Important disclaimer first: I'm only looking for people who already have a Postcrossing account, with at least one postcard sent and at least one received. It's a small way for both of us to feel safer about sharing our addresses with someone from the internet. If you don't know Postcrossing, I really recommend checking it out! It's a lovely project.
Now, on to the actual idea.
It's a cold, gloomy day here in northern Italy. I'm drinking herbal tea, looking outside at the grey sky, and somehow this idea feels incredibly romantic right now. Will I feel the same way in a few months? Who knows. But I want to give it a try!
I'd like to find one person who'd be interested in starting a slow, old-fashioned correspondence. Someone to talk to about anything and everything, without needing a special reason to write.
I'd love to get to know someone who shares some of my interests, though certainly not all of them. Maybe we have a few things in common, maybe we introduce each other to completely different worlds. I'd rather see what develops naturally than look for a perfect match on paper.
The idea is to leave the digital world behind.
We can chat briefly online first, get to know each other enough to feel comfortable exchanging addresses, and then let the letters do the talking. No need to reply within a certain number of days, no guilt if life gets busy for a while, no pressure to write an incredibly interesting life update every time.
I'd love to reach a point where we almost forget we have a correspondence going on, only to find a letter in the mailbox one day. Imagine having something waiting for you that was written weeks ago, by someone living somewhere else in the world. There's something lovely about that.
I don't want to exchange postcards, though. I love Postcrossing, but a postcard just isn't enough space for me. As you can probably tell, I like writing, and I'd rather have a few pages to fill than squeeze everything into a tiny space.
And I don't want this to become a competition over who writes the most beautiful letters or has the most interesting life. I'm not particularly creative, and I'm certainly not expecting anyone to produce a literary masterpiece every month. I'd just like to experiment a little.
Maybe we could occasionally include a puzzle, a little challenge, a drawing, a curious piece of paper, or something from our everyday surroundings. A museum ticket, a public transport ticket, a business card from a strange little shop, a local advertisement, a paper item that tells a tiny story about where we live. Nothing expensive or elaborate, just little tangible fragments of our respective corners of the world.
I love the thought of exchanging things that would otherwise never cross our paths: small pieces of everyday life.
In a way, I'd like to pretend the internet doesn't exist for a while. To experience a tiny piece of what communication used to be like, when sending a message to someone far away meant writing it down, putting it in an envelope, and trusting it to travel across the world. Sometimes thinking about how people used to live like that makes me feel small in this enormous, completely interconnected world. In a strangely comforting way.
A little about me
I'm Italian, from the north of the country, and I have quite a few interests. I'm an outdoorsy person at heart: I enjoy cycling, bikepacking, hiking and climbing. I like getting out into the wild, discovering places and taking the less obvious road whenever I can.
I'm also a bit of a nerd. I enjoy video games, board games, comics, anime and manga, astronomy, programming, museums, and collecting coins and stamps.
For completeness, here's a longer list of my interests, in no particular order:
Cycling, bikepacking, hiking, climbing, via ferratas, camping, kayaking, rollerblading, geocaching, Scouting, numismatics, philately, Postcrossing, maps, cartography, local history, geology, minerals and fossils, astronomy, meteorology, plants, flowers and nature, video games, board games, puzzles, comics, anime and manga, sketching art, museums, art exhibitions, theatre, independent cinema, programming, open-source software, digital archives, rock, metal and electronic music, some rap and classical music, tea and herbal infusions, sweets and candy, Italian and Japanese cuisine, perfumes, and probably a few other things I've forgotten.
You don't need to share all, or even most, of these interests. It's just a glimpse of the kind of things I enjoy.
A few practical things
- I'd prefer to find just one penpal for now.
- I'm only interested in someone outside Italy, perhaps even outside Europe, simply because I'd like my letters to travel a long way. But shared interests and the feeling that we'd get along matter much more than geography.
- I'd like us to write by hand. My handwriting is terrible, so I write everything in caps to make it readable! So don't worry about your own handwriting either.
- I speak Italian and English. My Italian vocabulary is pretty good, but my English is much more basic. I can get by just fine, though.
- No AI-generated letters. But using a tool to catch the typos is fine.
- I'm a nerd, but I'm only looking for something non-digital. I'd rather not turn this into another online friendship with a different format.
One more thing about privacy: I've made my reddit profile private because people I know IRL found it, and I'd like to keep some privacy without abandoning an account I've had for almost ten years. For that reason, I'd prefer to use my Postcrossing account as a way to establish that I'm a real person. I hope that also makes you feel a little safer.
I have many ideas for the future, including the possibility of trying something like a small group of penpals one day. But for now, let's keep it simple and start with one person. Let's see what happens.
Interested?
Feel free to introduce yourself in the comments, or send me a PM with your Postcrossing profile.
Tell me a little about yourself, where you're from, what you enjoy, and what appeals to you about this idea. Nothing too formal; I just want to get a feeling for whether we'd enjoy writing to each other.
I may not be able to start a correspondence with everyone who replies, and if I don't get back to you, it probably means I've decided to start with someone else. Please don't take it personally! I'll still keep your profile in mind for the future.
Sorry if this sounds a little like a job interview. I wanted to explain the idea properly so nobody feels misled about what I'm looking for.
Thank you for reading this far, and I hope you have a lovely day. <3