Pen friendship was one of the foremost means of making friends across cities, states, countries and many such borders which dissolved with the typical might of the pen when two people connected from distant lands, nursing a friendship and in many cases taking it forward to the reality of a relationship fructifying into marriage.
A pen pal is someone with whom you correspond, getting to know each other through personal writing of letters, cards etc. Many relationships have unearthed through the avenues of writing to people, mostly strangers in another town, another state, or across the globe and the medium of pen pals has always had a great following. A penpal has been well considered as a preferred way to build and maintain life-long friendships and I know many who will swear by their pen pal rather than their close friend of their childhood times.
The good part about having penpals was that you could remain in the confines of your home and still have a friend far away to confide your innermost secrets which you know could do you little or no harm by being shared. In fact you could get some much needed solace by using that far away shoulder to cry your troubles on. The feeling of having a friend whom you can relate your troubles has been the backbone of many pen friendships over the years and this factor has been credited to be the most important one in the survival and growth of penpals as a mode of building relationships.
Some people have been so lured by the bug of the luxury of penpals that they have been known to have had a couple of dozen penpals at one time and corresponding in physical writing to all of them. Although it can well be a strenuous exercise to correspond regularly to a large pool of penpals some devoted pen pal crazy individuals have burnt midnight oil to ensure that all friends are responded to in good time. However it may not be such a wise thing to do as a lot them will have little attention and eventually such pen friendships are bound to dissipate into oblivion as many discovered.. It is best to have a few pen pals, may be 3 to 4 with whom you can bond well and maintain a healthy relationship in the long term.
In the times before the internet came into being, pen friendship was probably the only best known avenue to get connected to share common interests with someone of the opposite gender. Very often people came very close to each other and were known to be longing for each others letters most earnestly thereby making pen friendship a very endearing and emotional affair. Writing letters by pen which has systematically reduced in the modern age, was a craze in yesteryears making people yearn to get hold of that script of a friend from a far away land which gave a hope of companionship and platonic love for many.
To make a penpal the most common source was monthly social magazines , youth publications and newspapers where prospective individuals released advertisements seeking friends while enlisting their gender, age, areas of interest, their preferences etc, so that prospects could have a fair idea about what to expect and what is expected of them as a friend. It is similar to a personal profile building exercise on dating sites but in its most briefest form penpals information is often restricted to around 150 characters of space.
However more often than not, such advertisements did not carry a photograph and it was upto the discretion of both the corresponding pen pals to decide whether they wanted to see a photograph of each other or not. Many resisted the temptation of seeking to know each others’ physical looks as they were skeptical of their friendship continuing and allowed themselves the suspense of a dream friend by only connecting to the emotional and intellectual quotient of the friendship and many penpals never saw each other for years for fear of breaking the bond and the suspense of their visual remained a mystery forever.
Some others corresponded for many years and met after decades, only to be disappointed by the physical attributes of their distant friends leading to an unceremonious breakdown of the pen friendship. While many others actually met and continued their friendship which often culminated into romance and marriage. Such pen friendships were obviously based on faith and ideals and were therefore triumphant in marital bliss.
Compared to dating, pen friendships are also thriving beautifully between members of the same gender without the baggage of homosexuality attached to it. Here the bond is mainly for sharing and for the emotional connect which distinguishes it from the dating arena.
Even in the modern age with the internet blazing, there are still people who would like to stay connected through the means of pen friendship with their penpals. What it does in the present times is that it gives a highly personal touch to a relationship which in the current era often gets surrendered to the keyboard. So writing a letter in your own handwriting attempts to give the other person a feel of your personality and your sense of writing is viewed as a genuine bid to maintain a relationship or a friendship. It also shows that you have the time to write a letter or a note to your penpal which gives him or her a feeling of importance and that importance is faithfully returned back to you. In modern times this is a rare luxury lapped up by the ever welcoming human sentiments.
Penpals are clubbed in various groups similar to dating. Among such groups the group of Christian penpals is a distinct one with high subscription and response. Till today, this group has probably the highest number of people among its ranks. The primary reason for that is that Christian penpals have known to bring a sense of responsibility in the pen friendship scenario all over the world giving an example for people from other similar categories to follow. Christian penpals have therefore known to have made the culture more enjoyable for the rest of the pen pal community by injecting a holistic discipline based on the teachings of the Bible which made the field of pen friendship a good place to be in.
Many Christian penpal clubs have guidelines and pointers to ensure that members keep themselves in check and any rude or indecent mails or ungodly correspondence is often directed to the section which deals with such abusive acts. The defaulting member is warned and even banned in certain cases. This has led to more credibility for the services offered by such agencies.
In the current era while pen pals as a means of friendship still exists, the mode of contacting penpals has shifted with a bias to the web world. The internet is the major source of all penpals and there is lesser reliance on the news stand publications. Currently most Christian penpal clubs are based on the internet and the web ease has taken over these forays of friendship. Interested people get themselves registered with sites offering pen friendships and can then connect with Christian penpals around the world.
Christian penpals as friends makes the community of Christians a much easier place to connect and going forward, if the relationship is clean it is also a good means of securing your life partner and Christian penpals dating is not unexpected in the longer term. This would give a proper direction to the friendship built over the years by two people as penpals and then allowing that relationship to blossom into a friendship which merits a marital bond.
While the Christian friends penpals services often charge a fee for membership, one can also get registered with some free Christian penpals sites which offer a membership based on your financial status. This option is mainly for the people who cannot afford paying the fee. With an affidavit sought by such sites, many people acquire free membership. Free Christian penpals services also give an opportunity for Christians to meet, write, or chat with a Christian penpal.
The conventional ways by which people can become members of Christian pen pal clubs also continue to operate as of today and people can also apply for pen friendship through newspapers and magazines and other media where such free listings still appear. However the reception to these listings may be poor depending on the readership of that particular publication.
However Christian pen pal clubs still co-exist along with the technological advancements of the internet and the mobile phone . This avenue hosts Pen Pals of various categories and denominations including Christian penpals ,International Pen Pals, Prison Pen Pals, Military Pen Pals besides others.
Having a penpal in today’s world can be fun because the whole technological influence can be meaningfully negated with the friendships that penpals tend to maintain infusing a sense of diversity into your friendship circles, and a having a Christian penpal can invite a feeling of support and encouragement into your life due to the ideals that Christianity upholds and which Christians are expected to follow.
Combining the internet with the platform of penpals is what makes this arena so exciting as the web world offers a thrilling option for finding penpals from all over the world and you can get a penpal in minutes or seconds over the internet.
Having a Christian penpal also has the tendency to bring a feeling of being at home and comfortable.. Christian penpals who are expected to hold the Christian values close to their hearts will generally share common interests and there is the sharing space of Christ to lay the foundation of a relationship. A Christian penpal can use the knowledge of the bible to tackle problems of his or her other pen friends and thereby share the concerns and anguish of each other as Christians while offering valuable Christian advice and support which can provide the other person a sense of security and a feeling of belonging in troubled times thereby sharing the same passions.
Searching a penpal and finding one successfully can be a fulfilling experience in the modern fast paced world where pen friendships can bring a breath of calmness , fresh air and for some, nostalgia. For senior Christians a penpal can be a very warm and fulfilling friend and someone who is able to connect well through the might of the pen. Something which senior Christians miss dearly since they miss their former times in the modern world and therefore use any opportunity welcome and use tools of the yesteryears which they often tend to believe as being qualitatively superior to modern technology.
However while Christian penpals as a sector may not be so active in todays modern era, it still has its followers who find it a credible means to connect better with other people around the world and also more importantly find a personal touch attached to it. Pen friendship is also seen as a stepping stone to the world of online dating for Christians and there is probably no better way to test the waters than with the help of pen pals. So from the young to the old you can safely indulge in the passion of making friendship through the medium of Christian penpals and help yourself to learn the ropes before you plunge in the world of Christian dating.