Imagine that you're talking to the person you want to write to you, not the person you don't.
You might think that it's a no-brainer to observe that the sole purpose of a penpal ad is to encourage people to actually write to you. Well, you wouldn't be quite so sure of that if you had a look at a substantial number of actual penpal ads! It's amazing how often you'll come across a variation on one of the two following themes - "please, no more emails from Africa, I have no money to give you and I don't want a wife!" or "no men, how can I put this more clearly, absolutely no men, can you guys actually read, I HAVE A BOYFRIEND!". There are a couple of rather huge problems with this approach - a) in a lot of cases it won't actually deter the unwanted messages you're receiving, and b) it will paradoxically deter some excellent potential penpals from writing to you. I bet it hasn't even occurred to the women who write ads that are primarily concerned with convincing men not to write to them that in doing so they're actually putting a lot of women off - but I'm equally sure that's exactly what they're doing.
So does this mean you can't be picky in a penpal ad about what you're looking for? Of course not. But the lessons are - a) express what you want positively rather than negatively, so that the people who do fit the bill will be inspired to respond, and won't be harbouring doubts about your likeability, and b) just accept the fact that many people who don't fit the bill will write to you anyway. The latter is a price well worth paying to get the former, and it isn't really that big a deal in any case - 99% of the time it'll be obvious from the first email that someone is not what you had in mind as a penpal. Then you can choose whether to politely decine, or simply to ignore the message. (And I may well return at a later date to the ethical dilemma posed by that particular decision!).
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