Good Evening,
I don´t know what time it is in your place but here it is half past midnight and I should be sleeping already but there are a few things going round my mind.
First of all. This is it. The 4th of October. Now my letters to those two women are on their ways. I am really curios about the weeks to come. I can´t imagine them writing back, somehow.
During the last days I signed up for a forum in Germany because I thought it might be interesting to talk to german People with penpals, too. This day I received their answer.
They want to talk to me first and therefore they request my telephone number so they can call me.
That, so the message they sent me, is because they want to make sure that I am no fake and they also want me to show some binding character to them.
I do not want to tell them my telephone number. I do not give it away that easy. I also do not give someone I do not know my real name or my adress that easy. It is necessary for those penpals but I never would give it away "just for fun".
Also I can´t think about how a phonecall can clear any doubts about me being a possible fake.
Whatever they want to know... why can´t they ask me by textmessage?
Now, wenn I am saying No! it will sound as if I am a fake, won´t it? I don´t know how to react. Would you give away such an information only to be accepted into a message board on the internet?
I am glad I found you guys. A lot less paranoid around here. :)
And a last question. I wondered for a few days now: Why does anybody of you use only initials or nicknames for your penpal?
Is it forbidden to call them by name? For instant if I am receiving an answer, can´t I just write "XY has sent a letter!"? Is ist better so write "S. has sent a letter!" and is there a reason for it?
I will try to sleep now but I guess I will be brooding over the request for my telephone number from this german message board...
*sigh*
Last post
I would NOT give out your number. If they dont care to take you at your word of who you are, move on. They arent worth your time in my opinion.
do NOT call them. do NOT text them,cause if you just text them they have your number.it actually sounds like some sort of scam.
Good morning. It is 7am over here and I am dreading to go do any proper work, so here I am. haha.
As for giving out your phone number, I wouldn't do it. I don't even give out my email address unless I really have to. I don't see how they can verify you through the phone.
As for people using just initials for their pen pals, I guess it is to avoid drama. Sometimes some people might have the same pen pal, and I think also to protect their pen pal's pirvacy. I hope your pen pals write you back soon. :-)
Hell no! Honey, you have NOTHING to prove to ANYONE. You can be as anonymous as you want to on the Internet*, stick to that. I would laugh in their faces to be honest. I wouldn't give my number or whatever. I don't give my number/personal info to perfect strangers on the street, why the hell should I give it to someone on a message board? Neither should you ;) Seriously, don't even let this take up a minute of your time by worrying. It's not worth it.
And we use initials or nicknames cuz yeah... I can't think of the official reason here. LOL. I guess we all just do it? Also to avoid any (possible) drama I guess? And out of privacy reasons for our penpals. It wouldn't exactly be fair to plaster their (full) names every time we post about them.
*current social networking sites privacy issues aside.
On second thought, give them this number: 0049KISSMYASS ... :nod:
I just realized you gave out MY number!!!
Seriously???? That would make me laugh in their faces. I give my number when and where the hell I WANT to and NOT because someone tells me I have to. They can bite me!!!! I would find that extremely odd if anyone on a forum asked that. "Maybe" (just to give them the benefit of the doubt) they are a close knit group or something but it sounds like crap to me anyhow. It's the internet, not a meeting you go to in someone's living room. They can be satisfied with what you give or they can, like I said, bite it.
As far as the first intial, it's been said, but yeah, we talk about them so it's not fair to say who they are... they don't get a chance to respond on here so we protect their privacy but it's not like you HAVE to. I think I should always, so I do.
give them this number 1-800-BITEME
OK what is this????? First QB gives out my main number, and now you gooddog, give up my secret backup number. What the hell? Is nothing of mine kept private any more??? I thought yall were my friends!?!?!?
Ha ha, it's the bat phone number... 1-800-BITE ME
You just made me laugh. :D
I have to make my kids ready for school and kindergarten. But I will reply afterwards. :)
So, heres an update:
I just sent them a message over their Messageboard and told them that they won´t get my private telephone number. I know that this means that I am not getting access to their penpal-forum. But, as KAM said, if they don´t care to take my word on who I am and what I want I should move on.
I really would have liked to just talk to german penpals, too. But to be honest: I just don´t understand their reasons.
They told me that there have been fakes giving away stories from them on to pro-death-penalty - sites. I do understand that they want to protect themselves. But what good is it to talk to me on the phone? I could tell them everything they want to hear from me just to get inside, spy on them and give away those informations. A phonecall just doens´t proof my intentions!
But they would have my real name, my adress. And that for writing to other people with penpals? No, that´s not good enough a reason for me to give away such an information.
I did not give them 0049 - KISSMYASS although it was into consideration. :D
Don´t think KAM would have liked it to receive calls from them. *big grin*
Anyway, I told them the reasons above, said that I am sorry because that means that I am being rejected by them but so be it. After considering it for a long time I would not see a good reason for breaking my rule about giving private Information to total strangers.
I quotet anonymously KAMs words in her first reply after translating them into german. Hopefully that is ok.
Most important to me: I do not need them anyway. I feel good around you guys here. :)
And I asked them to eliminate my profile there.
Now I feel better. :D
Using initials. Ok, so there is not a rule I have not seen. To be honest I was scanning the board rules multiple times before asking here. But you´ve got good reasons. I guess I will be using initials or nicknames, too. Hopefully I won´t forget it. When I am getting into the flow of writing I am not only making stupid mistakes but also tend to forget such a thing. :)
What I am curious about:
Did such things like quoting messages onto pro-death-messages boards happened to you, too?
hey,
i am from germany too and i think i know what u mean. before i found WAP i searched for a long time.Most of the german sites( with pps from the US) want to check ur "background" first. Germans can be really strange sometimes :)
Is this just a general forum or do they also have prison pal ads there?
Hello Loonee
there are several other german pages for pp on the web.And they don´t ask for any phone numbers or adresses.Or do you search other german people which have pp in US prisons?
Maybe for that you start a new thread here on the forum.
Greetings from germany too
Andi
Hello Andi and welcome to WAP! :)
KAM is not a girl, ha ha! He'll get a kick out of that.
I see what you are saying (at least I think I do) that pro DP people go on to the German pp site and find quotes to use against them and their pp's by basically slandering or using their words out of context. They take out a sentence that someone used and then use it to prove their own point but don't get permission to use the words they quoted and basically just use them in an attempt to make the first person look dumb.
I'm sure it's happened. I want to say to your German pp site, however: you can't really legislate the internet like that. There might very well be a site with MY words on it opposing the DP that some wit has thought to quote without my permission and probably out of context just to say: look at this jerk and what she believes. Hey, whatever. I don't go looking to read that about myself but it wouldn't surprise me if it existed. (Just using me as an example, I mean, it could happen to anyone on here, pro or against.) It's that the internet is the wild west and if people want to quote you or slag you or whatever, they can. Best not put up anything too precious to your heart in that case if you don't want it used against you in some out of context way like that. (See why we only use initials for our pp's? Don't need anyone coming on here looking to attach their names to anything we say about them, good or bad.)
I'm curious to know if your German pp site has privacy settings and that only selected members can read and post, more like a fb page? Like they want to check you out before they give you access? (I don't know the right words to use but it sounds more like a private forum?- does that exist?)
Could they possibly mean that others have threatened them on other sites because of their views, as in, posted threats because they write to people in prison and the people on the other site don't like that???
Nicolefr84, they had adds on their site but changed it. You have to fill out a form first. Then they will send you some adress. At least that´s what they say on their site. Before I stumbled over WAP I filled out that form but haven´t heard from them up until today. Might be because I insisted to get a female prisoner I can write to. I have the feeling they mainly focus on male pp.
Andi, I just thought it would be nice to have a german board to write, too. It´s not that I am searching german people. But I guess it is nice to have someone from Germany to talk to sometimes. Some questions might be different for us because were outside the USA.
I am offering my deepest apologizes to KAM for thinking he is a she. SORRY!!!! Can you forgive me? *fluttering with my eyelashes*
Gooddog, that´s exactly what happened to them.
That message board is separated into a part that can be read even without registering. But to get access to the penpal message board you have to ask for permission. You see that it exists but you can´t read it. I don´t know if they have been receiving threads. They only told me that there have people who registered themselfes and then quoted from the inside of the penpal board onto those pro-sites.
Me, I wouldn´t care, too. I once found such a pro board on the internet and I read a few posts there. They have been filled with a hatred that frightened me. But those people have always existed and I don´t think it is good to be frightened.
But you have a point in this being a good reason to use initials for our pp. :)
Oh my... My englisch is getting worse this morning. I have to get some coffee soon!!!!
LMAO Yeah gooddog I did get a kick out of it. I didnt even notice it until I came back just now and saw your post. :D LOL Loonee its quite all right. Nice eyelashes though.. :) LOL.
HAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. okay, sorry. that made me laugh, lol. I am not laughing at you Loonee, I'm laughing about KAM :p
*snicker*
Poor KAM. And all because of me. But I will be thinking about it from now on, promised. :D
I was gonna say in my post to let the comments begin (and I knew they would).... Thank you QB.. now I dont have to.. :p LOL.
I was seriously trying to picture you in a girls outfit, KAM, but it just doesn't work. There is NOTHING about you that is remotely feminine. LOL! Except your cooking skills, maybe.
That and I like to shop... But, enough about me.. :p
You can cook? Then you are more feminin than I am. :D
OUCH!!! This is SERIOUSLY gonna get painful in here....
Loonee ~ I think you can see from this thread that you don't need that other German forum :) I understand how it would be good to talk to other Germans with inmate penpals, but there are several folks on here from Germany as well as other European countries.
I do sometimes think that Germans (and for some reason, Swedes too) often lose sight of the inmates in their revulsion of the death penalty. Two of my pals have experienced either Germans stopping writing because the inmate has been moved off death row (but remains in prison for life), or has the strong possibility of that happening. It is as if the being on death row was the only reason for writing and being a "normal" inmate just isn't attractive enough. That kind of thing makes me sad.
Oh pish and tush. You love the attention!
With all of the wonderful ladies on this forum, of course I do! Id be crazy not to.
So stop moaning.
Sunray´s wench, I thought about that, too. It is not easy to find pen pals with LWOP or less on german penpal sites. At least I never found a site with those adds, too. Sometimes the adds of people removed from DR are there still. But that´s all. It is also very hard to find the adresses of woman. I don´t know why.
I decided to write to someone with LWOP first. Writing to someone on DR again was a decision I have made later. And I wanted to write to women mainly because I had such a hard time finding adds of them on german sites and thought that they wouldn´t get much mail.
The only reason to cut the contact would be that it doesn´t feel right anymore because we do not like each other or would only have problems.
That is just awful! I was not aware of things like this happening. I don't write anyone on DR, but to drop a friend like that... That is just cruel!
Yes, that´s cruel.
Not all germans are like that, though. I really hope I will be different. I dropped my old pp, I have told you before about it. But that was because it just was getting weird and I felt very uncomfortable. I thought for a long time that I have been cruel, too. And I felt guilty about it. But now I think that it must be feeling ok for both sides to write.
The feeling shouldn´t base on the fact that one side is on DR, though. I was never aware of germans dropping pp when their sentences get changed. But I was aware of the fact that there are only DR-Adds on the sites I found.
Now I should think about why I wanted someone with a long sentence. I haven´t figured that out for me. To be honest I never thought about it. I have to think it over.
Hello Loonee,
yes its really nice to have someone from Germany to talk too.Maybe we can build such a board.i had to check some things out about that and can tell you later about that.I had to go to work now and will be back in the early afternoon.
Greetings
Andi
Hello KAM
thanks for that nice welcome greetings.
Greetings
Andi
It's cruel, but it happens often apparently. My AL pal was on DR for 9 years and had around 10 European pals (including a nun) when I first wrote as part of a Xmas card programme. He left DR just after I sent the card, and now he is doing fabulously well in the faith dorm at his prison, mentoring younger guys and helping with orientation 3 nights a week, but he is down to just me and one other pal because the others have stopped writing.
My female pal on TX death row wrote to me a few weeks ago and was basically saying goodbye just to get it over with, because her appeal is looking very positive at the moment. I wrote back and told her she wont get rid of me that easy, I picked her and I'm sticking with her, and she replied that she has already had 3 European pals tell her that if she leaves DR they will stop writing so she wanted to give me the option too. She wont leave prison, she'll just be in general population like my AL pal.
As Loonee says, Germans in particular seem focused on the death penalty itself, and the campaigning around it, rather than on the individual inmates that are on death row. They are a cause, not individuals. Very sad. But to stop writing because you feel uncomfortable or because the relationship changes is not the same as stopping writing just because the inmate is no longer on DR. Don't beat yourself up over that Loonee.
I write to those with longer sentences than my husband. It's one of the things we agreed on when I told him I wanted to write to other inmates again. He doesn't need the extra stress of wondering if the pals will be seeing me before he can - not that they will be, but his mind picks over things like that.
I am out of words about this. They should be glad that this woman gets off DR. They shouldn´t anbandon her for not having to face death anymore! This sounds like: If you aren´t going to die you aren´t interesting enough for me.
I just can´t understand such a kind of thinking.
Myself I have thought about it and I guess it is because I had the feeling that those incarcerated for only a few months with release dates during next year or the year after that aren´t that much in need as someone serving LWOP. It is difficult to explain. I thought that people incarcerated for lesser crimes have a lot more friends.
Sounds silly, even to me now.
No, it makes a lot of sense, although those with a couple of years to do often also lose contact with people on the outside. But it is definitely the case that the longer someone spends in prison, the less likely they are to maintain contact with people they knew previously, including family.
Well with the exception of the DR, inmates with longer sentences often do have less friends. Many are not willing to make a commitment to keep writing. Like many have said in other threads life gets in the way, and people drift apart. Do not overthink writing to a short timer or long timer. Write to who's ad speaks to you. You will know it when it happens. Write them, and feel good about it.
Well, it did happen.
I was browsing the adds. Then I saw the add of that woman with LWOP and I just felt the urge to write to her. :)
It is always possible that people are drifting apart after a few years of writing. But on the other hand: How will I know it if I didn´t give it a try.
Maybe someday, when I am sure that I have the time and the urge to write someone else than this two women, I will find someone with a lesser sentence. But for now I will look how it will be. If both are answering me, that might take enough time, being a mother and having a household to run.
Also my husband asked me to really think twice before writing to someone else.
Got a message from that german board a few minutes ago. It only says:
"I understand your Objections. I wish you and your pen pals all the best."
So, I guess you won´t get rid of me anymore. ;)
Loonee ~ it's not just with penpals that people focus on the DR aspect and not the individuals. I have been surprised at the lack of support (not from WAP folks) for a charity I am currently working with, from those who claim to be inmate advocates and supporters, and yet who cannot spend even a couple of seconds to retweet something on Twitter or mention it on their Facebook page because it does not relate to DR. Yet these same people get very cross when they think others are ignoring their words.
It's an emotive subject, but when it gives people blinkers, then those people need to step back for a while and take a look at what they are doing and why, imo.
Why is DR so popular then? BEcause to me, it seems like DR and LWOP is more or less the same in terms of a sentence ( I know the ending is vastly different). DO people put more effort in when its a DR inmate? I personally prefer lifers as there is a higer likelihood of creating a long-standing friendship.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around people leaving pals the minute they get off DR. Wow. Never would have thought about that! So it's much more about their own agenda than actually caring about the person. Wow. I never could go at it like that.
It's absurd indeed. I think it has everything to do with a certain selfish, morbid sensation not being fulfilled any longer. I can see how an inmate on death row can be fascinating. Cutting ties - 'just like that', as people see fit - once death row is no longer a circumstance involved, is just a surreal cruelty really. I seriously doubt people who do that were in it for the right reasons and makes one wonder what the relationship meant to them in the first place.
I guess there is a thrilling sensation in writing to someone who might tomorrow receive a date on which he will be executed.
When their sentence is reduced to "only" LWOP the Thrill is gone. This is sick!
Is it their own extreme anti DP view that makes them that way, that they are "advocates" for prisoners on DR and the minute they're off DR they move on to their next "cause"? They might think they are doing a good thing by having that cause but actually they are not treating the prisoners with a basic human courtesy of friendship if they see them only as a "cause" and not a real person. They definitely need to stop and think if that is how they are treating people.
I think that is exactly how they are, they see the cause not the people.
Yeah... I've got a rant in here somewhere but I don't even know where to start. I just want to say that I do have a problem with people writing to death row inmates solely because they're against the death penalty. Yeah, I'm against it, but I didn't start writing to R because of that.
Some people don't see DR and LWOP for what they are - both end with the death of the inmate in prison.
I'm not even sure what to say. :p
Stick around, Loonee. We're pretty much alright over here. :)
I do have something to say. :yup:
Jose would tell me all the time about how people (mainly in Europe) would write him a nice introduction letter, so he'd write back, blah blah blah. By the third letter, these people would do nothing but start raging on the death penalty & write about nothing else. He said it would be fine to rant about it, but when it got to the point where that's all they were writing about, he'd just cut them off. He did, however, love when he'd get letters from death penalty supporters, as he'd welcome the debate. On the other side, he said he'd get a lot of letters where people did nothing but give him the "poor thing" crap. He hated that.
The ones they appreciate the most are those that can give them conversation.
that is what my pp said to me (he's not on dr)that he wants some QUALITY conversation...and believe me i plan to give him just that :)
R wants the same. Well, he just wants "normal." Not saying that I'm normal, or even 100% quality in my letters :rollinglaugh: but he says he enjoys my rambling about nothing when it happens. Makes him feel like he's having a conversation. I aim to please. :p