Hi everyone,

I'm looking for people who'd like to correspond with me through snail mail. I have some pen pals with whom I write in either English or Dutch, but I think would enjoy writing in Esperanto too.

Please PM if you're interested. We can then exchange addresses.

Regards,

Jesse

Since the world has gone weird I'm wary of giving out my address. The last time I did it some mad guy turned up on a Saturday morning and he hadn't even written a single letter beforehand.

You also live fairly close to me. No offence.

Wow! So a mad guy turned up before even writing a letter? Imagine what people might do if they will write letters first!

What do you expect? A fountainpen written letter in a nicely decorated envelope, nice stamp and all: "Dear Vestitor, it is my pleasure to inform you that I will come to bully you tomorrow morning around eleven. Sincerely, your Madman"

The world hasn't gone weird, it's totally out of touch reactions like yours that make it seem that way! Get out there, stop basing your fear on single incidents, what the newspapers write and what TV shows, go travel and actually meet people! You'll be pleasantly surprised!

On top of that: posting a reaction like yours on a forum like this really surprises me! If you are so afraid to connect to the world outside in a real physical way, then why bother learning Esperanto? I would think the whole meaning behind Esperanto is exactly that: overcome your fear and start connecting to people with whom you otherwise would not be able to connect due to language barriers.

By stating that I "live fairly close to you (no offence)" you insinuate that I might actually pose the same thread to you as your illiterate madman did! To that I do take offence!

Anyway, keep on building walls around your world as you obviously do, but please, refrain from littering my (or whomever's) sincere attempts to connect with other people with your irrational fears! Thank you!

Also, in case you are afraid to visit this thread again, I send you the same response through PM.

Have you quite finished? Just because I don't like giving out my address willy-nilly doesn't mean I'm a recluse. I rather prefer talking to people a bit online before that, as I'm sure many people do. In fact, I just recently - in the last three weeks - met up with someone I've only ever known online for the past year or so. I came back from England via France and we met up there.

Admonishing me with an avalanche like that doesn't do much to quell the suspicion that anonymous correspondents might turn out to be a bit crackers, does it?

By the way, 'fountain pen' is two words

It's really interesting to see how two citizens of the Netherlands communicate IN ENGLISH, rather than in Dutch.

So, what chance have the poor Esperanto to progress as international language?

Amike.

One of those is a native speaker of English and this is after all the English Language forum, so it may be a bit hasty to draw any conclusions about the future of Esperanto.

Perhaps more significant is that (apparently) all but one of the songs in the recent Eurovision contest was sung in English, or that according to some observers machine translation will achieve a very high level in 10 years time.

Vestitor:Since the world has gone weird I'm wary of giving out my address.

Remember the days when there was no such thing as an unlisted phone number.

Jesse:If you are so afraid to connect to the world outside in a real physical way, then why bother learning Esperanto? I would think the whole meaning behind Esperanto is exactly that: overcome your fear and start connecting to people with whom you otherwise would not be able to connect due to language barriers.

Yah, the point of Esperanto is to connect with people. To be honest, I feel shy about connecting with anyone else in the real world. Maybe, one day, I will gain the courage to go to an Esperanto meeting.

I am just an introvert. That is how we are.

I also think you will find lots of people who will gladly share their home address with you.

Am I done yet? No, I am not.

I do not think the world has gone weird at all. In fact, I do believe that, if anything, the world has gone paranoid!
But still it mainly is a great and wonderful place, full of people and cultures that are worth getting acquainted with. The only thing that I see changing last 20 years is that nowadays fear seems to be the primary and preferred emotion when confronted with unknown behaviour and/or people.
See something weird? CALL 911!

For nearly 20 years we (as in my wife, 3 children and I) have hosted hundreds of unknown guests in our house (through Pasporta Servo, WarmShowers and CouchSurfing, among many such lists, as well as refugees), gave them the keys to our house to lock up after we'd gone to our jobs and to let themselves in again and never, ever has something 'weird' happened to us. Your weird that is. The kind of weird that prevents you from exchanging addresses with a fellow esperantist who'd like to write actual letters. The kind of weird that makes one post a reaction like yours.

Now that may not be for everyone and you are of course entitled to have and express whatever opinion you may have about the world, but since this is a public forum, paranoia is contagious and you chose to react to _my_ initial posting I may counter your reaction as I see fit; you seem like a nice guy, but you could have chosen not to react to my request in the first place, since you were not planning on exchanging addresses anyway. However, you apparently wanted to 'warn' others that exchanging addresses is risky. In my opinion that needs to be countered!
I think there's nothing wrong with being careful, but there's a thin line between that and outright paranoia. Furthermore, your reaction on an Esperanto forum strikes me as rather cynical. Again, you could have chosen not to react, because my request obviously did not appeal to you.

I'll leave it at this because I don't like online forums much, precisely because of the reason you (and others) seem to enjoy them: their anonymity. I find no safety in anonymity, on the contrary!
I prefer to exchange real letters with real people. Having real addresses and real names instead of often silly forum names.

You can PM me to exchange addresses if you want to further discuss the matter (along with topics as jazz, classical music, philosophy, sociology and, since you are an Englishman in NL and I, Dutch, have lived in the UK, culture in general and the difference between NL and the UK in particular).
I'll promise to write you in a friendly spirit (and I won't show up on your doorstep unless you want me to)

PS: thank you for correcting my obvious spellingerror (<- see what I did there ) regarding 'fountain pen'. I'm known to make the odd spelling- and grammatical mistake.

Jesse:I don't like online forums much

In my life, I have never seen a forum where people actually get along, other than stackexchange because their forum is so strict that they alienate users from each others.

I read a study, which showed that the number one emotion on the internet is anger. It made me rethink whether or not Esperanto and the internet are a good match.