Read the same books and use your correspondence as a long-distance book club. If you're really struggling for common ground, here are a few strategies we've found useful: As in other social settings, it could take awhile before you get to know your penpal, but the relationships you form can be really rewarding in the long run. Ask your penpal questions about the things they’ve expressed interest in, even if you don’t know much about them yourself. Try talking about your own life and things that you like,, and your pen pal will probably want to learn more about what you’ve been up to. and you might even end up discovering commonalities that weren’t apparent in the beginning. It’s all right if you don’t have much in common at first You could learn a lot from someone whose lifeis very different from your own. If it’s one letter per month, for example, that’s fine just make sure your penpal knows that so that expectations are set from the beginning. Another important thing to include is a clear idea of how often you anticipate being able to write. For more information on this, check out the section entitled LOGISTICS below. In your initial letter, it’s also important to include some basic questions regarding boundaries that your penpal might have, in terms of what they feel comfortable talking about (in general or specifically regarding identity) and the restrictions they need to follow in their prison. As with any new friendship, it will get easier with time. When communicating in person, we use the other person's response tocarry the conversation, so it can feels uncomfortable to say everything at once. Having this conversation with a penpal might feel awkward at first, because most of us are not used to regularly writing letters. Use these topics to start your first letter. You might talk about an interesting article you read the other day, or what you did on the weekend. You might talk about why you're there, or where you grew up. One exercise is to think about a conversation you might have with someone you had just met at a bar, a potluck, or a new job. Writing the first letter can be intimidating, but you probably have lots of interesting things to share.
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