I am wondering what everyone's thoughts are regarding phone calls and visits. It seems sometimes there is natural progression from writing to phone calls to finally visiting. Do some go into to writing with the expectation that this will eventually happen? I think once it gets to the phone call stage that you are taking the relationship to a whole new level of committment. How much thought have you put into your decision to accept phone calls and eventually visit?
At this point I am not planning on having phone calls or visits with any of my pp's. I'm sure that could change as I just started writing and getting to know them. Who knows? It could fizzle out after the first few letters. Thoughts?
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I can see what your saying there.
There are a couple of people here who are very much just friends and enjoy phonecalls.
I dont get them...Texas arent allowed to call International.
Sorry not very helpful here but there will be others who have much more experience than I have :)
I have no intention to visit any of my current penpals.
I have had telephone conversations with some, but I don't encourage that. USA > Australia is hellishly expensive. And I don't usually find it pleasant. There is always the delay, and usually an echo on the line. (I also have the GayMelbourne accent, which many from the USA need subtitles to understand.)
For me personally it was not even a thought, let alone an expectation as far as meet and greet or calls. If for nothing else than the miles and my life at that time. Calls, well i wondered what their accent and voices would sound like, as you do others that become friends over time.
I do not think when you talk to someone it means you are taking your level of commitment up a notch and i could not imagine many would feel that way inside about a friendship. I just think it's nice to put a voice behind the pen and photo's, it brings another piece of the puzzle together that accentuates who they/you are as a person. For me, i think much can be discovered in a voice if you listen. You know when someone is nervous, excited, angry, happy, sad, many times you pick up on lies and that is just a start.
I believe visits can add to a great friendship, other times what is lived through the pen or even calls is not always the reality before you. That is not just relationships you have with those in prison, but i have known people to meet and greet after talking a while over the net, on the phone etc and the person is not exactly who they portrayed themselves to be. So i guess the reality is you could face a scenario in a visiting room in prison just as much as you could in the free world where what you were told you had ordered was a different dish placed before you, if you know what i mean. :)
Just to add, i appreciate my calls and visits and those i have met along the way. So for me it has only enhanced friendships, giving me another perspective.
it's not really a penpal if you have calls/vists..
I think once you go on to the phone call and/or visit stage you've crossed the line from being "pen pals" to something else. I think it's ridiculous that I still refer to R as my "pen pal" because I do visit and will visit as often as I can. So while in between our visits we have to depend on old fashioned pen and paper for our communication (since he can't call), to call him my "pen pal" is just silly to me.
I never went into this with the intention of visiting. In fact, I never wanted to visit. I wrote to my 1st PP for 10 years and never had a single visit. But that was something I always regretted not doing. So when R asked if I wanted to be on his visitors list in case I ever wanted to drop in while visiting family in Houston, I told him to go ahead and put me on. We clicked so well and got along so great that I ended up planning a trip just to see him a few months later. But had I not regretted never going visit PP #1 I would have never gone to visit R.
Now since we've seen each other 7 times now (3 trips, 7 visits total :p ) I can assure you that the relationship we have is well beyond just "pen pals." Once I put a voice and an actual body and mannerisms to him, and he to me, we quit being words on paper and actual physical beings. If that makes any sense.
To answer the actual question, no, I don't think going to visit ruined anything. If anything it brought us closer together.
I'm with Moxie on this one...I think once you mix in the phone calls and visits...you're no longer just pen pals...but I don't think that's a bad thing...and doesn't necessarily mean you're dating or in a relationship.
My guy and I got really close, really fast through letters and then the calls and visits kind of naturally followed...I definitely didn't expect to have gotten this involved with him, but I am and we have our own little understanding and it works for us. I live only 3 hours away, the calls are cheap and the mail only takes 2 days...so it's really easy for us to cross the line where for some people it might not be as easy. We talk on the phone almost everyday and I've seen him a bunch of times...but we still write one letter a week and send cards. He's more then just a pp, he's my best friend..and maybe a little more now a days lol...but like I said it works for us and I think everyone kind of does what works for them.
i think that having calls does not always mean taking the friendship to the "next level". i agree that with phone calls/visits it isn't a penpal only thing in the strictest meaning of the word penpal. they love getting phone calls.
I really think it depends on the person and how you are with them. I have many friends but not all are ones I would pick up the phone to call if I had something I needed, not all are ones I would drive or fly to visit when email would do- see what I mean? It's very individual. I had NO intention of visits or phones when I started this and now I use the phone with one person. It's great. But I didn't intend it or think it had to be part of this.
People seem to start out with that stuff a lot faster in some cases than I ever would have thought of. "If" you find someone where you do get that special of a connection with, great, but it's not mandatory for this experience. I agree with Moxie and Digitopaz too... it can evolve into a certain kind of closness but it doesn't always. It's really like any other friend, you click like that or you don't. And if you don't, letters are great and serve the original intent.
Going to answer this without reading any other responses, so I may repeat what's already been said.
No, I don't think phone calls and visits "ruin" the penpal experience. But I do absolutely think it changes the terms of engagement. I think it is absolutely a personal decision to be made between both parties, but having said that I also think that people don't always give enough thought to how emails and phone calls and visits can change the situation. Not only financially, but also as a requirement on your and their time, the importance placed on that form of communication by one or both parties - which often isn't realised until it is withdrawn in some way.
I have very specific terms under which I write to inmates now, and these are in place after discussion with my husband and specifically because he is also an inmate. I do not have phone calls with my pals, I don't send money, and I will not visit my male pals (and am unlikely to visit my female pals any time soon). I have things to consider that many others don't have to consider, not least that I am not giving out any suggestion at all to my pals that anything more than friendship is available. It is very easy for signs to be misread, or for them to be ignored, and I cannot be in that position.
Others may feel that calls, email and visits enhance their friendship with thier pals, but I do think that after quite a short time, the lines between being a penpal and being something more get blurred.
In my opinion you cant really tell for everyone. In my case I was totally happy when receiving my first call. Vs voice is just great and I cant get enough from it. I even prefer the calls than emails or letters. :) On the other hand I think letters are still special. I am happy like a bunny when getting mail. But I am sure others have another opinion than I have. :)
This right here.
Before I went to visit R the first time I made sure he understood that the visit thing may or may not turn out to be something I could do often because I didn't want him to get the idea that I was going to be going up there all the time and start to get dependent on my visits and then become very upset with me if I told him one day that I couldn't make the trip up on a particular week. If that makes any sense. It happened to me before. I had a friend (never was a pen pal, by the way) that I would write to, then he added my phone number to his list, then I'd go visit once a month. The letters stopped after the calls started and the one time I told him I couldn't make a visit he accused me of "flaking out" on him. Needless to say we aren't friends anymore, but that's just an example of how things can go badly once you get the visit thing going too much.
And someone else said that visits don't necessarily mean your taking a friendship to another level (can't remember who). Not saying it definitely will but it definitely could. Not only that, but it could also ruin everything if you walk in there and the two of you don't hit it off.
It all depends on your own personal situation. In mine & R's we have a mutual understanding as to how this is all going to work, and we did indeed turn that corner to where neither one of us can call each other "pen pal." And I know that now I "must" visit (I don't know how else to put it?) since I have managed to visit all those times since December and I do have the ability to make it a priority of sorts to make plans to visit when I can. You can't just pop in for a visit and not expect the guy/girl to expect more visits.
I know what I'm trying to say but I don't know how to word it. :p
I didn't really go into this with the expectation of calls/visits. To be honest I didn't put a lot of thought into the phone calls thing. In the sense that I didn't spend weeks pondering it. With one of my guys, he got my letter-he added me on corrlinks and the first day he added me on corrlinks I just gave him my number. Said that if he wanted to call, he was welcome to. He did, we talk a lot. With most of my guys we have weekly set phone call times. It's nice to put a voice to the letters/pictures etc. Even busy planning visits and everything, Again, other than the actual PLANNING, I have't pondered any of it for weeks. I'd love to visit them. I'd visit every single one of them right now, every single week, if I could. haha.
my situation is different we arent pen pals i have known this guy for 9 years way before he went to jail but the 2 times he called i was so happy and everyday i check my mail and get so disappointed when i have no mail and really happy when i get my letters last letter i got was march 15 ..he is being moved soon was just wondering how long in new jail before they can write letters he said he will send new address when he gets moved...i cant wait until he gets out to see him again
I get what you are saying. (You didn't try, you DID say it well!) Communication is the key. Setting your parameters and possible inabilities to be there at times with loving cautions to be flexible, above all else, is great. It's that expectation of "you will be here every week/month/year or you don't love me" that seems a problem. Crap happens and sometimes you can't!!! But if you TELL them that then they don't have to think or hopefully won't take it as personally than if no communication happened to warn against possible glitches.
I always tell my friend, try the phone, but know that if I can't answer it- it's not that I'm sitting there looking at it going, "eh, I don't feel like talking to him"... it's: I'm busy with kids, class, life, etc. It's not personal. It can FEEL personal when you are in prison, this I know... heck it can feel personal out here when someone doesn't make a planned call or visit! But I can totally see how in there it's magnified and could feel like you are forgotten or you build up too many hopes around it as the bright spot of your day/week/month/ year.
My pp tells me that one thing he loves about our calls is that he's called me when I've been napping, shopping, whatever... just plain old living, and I am always happy to take the call and we laugh about it, wherever I am. He says that he and all of the guys around him have had the disheartening experience of finding blase people on the other end of the phone who seem annoyed that they are calling, or, consistantly not taking the calls at all even though they "said" they would be there. He says it's horrible and he's glad I never put him through that. And I never will. BUT I am also good at communicating and saying, "hey, it's like this, this week, this month, etc." just to give him a heads up. I think if you have a heads up you can see it's "just life" getting in the way and not ignoring the friendship.
And yes, the reason I didn't want to start phone calls with all people is because I knew that I couldn't be there for all that and didn't want to disappoint.
True. But I assume most people here don't consider the inmates as their penpals anymore but as friends... at least after a few months/years (depends on everyone's personality).
We still use the word penpal, strangely. But it' s more like "penpals who eventually became friends", which is less convenient to say :p
I feel the phone calls have enhanced my relationship with my pp. I only call them my pps on here. Really, they've become very good friends and I would sorely miss them if they were no longer part of my life.
I wish I could talk to my PP on the phone :( stupid Texas can't calling internationally.. HMMMPPPHHHH
I'm assuming Texas could call Minnesota? Not that I'm planning it but...oh who am I kidding. I most likely will end up talking to at least one pp on the phone sometime in my life.
Only if you are on their visitation list and you have registered your land line with the service provider.
fed prison's can call any where they want. best to have a local number for the call to be cheaper.