When many of us were young there was nothing more magical than getting mail that was for you! The best was a letter or a card from a friend. To this day I enjoy the week of my birthday and Christmas because there are still a few beautiful people who will send a hand written card. There is, however, something a few of us have in common with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, Harper Lee and Truman Capote, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield, and Charlie Brown and Morag. We had pen pals.
In my life I had 3 pen pals. 5 if you count the 2 people I played chess with though postcards and letters. It began in the third grade in the seventies.
What a Pen Pal Is
For those who do not know, a pen pal is a friend you communicate with predominately through postal “snail” mail. Sometimes it is people who know each other. Often pen pals start off as strangers and conduct a friendship through letters. The strangers are matched through a club or organization.
Why Do People Make Pen Pals?
Prior to the internet our ability to communicate with people all over the world was not as easy as it is today. On social media I have friends and readers all over the world. Right now I have a friend who is in Moscow visiting family and we can communicate instantly by text, voice, or video.
In the 20th century many people took to pen pals from around the world as part of their practice for learning a new language, or they had a hobby like chess where they could enjoy playing with someone in another part of your country or anywhere in the world who shared your passion. There is even a fascinating book by historian Alexis Peri called “Dear Unknown Friend” where women from the US and the Soviet Union wrote beautiful letters to one another in what Peri refers to as Diplomacy of the Heart. The letters made a difference.
In other words there were numerous reasons. Something interesting happened to Gen X children and teens predominately in the 1970’s and the 1980’s. We were invited to make pen pals and it sounded exciting!
Who Invited Gen X?
In our schools teachers were asked to invite us to make international pen pals through the International Youth Service (IYS). The IYS was an international pen pal organization which connected students from around the world based on age, country, interests and language abilities.
There was also television. Two children’s programs on PBS formed their own pen pal programs. While watching Zoom or Big Blue Marble you would be invited by the cast to send them your information to be matched with a pen pal. In the late 80’s and early 90’s Pee Wee’s Playhouse decided to continue the tradition of international pen pals as well.
Then there were the magazines we were reading to get the latest information on our favorite music, pop stars, fashion, and news that concerned teens and children. Tiger Beat, Teen Beat, Bop, Smash Hits and others either had their own programs or a dedicated pen pal classifieds section where young people all over the world invited others to be their pen pals.
We entered the 70’s and the 80’s with this not only being normalized, but it sounded cool.
Some of these relationships lasted only a few letters, and some of these friendships are celebrating over 50 years of friendships.
My Special Pen Pal
When I was 13 I moved in with my grandparents to escape an abusive homelife at the hands of my mom’s husband at the time. I was coming out of a lot and did not do well in making friends until my sophomore year of high school. When I was 14 I saw an ad in a teen magazine. I do not know which one, but I remember the ad.
Some of the ads seemed sketchy, but there were many that were authentic.
I had remembered how much I enjoyed having pen pals in grade school and since it was in a Teen magazine, it was still cool.
I sent a SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope) with the information requested about me. Age, interests, grade, hobbies, etc. and expressed my desire to be a pen pal.
A few month later I got a letter from a girl my age far away. She told me a little about her life, where she lives, her parents and siblings and favorite music. She asked if I would be interested in being her pen pal as well. I did not have friends, so of course I said yes.
Her name was Jennifer and she was my best friend from the age of 14 through the age of 17.
The letters came to and from each other in a flurry that, with rare exception, was frequent.
As we advanced in high school it was obvious she was a different clique than I was. It has occurred to both of us that if we lived in the same part of the world and school, that we might not be friends because of how kids are. We both saw that as silly but we also felt that we were stuck in a machine called adolescence.
We sometimes did fun things “together”. If there was a new book or new movie or new album that came out at about the same time in our parts of the world, we did the thing together and wrote about it. We provided Polaroid’s as proof. It was a lot of fun.
One time I “took her to school”. While I was walking about school I would go from class to class with a notebook and talk about the mundane events of my day. From first period to after school play practice she got a play by play of the teachers I liked and disliked, the students I thought were cool or pretty or petty and the secret nicknames I made for them. As play practice wrapped up, I put the pages into an envelope, wrote the memorized address on it and the amount of postage I knew it would require, and drove to the post office after school.
She loved it and did the same in return. Her humor and sarcasm was even more biting than mine was and her nicknames are still insults I use to this day when the occasion warrants and someone needs to be called a toe sucking ass clown with the face of a ferret and the breath of a drunk hamster.
Having her as my friend was this amazing secret weapon of feeling good about myself in a world I felt lost in. We talked to each other about dates, dances, good times and sad times.
Jennifer’s Tragedy And Horror
As I entered my senior year Jennifer experienced a tragedy. Her mom died. We had a gap after she told me the news and my next letter from her. She was processing a lot. It had hurt her and she felt like her friends were getting more distant from her, one of her siblings was suffering hard and her dad stopped going to work and was drinking a lot.
I did not know what to do other than listen and make sure that she knew I was listening.
Then came the letter that terrified me to read. She had told me her dad was drunk and had made a pass at her. In his state he told her how much she looked like her mother. The next day he told her that they were never to talk about this and he treated her as if she did something wrong. She did not know what to do or who to talk to.
I wrote the best letter I knew how and was at the post office within an hour and sent it first class expedited do whatever it takes to get it there right now whatever the cost as opposed to my usual minimum stamps needed plan.
I would never receive another letter from her again.
Was the letter and subsequent letters intercepted by her father? Did she leave and move in with a relative? Did I say something that compounded the hurt? I would never know. Every so often I would try to find her in our technological world that we live in now. But not all mysteries in life find the resolution we desire.
But for 3 years I had an amazing friend when I needed one and I learned a lot about another place in another time.
Should We Bring it Back?
There are still pen pal programs out there. In nostalgia there is a charm and a joy to receiving something in the mail that is not a bill, an advertisement, or a purchase we made. But maybe what is different is that we made, for a season, the intention of making new friends from other places cool.
in 2023 the Surgeon General released an advisory that we have an epidemic of loneliness and isolation that is affecting one out of every 2 Americans.
“Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an underappreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health. Our relationships are a source of healing and well-being hiding in plain sight – one that can help us live healthier, more fulfilled, and more productive lives,” said U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. “Given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation, we must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders. Together, we can build a country that’s healthier, more resilient, less lonely, and more connected.”
The physical health consequences of poor or insufficient connection include a 29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke, and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults. Additionally, lacking social connection increases risk of premature death by more than 60%. Loneliness kills.
Making friends for me is easy. I know what it is to feel lonely and I am fascinated by people. I like to say hi to someone new, ask them questions about themselves, and exchange information. But I also have a low self esteem and am an introvert who is constantly worried about what you think about me and have anxiety so this is a learned behavior and not a natural one for me. I love the results of new friends in my life. My friends are my lifeline and I cannot imagine my life without them. I have been lonely and isolated and it was part of what led to an addiction and a suicide attempt in 2019.
We need friends. We need to make friends. It is hard to make friends. We use apps to get rides to places, book vacations, bank, and even find love or a night in someone’s arms. If there are apps that help us meet friends, maybe that is not a bad thing to explore.
The reason we used pen pal programs is that was what was available and it was marketed to us by teachers, tv shows, and magazines as cool. For a precious window in time, the intention to make new friends was a trend and many of us embraced it.
Making friends is difficult despite the access to a world at our very fingertips, but friends will save our lives. Sometimes we will lose a few friends and not always know why, that will hurt. Cults, churches and other predators know to manipulate our loneliness. But I like a quote by C.S. Lewis about closing ourselves off to prevent hurt:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
Something inside us yearned to be seen and to be heard and to be loved and accepted. So we made a pen pal.
Do you yearn for any of these things? I do.
Wanna be friends? Let’s talk in the comments.
Did you have a pen pal? Let us know about them.
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