“PEN PALS“ maybe a strange term for the younger generations who have been living almost day to day with instant messaging, chat rooms, and social networking sites. To them, pen pals seem to come from a by-gone age. What do you need a pen for when you can reach your friends, old, new or potential friends, by just a click of the mouse?
As the term suggests, pen pals are two people, usually from different places, originally strangers, who regularly exchange friendly letters, mostly handwritten, and pictures with corny dedications at the back. The relationship would reach a major turning point when one would eventually travel across the distance to finally meet the other. They may fall for each other, that is, when physical attraction overpowers the emotional attraction they may have intimated on scented stationery. Or like with any friendship in life, they remain pen pals for only a short time. They would get to the point in their lives where they have too many things to take care of.
Today, however, there is an Internet
version of the same thing. It still has its original meaning of remote friends
in different parts of the world who write to each other through e-mails or
private messages on social networking sites. The “pen” now means the electronically
written communication. There are also pen pal sites for many single males or
females to meet their “pals” online and later set up dates for themselves.
