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Net Gains (Mar 20, 96)
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Today, 7 years later, things have drastically changed in the era of the Internet, and electronic mail. I'm back in action - with not one, but multiple pen - pals (keyboard pals to be technically correct). Pen - pals on the Net, also known as Net Pals, are a different cuppa tea in themselves. For one, you can't crib about the bad handwriting of your NetPal - the stuff's all neatly typewritten. Well, typewritten anyway. You tend to be less formal when communicating via e-mail. And thirdly, you can't grumble about the time - lag in getting a letter across - it takes anything from a second to a day for your mail to reach its destination.
The Net is a very friendly place to move about in. People are constantly on the lookout for friends. For instance, just the other day, I got an e-mail from South Africa. It read something like this : "Just surfing looking up URL's of my own name ! Your's popped up ! LOOKS GREAT. Nice to know theres a few Lyndons on the net." Now, this e-mail was from someone I had never heard of in my entire existence of 22 years on this planet. From the e-mail, I found out that the only thing we had in common was our first name - Lyndon. Coincidentally, just the previous day, I had searched the WWW (WorldWideWeb) for the surname 'Cerejo',found one Ana Cerejo studying at Yale, and dashed off a "Hi" to her. Almost always, a home page contains an e-mail address for visitors to get in touch with their comments, reactions, and thoughts. And people do get in touch. Things like these are sometimes the start of a long lasting pen - pal friendship.
For those who would rather prefer going the conventional way in making pen - pals, the Net caters to you too. Drop in at The International Penpal Page . You can find penpals from all over the globe at this site. There are currently 4 lists (each containing many people you could choose from) of people of diverse age groups, cultures, hobbies and tastes. You can scan through the lists at leisure, and then choose your E-mail (or FE-mail) penpal and write to them. If you're interested in being listed at this site, you too could add your e-mail address and additional information. These lists are updated once a fortnight, so the sooner you add your name there, the sooner you'll be listed there.
A lot of personal home pages too give visitors a chance to make penpals by maintaining their own list of penpals. These home pages will be shown if you search the Web for the word "penpals". But what also shows up are a couple of sites that appear shady. Take Cebulink - Island ladies seeking loving husbands from overseas for instance. A couple of paragraphs into the site, the site owner casually mentions that it is not a dating/penpal/mail-order bride service. This site lists women for free, and charges the guys to have their details listed. Then there's the Soul Mates Asian Ladies which has pictures and details about the ladies listed there. Another guy has even put up pictures of his wife's Filipino single female friends and will shortly be putting up their addresses for "correspondence, love,and possible marriage" here
. Like in a normal pen - pal relationship, there are a few pitfalls to watch out for. In such friendships with people you don't know, you tend to fill in the gaps in what that person has written with data of your own creation. You only get what the person tells you through the e-mails - you often can't get the whole image. And while photographs can be exchanged by mail, doing that via e-mail is not so simple. Another common problem is that one person's intent may be masked entirely by a poor choice of words. Sarcasm does not carry well over the Net, and a message totally opposite to the intent of the sender may be received.
What I really miss with my net - pals are those perfumed envelopes - and the ones that used to come Sealed With A Kiss. There are still some areas, modern technology just can't beat the old fashioned ways of doing things !