking if they would want to become pen pals. No one wrote me back. I was quite sad and angry at myself for wasting $30. However, a couple weeks later, a letter arrived in the mailbox, addressed to me, from California.
It was from a nerd just like me! She had done the same thing through internationalpenfriends.com and received my address as one of 14. We have been corresponding for over a year about nerdy things, and I hope to maintain our nerdy conversation for years to come.
The first reason I love having a pen pal is that it gives me a sense of worth. It makes me feel good knowing that someone across the country has taken time out of her day to write to me. I also enjoy reading about someone else's life. It's like getting unedited chapters of a book about a graphic designer living in California every month.
When I signed up on the website, I had to fill out a short questionnaire about my interests and hobbies so the people on the other side of the computer screen could accurately match me to potential pen pals. That being said, my pen pal and I have a lot in common. Our first few letters contained the line: "We're basically the same person!" more than once. For instance, we're both Ravenclaw (because such a distinction is essential to know when introducing yourself to a fellow nerd), we are both writing a novel, we both love tea and coffee (we send tea samples in almost every letter), and we both have a minor obsession with stationary. It's refreshing being able to write pages about a podcast I just listened to or a movie I just watched and have someone respond with the same level of passion and wonder.
I got kind of lucky because my pen pal is basically a professional pen pal. I think she has somewhere between 20 and 30 pen pals all across the world, and she knows what she's doing. She sent me a huge package of little gifts for my birthday, postcards from all the places she visits, and various little items in nearly every letter. It's like Christmas morning every time I open an envelope from her.
Having a pen pal is also a form of inspiration. Our lives are similar, but they're quite different, too. As a writer, everything is research, so being able to peek through a metaphorical window and learn about someone else's routines and adventures is always interesting. We also exchange information about books, movies, television shows, art, blogs, podcasts, websites, morning beverages, and more, which inspires me to keep exploring the different worlds I've come to love.
A big part of being human is connecting with other humans. I may never meet my pen pal, but I don't need to. We use our power over the written word (and the post office) to communicate over hundreds of miles. And we all know how great it feels to get a hand-written letter in the mail.
