Happier Abroad Forum Community

As a female board member, I have always gravitated towards ethnic culture. In the 1990s I belonged to a pen pal mailing list where I could find and interact with international pen pals (male and female) from all over the world-most in Europe. I just wanted to broaden my horizons and learn about other cultures. It was enjoyable at times, unfortunately I have never had a long term pen pal. Most of them maybe wrote me two or three letters and then I never heard from them again. I found this to be very common, albeit aggravating. Now that we are in the age of email...I wonder if old fashioned letter writing has fallen by the wayside? Has anyone had any success in making international pen friends (not for the purpose of matrimony or similar:)) Do people still want to do this long term? I think its sad that I got dropped after a few letters by most of these people.

Based on my experience, it is hard to make "normal" friends. AW (especially under the age of 35) are shallow, pedantic and boring in what they talk about. Celebs, makeup, who's sleeping with whom, and that's about it. Women here have a very limited "inner world". And of course, like many of you, I have run afoul of some pretty nasty AWs (some of which is material for another post.)

I'm not looking for dating or anything (already involved with someone.) but it would sure be nice to talk to some cultured people out there. Even if pen pal clubs don't exist anymore....well I am really enjoying this board so far!

I miss the pen pal days of the 80's, when pen pals would send you a handwritten letter with their photos in it. It was so exotic and had a mystique/romantic flair to it.

I'm sure there are pen pal sites. Just Google "pen pals", but yeah like you said, they are flakey, or perhaps very picky about who they write.

I think the thing to do is join a forum about an interest you have where people from different countries post. Then if you find out one of the members is from a country you're interested in, PM him or her and say something like "I'm really interested in your country and your culture. Do you mind if I email you sometime?"

A lot of foreigners would be happy to have a chance to practice their English like that, especially if they see that you write well and aren't a dumbass who uses too much internet slang ("cuz ur 2 hot d00d").

I basically did this on another forum before I first came to Hungary. Later I met the guy I'd been emailing and I'm still friends with him to this day.

So forums are the gateways to finding good penpals.

I'm trying the site Interpals for this reason. I'd write to male penpals but it just feels too weird for me. The same goes for married women too. It might be completely platonic, but I dunno, the whole thing just makes me uncomfortable.

Instead I've been surfing the female profiles to see if anyone is interested in sharing messages or chatting online, and occasionally I see those interested in writing to English speaking people to help them learn the language, and they seem nice enough. The worst ones are the profiles that have this laundry list of criteria (Must not friend me, must not try to IM me, must not be married, must not be interested romantically) and it just goes on and on. Real turn off. I understand that there are a lot of creeps online, but seeing this is irritating and a bit depressing at the same time.

Then I finally see a decent Ukrainian girl who wants an American penpal to learn English and learn more about America, and she has a bazillion messages on her wall from stupid idiotic schmuckhead manginas with the most fucktarded pickup lines.

I cannot win on the Internet. Period. The lack of decent women and the excess of Jersey shore type male fucktwits have completely ruined it for me.

I'm looking for a penpals site, just to chat with a young female or two, with no expectations of swooping in to meet her soon.

I'll try InterPals I guess.