The children (me, 25) yearn for penpals
I’ve heard of people saying that when they were in school they took part in an activity where they found a penpal and connected with some stranger in a different state or country. I’ve heard of that at least two times in my life. I surely cannot relate. Can you imagine any decent school in the early to mid 2010’s encouraging children to reach out to strangers?? To give them your information and possibly even your address??? I don’t know about other zoomers out there but my schools were dripping with anti-bullying and stranger danger PSAs. The idea of encouraging students to tap into their innate curiosity about their peers and other cultures was probably drowned out by the need to keep smartphones out of classrooms and to curb the mutual bullying between 1D and 5SOS fans.
And that’s a bummer! I realize that hindsight is what it is and that back then nobody realized how inevitable the internet was going to become, but I would have benefited from intelligent adults teaching me about how to engage with others in a safe manner. Not to get dramatic about this, but maybe if I had been given the chance to learn how to keep up healthy, platonic communication with Chelsey from Washington or Anna from Germany I wouldn’t have been getting groomed on kik messenger by a guy in England with a woman’s name. Just a thought.
Nowadays I’m not getting groomed any more, but I am likely autistic and that has it’s own issues. For one, I have flourished on the internet too much. I have grown with it and gotten way more comfortable engaging with others through a screen than in real life. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not an incel or anything. Despite the social anxiety everyone has at this point in time I have made really deep connections with several people. Did I meet those people online? …yes… BUT I can hold my own while I’m at work just fine. As long as there is a boundary, as long as something keeps me just a tiny bit apart from the others, in this case the work setting, I’m good. Hell, I’m willing to say I’m charming sometimes, even when I barely mask in public anymore (impressive, I know).
Aside from learning that I can hold a conversation with other people once I started working, I discovered that I might be an extrovert?? I kind of love being around people and chatting and gossiping. It’s so much fun, so long as there is the barrier I mentioned. That’s what makes things hard for me now. I have that wall up because getting close to people is indeed scary. I can do it, but I’m scared of…? I don’t know, maybe rejection? Being considered weird? Not following social queues? Not being able to relate to others because I haven’t gone to college or had a romantic relationship? I can’t pinpoint what exactly makes me so afraid of meeting people out to get coffee or whatever, but it must be something along those lines since that’s what came into my head.
I’m pretty lonely, if I’m honest with you. So lonely that I made a Hinge account (everyone laugh at her). I realized a day into it that going from not being able to meet a work friend outside of work and going to making a profile on a dating app is a terrible idea. To make matters worse, people actually matched with me! And they’re all local!!! How am I going to just ghost a dozen people because I’m a scaredy-cat and can’t even dream of meeting a stranger that I haven’t talked to online for at least four months??? I’m poking fun at myself but it’s actually pretty embarrassing. I’m embarrassed of how scary I find this, I’m embarrassed of the fact I don’t have a car so I would have to get an uber and spend a million dollars on transportation alone, I’m embarrassed about how I live with my family (multigenerational living ftw btw, I don’t pay rent lol) and so I can’t be on a phone call or would have to disclose that I’m going out. AND all of those PSAs from school did do something to my brain because I’m scared I’ll get kidnapped or something. But something’s gotta give. I gotta do something about this because I want friendships. Even if they’re exhausting.
So I was thinking what if I try to get a penpal, just to break the making-a-new-friend ice. I know there’s places advertising digital penpals and such, maybe I can get into that and flex my friend making muscles while I gather the courage to meet someone in real life. I think I’m going to try to build a bio and post on reddit or penpal dot com or whatever site has people showing themselves off. I think writing more emails would also help me feel comfortable getting to know people on a d deeper level faster vs how DMs tend to be all about whatever fandom you have in common or whatever memes are going around at the time. I don’t have much hope, but maybe something fun will happen.