Pen Pals, Anyone? | TheaterFire

I had a pen pal in New Zealand back in the early 90s that I initially started talking to on a freenet talker. After chatting online for several months we exchanged our addresses and we mailed letters to each other once a month, and he even mailed me a mix tape of New Zealand bands that I still have to this day.

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Due-Statistician-682@reddit

When I was in 4th grade, we were penpals with students from another school a few hours away. After writing the whole school year, we went to visit them and stayed overnight. We all slept in their school's gym. It was a very cool experience!

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NateNMaxsRobot@reddit

I had one when I was like 8. She was from Trinidad.

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Wooden-Glove-2384@reddit

Someone must have signed me up for one and not told me because one day I got a letter from a girl in Turkey

She was cute but I had no interest in writing letters and never replied.

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ghoulishgirl@reddit

I had one in New Zealand. I would write to pen pals all over because I was hungry to hear about the world outside my small town. To this day, I wanna go to New Zealand, she was so chill and it seemed like a really relaxing place.

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Nedinabox@reddit

I am in Ireland and we had groups of Spanish students who used to come over to learn English in the summers. I made friends with all of them and I used to spend my summers in their company. I used to write to many of them. Some for many years afterwards. I met a girl among them and we had one of the most wonderful summerd together. We lost contact for many years but I got an email from her 20 years later and we met up several times.

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Anxious_Painter_6609@reddit

Yah, had one from Ireland (I'm in Canada) we started writing to each other at abt 15 years old. Over the years we met up for some vacation adventures and are still friends to this day 37 years or so later.

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xczechr@reddit

When I took German in high school everyone in my class had a pen pal in Germany that was studying English.

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4thdegreeknight@reddit

Same here

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4thdegreeknight@reddit

In German class I had two of them, different years as I had German class for 4 years. We started Pen Pals after the second year. I had one Pen Pal a girl my age in Dresden, she was too obessed with Michael Jackson to be interesting to me at the time. (I was into bands like X, Black Flag and the whole LA punk Scene)

We exchanged letters for about the whole year, and I asked her to send me a photo and I sent one of me to her. She was cute but the whole Michael Jackson thing was getting old. She would literally just talk about his songs, his dances, magazines she had in Germany of him. Nothing about herself, her life, her school.

I stopped writing to her when the semester and school ended.

Another Pen Pal I had was originally from Switzerland, she lived on a farm with her mom, her dad had left when she was little, she had sent me a picture right away with out asking, she was beautiful, but like the want to be hippie look. We connected very well, we shared a lot of stuff, I even sent her a mix tape of music, (not too hard but some Bauhaus, Damned, and Echo & the bunnymen) She sent me some chocolate, a patch from her favorite soccer team and some other little things that I forgot.

We kept on our letters back and fourth, she eventually started calling me her love, she told me that her mom said I could come and stay on their farm and she would teach me how to tend to the animals.

We eventually lost track of each other as I was kicked out of my parents house at 17 and wasn't able to hear from her again.

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PahzTakesPhotos@reddit

I had one at my third elementary school (Army dad). He was in Colorado and we were stationed in Missouri. After my dad got transferred to Alaska, I lost touch with my pen pal. I'm not even sure what his name was- Lloyd, I think.

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GotNoMoves76@reddit

I also found a pen pal program in the back of a comic, I think.

My pen pal turned out to be girl from Texas who was taking flying lessons from her dad, a crop duster, and she lived on a farm. We stayed in touch for over 30 years now. She’s currently a pilot for private jets for a Fortune 500 company.

Her life has been much more interesting than mine. 😊

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Straight_Cod_3510@reddit

I always wanted to but never did.

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East-Action8811@reddit

I am in the process of putting together a Pen Pals gift sets for my 9 yr old niece & I to write to each other via old time snail mail 🥰

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PeaTearGriphon@reddit

I think you could sign up in school, maybe around 6-7 grade. I forget if you got to choose country or anything. I did it and ended up being a pen pal with a girl from the UK. I seem to remember that if you signed up you could receive requests from other pen pals. I remember having 3 pen pals.

We eventually swapped photos and two of my pen pals stopped writing me shortly after that... ouch.

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4jules4je7@reddit

I had a penpal that we got from a children’s magazine back in the 70s. Tracy lived in California and I was in eastern Oregon. We wrote for a few years and then stopped as we hit our teen years. About five years ago, I thought I wonder if I could find her? I did a search for her name and her city, and I found her on Facebook. I messaged her and when she messaged back, she wasn’t sure if it was really me so I told her what her street name in her address was because I’d memorized it from writing so many envelopes with her name on it.

We both turned out to be quilters and have a number of other things in common so we are friends on Facebook now!

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Affectionate-Map2583@reddit

I had a pen pal in South Africa. I don't remember how we got hooked up.

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Tonto_HdG@reddit

There was a thing in a Comic book (Archie?) where you sent your address and they published it (Wow, different times back then). I don't remember if she actually chose a pen pal from that.

Fast forward 10 years. The comic book made it's way through a men's prison. Inmates did the math to learn she was in her late teens, and started writing her.

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TimeTravelator@reddit

Yeah - great fun if you randomly got someone who was similar and you clicked. I actually met my UK pen pal during senior year of high school. A friend and I saved our pennies for a year and flew over to stay with her and her family for a week. They showed us around the nearby cities and towns. Wonderful experience.

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JDFNQ@reddit

I once had a penpal who was from Canada (I’m Australian). We stayed in touch from about the age of 10-11 till early 20’s. Then I moved