【Zoe Voss Archives】

Until about a year ago,Zoe Voss Archives I had never bought stamps.

I knew how to send mail, thanks to an elementary school lesson tucked away in the recesses of my memory, but I could probably count the number of times I had actually written a letter on one hand. Since last year, writing letters has become one of the few ways to make new friends that doesn't feel like exhausting or risk contracting and spreading COVID.

When the pandemic first moved all socializing online, I embraced it; Zoom happy hours were still a novelty and gathering friends for virtual birthday parties felt like a noble effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The longer the pandemic continues, though, the more tiring it is to maintain a social life entirely though online interactions. It's especially discouraging to keep up when so many others gave up on social distancing months ago.

I've never been one to maintain relationships over text. That's not to say that I'm an outlier in my generation —like plenty of other Zillennials who came of age with the development of smartphones, my phone is always in my orbit. I've always disliked that being online was so intertwined with being social, and as a deeply introverted person, resented being available to chat whenever I happened to be on my phone.

Having ADHD, which severely affects the ability to shift attention and easily switch between tasks, makes engaging with messages feel like even more of a burden because it can derail hours of my day. My solution was to make myself as unavailable as possible by turning off notifications and only responding to messages during set hours of my daily routine. For the most part, this worked — if I wanted to catch up with someone, we'd text to make plans to see each other in person, and if we didn't live in the same city, we'd set a time to FaceTime.

But my coping method for existing in an increasingly online world stopped working when social distancing became a necessity. Meeting up with people wasn't an option, and after a few months of video dates, therapy appointments, and birthday parties, Zoom fatigue set in. Virtual interactions, National Geographic reported only a month or so into social distancing restrictions, are extremely taxing on the brain because they don't include important non-verbal cues we rely on to socialize. Catching up with long-distance friends over video calls once a week was fine, until allof my socializing took place on a screen. I felt myself burning out. Maintaining lengthy conversations over text is doable, but I always fall into the the habit of opening a text, getting distracted, and then looking like an asshole because I don't remember to respond.

And regardless of the pandemic, making friends as an adult is a challenge. Clinical psychologist and friendship expert Dr. Miriam Kirmayer told Bustle that once you leave early adulthood, you're no longer surrounded by peers who are all in the same stage of life. Once you're done with formal schooling, you lose access to those built-in friendships.

"Our life paths begin to diverge more and more from those of our friends, and we can end up in very different places — both geographically and emotionally," Kirmayer said.

Which is why I picked up exchanging letters with Twitter mutuals.

Aside from living out a taste of my cottagecore fantasy, having pen pals during the pandemic has been one of the few ways to safely keep up with friends that doesn't involve exhausting myself with another screen. I began writing letters about three months into social distancing when I realized that my penchant for buying stationery whenever faced with an emotional crisis was getting out of hand.

There's plenty that I miss about the Before Times, a phrase I've started using to refer to pre-pandemic life as if I've survived some cataclysmic event, but I miss the opportunities to meet new people most of all. Pen pal-ships are my new outlet for building new friendships.

I'm not the only one embracing letter writing to make new friends. Writer Rachel Syme's pen pal exchange was so popular, it became Penpalooza, an online community of pen pals who were matched using online Secret Santa software. Since it began, Penpalooza has more than 10,000 members over 75 countries with new pen pals.

Keeping in touch via snail mail is far from the only means of communication I have — I still schedule FaceTime calls with loved ones, attend Zoom birthdays, and occasionally see friends outdoors wearing masks. But sitting down to write down a month's worth of gossip requires an intentional separation from the online world. Aside from the satisfaction of finally using my gel pen collection, letter writing is almost meditative in that I'm forced to resist the pull of consuming digital content for just a few minutes. For however long I spend on writing, adoring the pages with stickers, and applying a glittering wax seal, I'm actively not engaging with social media.

Although antiquated, keeping in touch via written letter has been the escape I've been craving not only from the pandemic, but also from being constantly online. It's not the people in my life that make keeping up with loved ones feel like a chore, it's the fact that so many hours of my day are spent rotating between screens.

Boomers love to complain about how kids these days can't detach from their screens, but for me, it's true — in the last year, I've caught myself surrounding myself with online stimulation whenever I'm home, which is all the time. I'll wake up and scroll through Twitter while brushing my teeth, watch TikToks while making coffee, text people throughout the day, carry my laptop through my two bedroom apartment to work in one of three spots, call a friend after work, skate through a podcast, stream a TV show during dinner, and close out my night with three hours of mindless scrolling until TikTok's automated message asks if I've had water recently. A small study published in Psychiatry Research last year found a "positive association" between increased screen time and self-reported poor mental health, which is unsurprising considering human beings are wired to have regular social contact.

Like with most new hobbies I picked up in quarantine, including puzzles, tarot reading, and most recently, candle making, I dove into letter writing wholeheartedly. Correspondence has been spotty at best; I've gone weeks without responding to a new letter, and weeks before receiving a reply. The pressure to respond immediately, though, is nonexistent when it comes to snail mail. I've always resented the expectation that being present online meant I should also be open to engaging in conversation, and felt guilty for not being able to meet social demand for immediate responses. For me, it takes the same amount of social energy to respond to a text as it does to a written letter, but there isn't as much of a grace period for responding to a missed message.

The unhurried nature of letter writing is a welcome break from the barrage of notifications in my day to day life.

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Receiving a new letter, in addition to reading some juicy gossip, comes with the dopamine rush of receiving a package without online shopping. Any break in routine is welcome, which is why boredom is driving up e-commerce. In my pen pal writing, I've exchanged stickers, pressed flowers, film strips, hand-drawn illustrations, Polaroids, and at one point, a pagan spell jar. This crow-like exchange of trinkets scratches that itch that online shopping does, with the added thrill of receiving something in the mail.

There's a physical benefit of letter writing as well. ADHD affects working memory, and if I don't see something in front of me, I often forget to deal with it. My life is dominated by lists, calendars, and Post-It notes stuck around my bedroom. I often forget to respond to messages when they're easily hidden by another tab or if I've already read it and didn't immediately have the emotional bandwidth to respond, and I literally write notes to myself to check my notifications. A written letter, though, takes up physical space. There's a stack of unopened letters on my desk at the time of writing, which I may be behind on replying to but its very presence is a reminder to open them.

Despite my slow responses, I've been able to form genuine friendships with people who started off as distant internet friends. Some live in my city; my closest pen pal lives only a few neighborhoods away in Los Angeles, while one lives in a completely different country. Whether I'll ever be able to meet these pen pals in person is up for debate considering the state of the pandemic, but that doesn't make the friendships formed any less valid. I'm hardly a total recluse, as I still have my set hour to respond to texts and make time for catching up on video. But for new friendships born during a year of physical isolation, letter writing is the way to go.