Sunday, January 27, 2013

And she told me I was her First!!

Well,   I have been getting a lot of these lately.  Most recently with my end of year giveaway for the stationery.

I was the first man/male that they have ever sent a letter.  (get your mind out of the gutter now)

So what I was wondering, was for either the ladies or gents.  Have or do you converse with the opposite sex on a regular basis (excluding the people you live with)?

I know for the male of the species here that most women that get letters from men must indicate some type of incarceration must be afoot.  Nay nay say I although I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express at one time.

I think (just this dudes opinion) is the ladies must think we have spent too much time in front of the TV to be able to form a coherent thought. Hmmm.

So, ladies.  What stops you from writing to the male form of human?  Do you get creeped out when a guy sends you a letter?

I can say without hesitation that I have some of the greatest pen pals around and out of maybe 10-15 people I write to regularly 3 are men.  Just seems to be a rarity these days.

So what say you female folk - Cool or Creepy?

Inquiring minds want to know (think I read this in Cosmo or something)

Derrick

20 comments:

  1. When I was in my 20s (30 years ago) I wrote to a person in Australia and I never knew if Pat was male or female. Never made a difference and we wrote regularly for about five years. I stopped writing when my children got older and I got busy with volunteer work in their classrooms.

    More than once I've referred to someone as he/she on my blog, only to find out, usually in the comments, that I've used the wrong pronoun.

    I write to a lot of men these days, and I don't really think it is much different than most of the women who fill my mailbox. I'm always surprised by the number of mail enthusiast profiles that request "no men." And even more surprised by those who write comments like "my husband won't appreciate/understand/allow." Anyone who wants to take the time to write to me, and has the patience to wait out my long turnaround, is very much appreciated, male or female.

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  2. I have a few male pen pals but it is not because I prefer writing to people who share my gender. I find it hard to find pen pals who are men in fact. I have never stated that I prefer all female pen pals and in fact welcome any person who writes to me. I like what PostMuse said about appreciating anyone who takes the time to write me a letter.

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  3. Hi Derrick...
    hahahaha...are you talking about me. Actually it is cool. Not creepy. Just shock or surprise. I have lots of male friends but majority prefer emails instead snailmail. That's why I was very very surprise. My husband don't care if it is male or female...as long it doesn't freak me out.

    Annie (NJ)

    PS: Sorry I haven't wrote back to you. Just was quite busy with my friend's baby shower. Relaxing and will write to you soon.

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    1. Actually Annie, there were four on this last go round. Not just you :)

      The statement was a generalization. I have been the "starter" if you will on most of my letters/postcard mailings. I think I have been the instigator on all of my correspondents when and before I started this blog. Although I can never say "wow, that was a bad idea"

      As PM said, If you can wait it out. I respond to every piece of mail I have been sent. Just might take a bit.

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    2. Laughing. That's good I am not alone.

      I am trying to convince one of my guy friend to join a penpal and he say no, no, no. Emails only.

      I am glad I came upon your blog though!!

      No problem. No rush.

      Annie (NJ)

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  4. Actually, I'm impressed, no make that amazed, that there are that many men who are interested in writing letters. None of the males in my family write and even when we were dating, my husband only wrote me one postcard when he was away on a fishing trip. He lived about a one hour drive away so we really only got to see each other on weekends but he preferred calling me during the week and having a huge phone bill to sitting down with pen and paper. :)

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    1. Wonder if I should make up a "dudes letter writer" list :D

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  5. Back in the ancient days of high school I had a guy in Malaysia as a pen pal, but you are the only male of the species I have written to so far in this new adventure in letter writing. The only reason I don't have more male pen pals is that I haven't found any yet, although I did just join the lettermo.com site and saw a rather interesting profile for a man in England. He may be my second, who knows? So... cool, not creepy is my vote.

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  6. Cool! I really enjoy writing to men, they tend to take a more traditional approach to letter-writing (less of the sticker/stamp/frilly embellishments and more day-to-day life reports). It's like being in a Charles Dickens novel, haha, which is part of the appeal that letter-writing has for me.

    The only reason I don't write to more men is because the ratio of male to female letter writers is so skewed!! One thing that makes me a bit uncomfortable with it is the fact that I'm married, so if I ever take up letter correspondence with a man, I let my husband know, and he is always welcome to read any of my incoming or outgoing letters from any of my penpals (same goes for e-mails, facebook, etc. We keep no secrets!). He doesn't care who I write to, and just thinks I'm being cute when I offer to let him read my letters, but I like to be up front about it anyway.

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    1. same here. Kim is welcome to delve into the mail basket anytime she wants. I read her most of them anyway :)

      I'm in a swap coming up a 6 week letter swap. I find the swap bot stuff the most fun as there are really not many men on there.

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  7. I think it's cool! I used to converse with many men on a regular basis because the office I worked in was full of them. Most of them didn't have very good penmanship, though. You are the second male pen pal I've had. The first was when I was 13 or 14, so many moons ago and much water under the bridge since then. I've swapped art with more men than I have written letters to. :D

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  8. LOL! Interesting topic. It never occurred to me to wonder about mail gender. Pun is accidental. :) Having male pen friends has always felt natural. I think it began back when e-mail friends were the norm. Now I'm curious. I have a good number of male correspondents. I have a new one to add just today. His handwriting is legible, and his calligraphy is enviable.

    Great post topic Dodson. Now I want to tally my genders. :) JC doesn't think twice about my correspondents' gender. My mail is addressed to me. It is personal. Besides, I am not his child, trust is never an issue, and I don't get uptight about who writes to him either, and yes, he's gotten mail and cards from old girl friends. LOL. Some probably want to know if I've taken the big trip to the mail box in the sky. :) In fact, one of our old classmates who had a crush on him, sent her phone number in a Christmas card, encouraging him to visit. ;) How do I know? He let me read it. If he takes the bait, so be it.

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  9. I am so glad you brought this up! I actually just "unjoined" a group on FB that is dedicated to penpalling because they voted not to "let men in". I found that appalling, actually. I welcome male correspondents! Have I had some I didn't enjoy and so stopped writing? Of course. But honestly, that has happened with females more than males. I find men's perspectives enlightening and fascinating and I welcome and appreciate their points of view. I can't imagine saying I wouldn't write to blondes, or Wiccans, or people with unibrows. Why would I say I won't write to men? Hmph.

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  10. I just joined International Correspondence Writing Month, http://incowrimo.org/ and of the 27 participant addresses that are so far on the list, 21 are for men. JACKPOT! ;)

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    1. I should have mentioned that this is a spin-off from Fountain Pen Geeks blog, so I suspect the favorite topic of conversation will be cars. Or motorcycles. Fountain pen enthusiasts seem love their wheels. And fountain pens. But, I've learned a lot about motorcycles.

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    2. My husband have two motorcycles and that's all he talks about.

      Annie (NJ)

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  11. Sneaking a guy response in here, I have a pretty balanced ratio on my list of correspondents, but the women tend to send stuff to me through the mail more often than the guys do.

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  12. I think it's totally cool.

    Hatwoes is the captcha

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  13. I was wondering if you ever thought of changing the structure of your website?
    Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But
    maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better.
    Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or two pictures.

    Maybe you could space it out better?

    Also visit my webpage - www

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    Replies
    1. Not sure what you mean by structure of the site. It is a blog and the formatting from blogspot is fairly limited.

      I have thought about breaking off from it, but for now it's appropriate for a blog of this nature.

      Thanks for reading.

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