Did you ever have a penfriend when you were younger?

I came across this post on a forum this morning. We’ve got countless, countless alerts, feeds and whatnot — all around texting, SMS and mobile. Tia’s forum post popped up:

Would you like to be email or text friends?
Hello! my name is Tia, im not new to Christianity but im trying now to find my own way in my faith. I am 16 and love to talk lol so id hope you would to! Just looking for someone to text and talk to about God and life. Girl or guy it dosent matter please post or pm me if your instersted

It got me thinking about penfriends.

I once had a penfriend… for about a week, when I was young. A chap in Russia. This was back when letters took weeks to arrive because they were all being read by the various authorities.

People at school I knew used to have tons of penfriends. They used to write to each other every week.

Where are we today? What do young-folk-do when it comes to penfriends? We’ll ask Samantha and Issah.

Meanwhile… Is there such a thing as textfriends? Does that ‘work’? Surely a textfriend is … well… just a person you text, as apposed to a penfriend?