In a hyper-connected world where you date through OkCupid, talk with your family on Skype, catch up with your friends on Facebook, and engage the like-minded on Twitter, it's hard to imagine you can be, or need to be, even more connected. That's what I thought, at least, until I became a pen pal. Yes, a pen pal. The activity that your 5th grade teacher suggested you partake in to explore your horizons. You wrote two or three letters back and forth and then completely forgot about it. But in an age where everything is instant and every thought you have can be Skyped, Facebooked, and Tweeted within a moment's notice, it feels like a breath of fresh air to engage in something that slows you down, that makes you stop, think, and analyze.
I was apprehensive about sending out my first message (in French no less!) to a stranger on a service called Interpals, created in 1998 and dubbed the "International Pen Pal Page," a site that has become by far the largest and most popular free pen pal site on the web. I first heard about it from my multilingual friends. Those who can speak Cantonese, Hebrew, and Spanish, and can "understand" Japanese. They told me they used the service as a way of practicing their language skills, perfecting their written and improving their pronunciation.
I tried it out. Now I'm hooked. Over the course of weeks, I've learned how wives have met husbands, how daughters have dealt with the loss of their mothers and how immigrant women have adjusted to life in another country. Granted, the people I am exchanging letters with are "strangers", but as that heart grabbing quote from "You've Got Mail" goes: "all this nothing has meant more to me than so many something's." Not only have I practiced my Russian and French skills, but in the time it would have taken me to watch How I Met Your Mother, I got to hear an actual love story. I got an inside scoop into people's lives and heard stories I never would have had I not taken this leap!
I've also analyzed my life and thought about it in ways I never would have had I never been forced to write about it to someone who did not know a thing about me and was curious to have their questions answered. I've written about my friends, my dreams, my goals and random but beautiful moments in my life that I would not have paid as much attention to had I not written about them. I've also been informed in ways I have not been before.
As a New Yorker, I have friends from all over the world and acquaintances in various countries. Through becoming a pen pal, however, I have gotten a chance to speak with people from a variety of socioeconomic statuses and a rainbow of political beliefs and ideologies that I would not have met on my own. I've had a chance to ask direct questions about policy, about politicians, about concrete opinions and have not had it filtered through a different voice.
I wrote a message to a woman I did not know, a "stranger" in Russia, then another one in France, and another here in the U.S. and suddenly they were no longer strangers. Suddenly, I didn't have to finish a news article wondering, "Now what? What does this really mean?" "How do I ask everyday women about it?" I did. I became my very own investigative journalist, but I prefer to think of it as "an informed woman."
We've gotten so used to getting our info from official sources, from studies, from the media. We've neglected to turn to each other as the best source of information as to how we are living our lives. Who can tell me what women are experiencing better than the women I am engaging? Being a pen pal is now a source of joy for me; I am getting my therapy, language courses, dating, friendship, news, diary keeping, and diplomacy all in one! I can proudly say I am honored to be a pen pal.