Have you ever met your penpal(s)?

Hi,

just a question (some kind of poll) about one thing:
I guess all of us on this website have ever had a mail exchange with some Japanese penpals. Sometimes it lasts, sometimes it doesn't. Some penpals become good friends, some others just stop mailing.

So here is my question:

In your case, have you ever met in person one (or several) of your Japanese penpals?

In my case I had the opportunity to meet two of my penpals. One is living in my home country so it made us become friends. The other one went back to Japan, we've lost contact but it was pleasant anyways.

I guess people who live in Japan have more opportunities to meet their penpals

Of course if you are Japanese my question to you is "have you ever met in person one of your foreign penpals".



I'm pretty interested to know how strong are the exchanges between people of this forum and their penpals!

I will just add that it's always a great pleasure for me to meet a penpal because it turns a "almost virtual" relationship into something real and human.
I will also add that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to make Japanese friends without this website. There are so few Japanese around me that I have never been able to meet a Japanese outside of internet.
So thanks to this great website, too :)

Yes, I ve met some of my pen pals in person, and with some I lost contact.

Prior moving to Japan in order to study in Tokyo, I logged into this website to make friends and try to understand Japanese culture more. It has been a very interesting experience.

One of my friends showed me Tokyo during the first week of my stay, and helped me to find my way to the university.

On the same day we went to Starbucks in Shibuya, I recall it as a very pleasant experience.

I met one Japanese girl married with an European guy..

and some others =).

And..I met my very first pen pal as well on the dedicated area for pen-friends. He wrote me a mail which sounded pretty unique making me laugh.
i replied two o three days after..
We did not meet in Japan as he was in another continent due to his studies.

After loosing contact but always remembering our yearly conversation on Facebook, he contacted me again after a long time.

He is my boyfriend now and we are living together.
my very first pen pal, indeed! This story makes me lsmile every time I remember it...It all started with a simple mail!

Life can act so unpredictably.

That's nice you've met some nice people here. ^^
Yes, I 've met a few of my penpals in person. Two women, who is my good freind till now. Three guys. One I lost contact with. The other, was my worst nightmare because he harassed me for quite a while after we've met. And the other is now my future husband lol. Didn't expect that, but He's a great man and love him so much :)

R!

thats nice. Two of us and I believe to be more met their significant one here.

Promising!

To be honest, when talking to him I totally forgot that we met thanks to a mail. It feels like we ve known each other for ever.

Good luck

@yes!
Your post made me smile ^^ I'm glad that there's someone who met their significant on too through here :) I feel the same way. Sometimes we giggled about how we've met ^^

good luck to you too ^^

Life is short and can act very unpredictably. Some years back I would have never ever expected that a mail of a Japanese guy saying to like cookies, singing, playing guitar, going to Keio univ. would become my best friend, my lover, my daily everything .. lol

one side it has been my misery lol, as I feel irremediably in love, on the other side my fortune, as this person try to care about me in every single way. I do think that younger Japanese male generation make great lovers and boyfriends and we -hope- great husbands LOL.
Sometimes, he also makes me very mad when there is a discussion. After that he makes me in love again. And it goes again and again..

So there it is =) !

No, i havnt i think sometime this site a joke. i believe there are more foreigner on here than Japanese people. getting a reply under the "Friend" like winning the small litttle amount of lottery. But No, i end up not caring anymore in making penpal. i enjoy replying and maybe help people out in this forum.

Yup life is full of surprises lol Just a simple mail can tie some one together :D That's how most relationships are. We annoy the hell out of eachother then make up afterward lol I'm really looking foward to our future family together ^^ My family loves him also, and I also get along with his very well :)
@thatguy, I know what you mean. It appears that there are more foreigners here, but there are alot more Japanese than you think. Some are very nice and do value long term freindship. I hope you experience it someday :)

Yes, I've met like 4 penpals, 3 was living in Japan and the current Japanese pen pal is my boyfriend and we have been living together for 3 years now and things are going great.

2nd one I've been in contact regularly for almost 8 years now and he's my good friend, even tho I've met him
In person only once, 3rd penpal was my ex, we have still good relationship with him and we talk now and then and final one was a bit crazy guy, well let's say just different, I didn't feel comfortable hanging out with him
But it was great experience cos he showed me around Tokyo so meeting penpals can be pleasent or not, depends on the person but still you should be carefull whenever you meet men online.

wow, sounds like many women find a Japanese boyfriend on penpal websites!

I'd never have thought this kind of love stories happen so often...

As far as I've met a few ones, I can say that Japanese men are open-minded persons so that must be quite comfortable for a woman to get along with a Japanese.


And... aren't there here male forumers who can relate their experience with penpals?
Are there only female forumers who dare contacting Japanese penpals?

I met a girl I started messaging on here.
I liked her but things were still difficult with my ex so I didn't really push it and...yeah. It fell through :(

I am glad to know that there are females who met their boyfriends in here. I am not the only one, then =) !

Very open minded..still it depends on the person you find, I also had some not-so-nice experiences. Also with girls.

I find Japanese girls not very honest, a little bit fake, sometimes false. Surely not all of them.

Men seem to be more direct and easy going when it comes to friendship. With Japanese girls, I had the feeling .. like they wanted to compete with me or I don't know, its hard to explain..

Thats my own experience.

Ah! and it was my boyfriend who made initiated the whole thing. I signed up some years back and wasn't that active..didn't put too much effort on it.
So If he didn't write to me I would not have met him.
but have to say he made a good job in making me fell in love with him =)

Have a great week people !

I did not intend to use the site to find a boyfriend. He just captured my heart. The first guy who ever took me to meet his parents and carried me home when I was sick, litterally XD I'm glad that this site exist otherwise I would of have met him and my other international friends. I not only meet friends from Japan, but from Korea, Australia, and New Zealand also. :)

ah R!

I know what you mean by saying that he captured your heart.

Same here =) !

I wonder what the OP hopes to deduce from a poll such as this. The outcome is pretty predictable: all those who have met their penpals (as I have) will respond especially if they're in a relationship or married to a former penpal (as I also am). Also, not surprisingly a few disgruntled individuals will also chime in giving the impression that the it's more likely than not that one will meet one's penpal(s). It's open to question whether this is actually the case, but I seriously doubt it.

Imagine the response from a question such as "has anyone here won the lottery?" Who would respond other than those who have? What does that tell us about the likelihood of actually winning?

So far, it seems girls, including me and you, have shared to be married or found their other halves in here.

For a reference, this evening my bf said to me that he feels very lucky to have met me out of 7 billion people.
He meant the overall world population lol.
I found it hard to find inspirational readings on this website with positive or outcomes.
What my bf said, moved me and I do hope that someone, seeking advise, or what ever will find my story mood up-lifting. I hope it doesn't sound too arrogant of me to be hoping so. Given my broken English, especially as I am not giving an effort in writing at all when I should..

R's reply made me smile. That's a positive thing.
Imagining a happy couple, some where in the planet, who "started" the same way I did, its simply nice.

It applies not only to relationships but friends as well.

So..for what ever reason the original poster posed this question is obviously un-known to me, I am glad about its responses.

and speaking of lottery, I have won 25.000 euros last week thanks to a scratch ticket. The cost of a single ticket is one euro.

Sounds like you won the lottery twice!

Horse,

My question was not "have you met your soulmate on this forum"... it was "have you ever met your penpals"

"To meet" doesn't mean "to fall in love". There are certainly people here (like me) who were able to meet a Japanese penpal and had a nice time, without falling in love.

My intention was to know if some members of this website have had the opportunity to meet a penpal.
It can be interesting for forumers to relate their experience here, as well as Yes!, R, ThatGuy, Suna, Takedasghost did.

And meeting a penpal is not about winning at the lottery, don't you think so?
There are certainly people here who do not expect to meet a penpal physically... just, have a mail exchange. It's not about winning a trophy
"I met 5 penpals! -oh you're so lucky, I met only 1 penpal!"

There are many people on this website who are already married in their home country and do not intend to find a marriage partner on this website.

Although it seems like many people use the penpal section to find a soulmate..... but it's another issue

izquierda

I'm afraid you completely missed my point which was that you can't conduct a survey this way, it's completely invalid. For it to have any statistical significance you would need to contact a representative sample, not ask for just anyone to respond. Doing that will bias it heavily towards those who actually have met their penpals and those who haven't won't bother because a negative response isn't very interesting. My point that there may be one or two who haven't met their penpals and might nevertheless respond might give the impression that the overwhelming majority actually have met.

I'm also not suggesting that this has anything to do with meeting a soul mate, but notice how many responders are actually relating that they have, simply because they're still basking in the warm glow of that experience and want to share it. In other words, the more vivid the experience one has with one's penpal the more likely one is to relate it in this particular situation.

I used the lottery as an analogy, as the chances of a given individual winning is tiny but of just anyone at all winning is relatively high and it's those winners who would respond. This might lead the the highly erroneous conclusion that playing the lottery gives you a good chance of winning. Just ask yourself this: if you ever played the lottery and won nothing (as many people do) would you bother responding to such a survey?

Having said all that, there's no problem meeting up with someone you met online with whom you've formed a friendship. Obviously if you live in some other country then money quite likely is the limiting factor.

I still think some people here who didn't meet a penpal may post a reply here...

well let's wait