How to write a penpal ad : tip 2

Choose a website that gives you the space to express yourself.

At least a couple of the larger penpal websites place a severe restriction on how long your ad can be. On the face of it, this shouldn't be a problem - all you're trying to do at that stage is catch someone's attention and intrigue them enough to make them want to contact you, and the phenomenon of Twitter is proof enough of how easy it is to do this in a very small number of words. Unfortunately, Twitter also gives a clue as to the main snag here - people who respond in those circumstances will invariably do so in roughly the same number of words! Of course, on Twitter they have no choice, but in my experience the same thing almost always happens with the very short penpal ads. It's quite logical when you think about it - if you haven't given them enough information about yourself to feed off, the responder to your ad will feel awkward about launching into a 300-word self-introduction. And of course, when you start off with an exchange of very short emails or letters, the harder it is to build the kind of rapport necessary for there to be a chance of a long-lasting pen-friendship.

So the lesson is - choose a website that doesn't restrict how long your ad can be. There are plenty of free sites that fall into that category, so there's no good reason not to. Two possibilities worth considering are Interpals and Penpals Now.

How to write a penpal ad : tip 1

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!).