“Happy Postcrossing” Text Cards / Cards with no or little Text

Dear all, I’m trying to understand why some people only write on the postcard “happy postcrossing” and that’s it. I do take time to write on each single card something about myself or things which are going on etc. Is there a special reason for it? Or is it maybe a habit when you have like 50 cards to write? :rofl:Not trying to say it’s good or bad, just trying to understand. :cherry_blossom::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::cherry_blossom:

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short answer: everyone is different.

i don’t believe it has anything to do with how many cards one has sent or is writing at a time. some people don’t have much inspiration to write about. some people write only long story’s when they feel inspired by a profile… some people can’t write english very well or feel insecure about their handwriting.
if you really wanna know you should ask the person you’re getting the card from. so many different people, so many ways to send a card. it’s what i love about postcrossing. even if someone writes just a little bit it still tells about them.

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Right agree definitely! My intention with this was to get more ideas or answer for my thought coming up “why” :slight_smile: thank you for sharing as you had some examples which I did not consider in the first step :slight_smile:

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I have to agree with @mchay. When I write I try to write plenty but I think I write more or at least something more interesting based on the profile and if I can relate to them in some way or something like that

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The most understandable answer I can think of is that people don’t speak English very well.
Otherwise, some people just might think the postcard itself is more important than the message on it.
Sometimes when I read a person’s profile it becomes apparent that they sent the postcard like this for reasons such as these.
Of course, there might be other reasons, like people not caring too much about writing a lot. (One time I received a postcard with only a pre-prepared sticker with happy postcrossing on it where I got that impression.)
But generally, if people don’t write a lot it might also be because they want to put a postcard full of stamps or decorations.
For example, I’ve received wonderful postcards with many stamps on them, but not a lot of text.
When I myself get a profile that doesn’t speak English, I’ll generally make a drawing on the postcard and use google translate to translate a short greeting to a language they speak. (I don’t trust google translate enough to translate a whole message.)

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I agree with the others above that it may be a language issue or maybe they don’t like writing in general. I figure if it says “Happy Postcrossing”, at least they tried. I’ve gotten postcards before where it was just my address, the postcard ID and nothing else, not even drawings, stickers, or other decorations.

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Who knows what goes on people’s head when they do that?! Probably tons of different reasons. Unless people who just write “Happy Postcrossing!” come here and answer the question, all we can do is guess.

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I recently received 3 blank cards in an envelope for an official card, with a few words on the envelope.

I thought, “well, that’s a bit odd”. When I registered it, the man explained that arthritis made it hard for him to write, but he still wanted to participate as he got rid of his existing inventory of cards.

I appreciated that he explained in his profile, and it helps me to understand that perhaps writing is painful for some people but they still want to connect.

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That’s interesting. I’ve never gotten an explanation for any of the blank cards I’ve gotten. Usually if people have a physical disability, what they’ve done is to type a message instead of handwriting it. But I guess typing or even putting on stickers might be difficult for some people, too.

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Here’s a topic where people suggest just writing Happy Postcrossing for a profile which the sender finds rather confrontational.

I’ve seen that topic. But if that becomes the norm, then one will wonder if a “Happy Postcrossing” means that the sender just doesn’t like your profile. Which is fine, I suppose. There are all sorts of different people in the world and I’m sure there are people who will immediately rub each other the wrong way no matter what.

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I almost added that I didn’t mean to imply that the OP of this thread received Happy Postcrossing messages for this reason. Just some interesting context for the bigger conversation.

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Some people also find it weird to write a lot on a card so maybe it didn’t occurr to them…
Like when postcards were a quick greeting from your holiday, I still wrote a lot but my mum says “back in her day” you’d just write a quick hello and that’s it (she saw me write a postcard to a postcrossing friend and she was like :no_mouth: at how I filled every space).

But yes, I get a bit ‘meh’ about cards which don’t say much but I try to think we are all different, if the card is nice and they are friendly enough even in a few words (I never got a ‘happy postcrossing’ alone, though I got things like ‘hello from X’. And that could also be they don’t speak a lot of English).

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Personally, I love to write and fill my postcards and my snail mails with paragraphs.

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When I joined (and sometimes still), I read often in profiles “please write also something else than Happy Postcrossing” and also read some threads that mentioned this. But, I’ve noticed it’s not at all so common as you think it might be when reading the topics about this.

Out of my over 2400 received cards, I can say for sure, that one had only this text.
Might be more. But so few, I don’t remember.
Maybe it was more common in the beginning of Postcrossing?
Or, there is one or few profiles who bulk send and don’t write anything else, and when many of the receivers write about this, it seems like there are more this type senders.

Also, all the above mentioned reasons.

I have written only once that, but then I write it “prettily”, it was to a person who’s other profile I got earlier, and she didn’t like anything about me :laughing: so I didn’t want to write anything, but she liked that Happy Postcorssing card :slightly_smiling_face:.

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One never knows what struggles people might be having, especially in these pandemic times. If all they can manage is “Happy Postcrossing”, I take it as a smile from a stranger who wishes me well. It brightens my day and I move on.

Every card received is a little gift. :gift:

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Omg I received the same thing and can only assume from the same postcrosser!

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maybe sometimes they are not good with english, or they don’t enjoy/can’t write much but still enjoy the exchange feeling.

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In my experience it is often users from Asia or Russia who do just write Happy Postcrossing. I assume it might be a language problem?

Sometimes I get postcards written in the senders native language. Not sure if I like that better than just Happy Postcrossing

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Yes, writing a lot on cards is probably a recent phenomenon. The stereotypical greeting would be “Weather is beautiful, wish you were here” which of course led to “The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful”.

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