Penpal vs. Friend

I launched this penpal Website in 2006 as a continuousness of loveislonely.com's penpal section built in 2003 based on my experience and interest in penpaling and willingness to help others find penpals in this Internet era. What's the difference between the friend you meet in person and the one you meet online?

In person when you first meet someone during work or in a social gathering occasion, whether to make friends with a person or not is based on a whole outline of this person, the look, the voice, the way he/she talks, walks and the topics fall into some kind of surface common interest, e.g. the occasion, the task and the like. In this way, each type of person has the equal opportunity to become your friend. Your phone conversations and regular interactions during work will naturally help continue this friendship. What's more, during emergencies, both of your appearance to help, even just lend a hand, will enhance this friendship. In a word, this kind of friendship is traditional, tends to be firm and real, because you experience hardship and share happy moments together and hug your friend for real.

Online experience is different. The difference stays and gradually fades away when you finally meet and continue corresponding and meeting.

On the Interent it's more likely for you to meet people who are "like-minded", especially for those introverted persons who are better at expressing themselves in writing, Internet presents a grander stage for them. When you meet a person online, you don't know what he/she looks like, how he/she talks, moves. You saw a profile and the person has something in common with you then you start to correspond. In this way, you get to know a person in opposite way, that is, from inside to outside. Some may never actually think of meeting the other party in person. The tough part of penpaling is when the penpals meet. It's never like what was imagined. It's not about "good", "bad", "better" or "worse"; rather, it's about "different". It's just different. It will further take you some time to connect your penpal's previous image on your mind with the real one right in front of your eyes. In addition, as I mentioned before, some of them are good at writing instead of talking, therefore, when you meet, you will probably wonder if you meet a wrong person who was so poetically expressive in email while having trouble handling a smooth conversation face-to-face. Some of the penpals are hard to meet or even if they meet it's hard for them to frequently meet again and again due to distance. Thus, penpals usually sound less real because they can't show up when you are in need, neither can you. It's like two hearts are so close while they are so far away.

I would like to compare those two experiences to reading a book and watching a movie based on the book. Making friends in real life is like watching a movie first then move on reading the book and usually people don't read the book after watching the movie, except that the movie is literarily excellent; penpaling is like reading a book first then watching the movie based on the book. The chance is when you want to watch movie it means the book is good enough and when the movie ends, you mutter, "I prefer the book". Is the book and the movie the same? Will you be able to make a ONE image out of the book and the movie? I exactly had two similar experiences. One was when I watched the TV series "Pass by Happiness" and then read the book "Happy Pie". I have to say, the TV series is better and the producer is obviously a more literary person. It's like when you meet a person and admire his/her wonderful speech while this person handles the speech without a draft, simply because he can't write the same. I watched "Bridge to Terabithia" after I read the book. I prefer the book a little bit more because the movie didn't reflect the best part of the book - main character's thoughts. It's like you meet penpal online then you meet him/her in person with the deep image of the person on your mind. The chance is, the person is never as talkative as in his/her email. Anyway, as long as the person is super, to connect both image on your mind and the one for real is still an enchanting experience, as you gain two persons/friendships overnight and this forms a perfect and entire image of the person.