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

Sometimes I write more or less because like some others have mentioned, I have arthritis. I know people don’t like typed messages (whether it’s letters, postcards, or much of anything because it is easy to turn that into a ‘form letter’ situation where everyone gets exactly the same). Depending on what’s going on in my life I may not have so much to say but I do try to at least fill the card with a message. Lately, I tell everyone I hope they are safe from covid and doing well in the pandemic, for example, and tell them about my day or something.

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only when it’s easy to tell that they’re the same printed message to everyone. i’ve received some typed messages where it didn’t even say my name or anything that could tell the message was personally meant for me. but i also remember a really nice typed message where the person explained they couldn’t write well for some reason and wrote some wonderful things.
i prefer personally typed messages over short or general messages.

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No! The number of cards to write does not make me reduce my text to “happy Postcrossing”. But I do not feel like writing very much, if I cannot really connect to the person, e. g. because she does not tell much about herself in her profile like other hobbies and interests, does not disclose her real name etc.

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This right here. It isn’t as much as the way is written (typed or handwritten), but more as what is written on it.

As for me, when it comes to random postcards from the website, I don’t really judge anymore. Now, after registering and have access to the profile, sometimes I am disappointed when realising that they do know english and that may actually receive interesting texts on the postcards because, well, they profile has kind of a personal touch. Then I’m like… “couldn’t you write the same to me that you apparently receive from other people?”. But all over the years I’ve been getting better at not spending much time worrying about it: I’ll just roll my eyes and think maybe there is something in their life or they just didn’t connect with me and go one with my life. :joy:

What still makes me a bit… irked, is on tags and RRs where the goal is to actually write a postcard without generic words. I mean… randomness on the website I try to understand because it was random and sometimes people are just different and do postcrossing differently. Now on those tags and RR where it’s explicitly said that it is fully written or a postcard pal or whatever… why did you even signed up for it? :roll_eyes:

I’m trying to be more inclusive and understanding in general. That takes a while and I might make mistakes in the process. But in these cases I’d rather they wouldn’t send such a generic postcard at all, because that’s not the point of it and that’s not why I (and other people) signed up for. :sweat_smile:

Fortunately it’s more the good experiences than these ones. It makes me feel tired when this happens but then I will just take a break, wash off the frustration and come back later. :smile:

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I never judge when I receive a card like this before reading the profile.
Some may not be that good in English and prefer to use their time in decorating, choosing a card and beautiful stamps instead of translating a long message.
Some may have disabilities, for some it may be just a habit and they can find it weird to write anything else.

However,

what really bugs me is receiving a card with two words or maybe max 2 sentences. Then I open the profile and read that they would want a card that has more than just a few words. I find thta ridicilous.
Other one is when I see that person can write English well but they have thousands of sent and received cards. In some of those cases I’ve realised they’re just card collectors without a deeper purpose of connection.
Often those profiles have a list of “don’t send me this” and often too a link to a collection to “avoid dublicates”.

It’s sad and some days I find it very frustrating but I just close the profile and move on. There are so many nicer people that make my day with their cards and I’m happy they are at least half of postcrossers, not a minority.

To add:

I often write my card full of something, whether it’s about me, my day, the card, or something they asked in their profile. Often when I write little is because:

  • The person said they can’t understand English well.
  • I couldn’t connect to the person at all, no personal profile text or none.
  • Even in those ^ cases I sometimes write more but sometimes I’m just unispired and prefer to move on to the next profile and spend more time on that text.
  • If the profile gave me a negative feeling I may not want to connect even if I “could.” In these cases I usually write about the card but sometimes there is not much to tell and my message is left short.

Those are just my main reasons why I do short messages. But I have never written just those two words “happy postcrossing”.

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That is impolite unless you mentioned to understand that language.

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Sometimes, threads like this (the topic returns regularly) and similar (like ‘short hurrays’) make me feel I’m taking postcrossing not serious enough.
Some of the postings sound like it’s not suffice to choose a nice card, write a few nice lines about whatever, user a nice stamp and send. No, now we have to establish a real meaningful sincere connection, only two centimeters below ‘will you be my best man/bridesmaid’. Anything lower than the most perfect card+stamp+/-decoration+text will be discussed here at length, and any fail and mistake borders an unforgivable insult.

Thankfully I am self-concious enough to know that my relaxed way to do postcrossing is just about right 95% of the time, and for the other 5% at least I tried.

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well to be fair it would be very cool if i got a card with this question.

i think you take postcrossing just the right amount of serious. sometimes i get a short or non-existing message and it’s slightly disappointing but i move on with my life and the next day i get a card with wonderful long message.

oh and i decorate all my cards because my 382 washitapes and stickersheets make me happy but not everyone appreciates that either. but it shows a bit of who i am and isn’t that what we like?

you’re right though, i do feel like there are more negative topics on this forum than positive ones.

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Yes, I think best attitude is to send cards I’m happy with, and accept that others sends cards they are happy with.

I have mostly no problems and this hobby makes me really happy :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
If someone complains about my card, it’s fine.
If I don’t like someone’s I might mention it (if it’s something the sender benefits of knowing, ilke sharing address).

Sometime ago another postcrosser “confessed” she is in registering block, because she didn’t know what to write and it would take so much time. I said just write thank you to all, so it’s over.
All these expectations, and good willing “be nice, doesn’t take long to write a few sentence” can lead to bad things, if someone wants to be nice, and think they’re seen rude if they write thank you.

Excactly!
I like that some are very decorated and love looking the tape images and stickers but I also like the very elegant look of “just” pen writing and stamp. It’s how they do their card writing.

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I love getting cards that are well written, even those with broken English, heck my English arent good either, but i really appreciate those who take time to write. I know some people from my country who join Px just to add to his/her collection. Somebody once even confessed that she purposefully slapped lots of stamps on her cards so she didnt hv to write anything other than addresses. She is one of the ‘big 10’ senders and an avid philatelist. I dont blame her for behaving like this but it kinda takes away the friendship and learning fun of Postcrossing. One pet peeve: I hate it when someone join Px just to collect postcards and resell them to collectors for postal history. But in general most of my incomings are from friendly people who genuinely love sending postcards and making friends, and thats why Im glad I joined Postcrossing :slight_smile:

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I haven’t managed to read all the answers here in this thread yet - I will slowly do so in the course of the next days. But for me, I usually write a medium message. The only exceptions where I will write “Happy Postcrossing” only is when the profile I’ve drawn is empty, and they’re received a lot of cards already (so not newbie). And other times, I am feeling unwell so “Happy Postcrossing” is all I can manage. I used to go long stretches without sending anything because of the pressure to write something witty and kind and long, when I wasn’t feeling witty, good, or chatty. It was a pity because it’s at those times when I need the cards to cheer me up the most. But if you don’t send, you don’t receive. So now if I don’t feel like writing much, I won’t. But mostly, I just reduce the number of cards I send and focus energy on writing one or two “good” cards only, instead of sending many cards without much substance. But this is just me.

If I receive a card that only says “Happy Postcrossing!”, that’s fine with me. That brevity will be reflected in my hurray message to them. If I receive a postcard with a lot written on it, that’s also fine with me. Sometimes, though, I find that many words written doesn’t necessarily mean that the message is particularly insightful either, or that I connect more to them emotionally. Each connection is different, is my point! I’d be equally happy to be sticker-bombed on a postcard with no words whatsoever.

TL;DR: I appreciate every card I get as much as is possible. :postcard:

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In my opinion that is exactly what Postcrossing is about!

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“One pet peeve: I hate it when someone join Px just to collect postcards and resell them to collectors for postal history.”

I agree goreng_rambutan, and that goes for people in it only for stamps. I try to ‘let it go’ but I don’t like spending a fair bit of money to send to people who don’t appreciate the ‘global friendship’ of the project.

That said, I don’t really get a lot of ‘Happy Postcrossing’ cards, I guess I am lucky. I like it if they even just write about the weather wherever they are…it’s hard to find common ground sometimes.

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Every person only gets one postcard from you so it is always a new message to them! Don’t worry at all.

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If I pull a short or empty profile or one that I just can’t seem to connect with, I will either talk about the city I live in or my pets. That fills space, gives me something to write about; what I have a harder time with on those profiles is selecting the card!

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I’m new here, but assume most folks quickly accrue a selection of cards (their “stash”). Wouldn’t the folks with little or nothing on a profile be candidates for what seem the more boring/plain cards in the eye of the sender?

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If they’re new, no. They probably just didn’t know about filling out a profile. I like to send newbies a special card in the hope it will encourage them to stay.

BUT, if the person has been around for a year or two, or has sent hundreds of postcards, yes, I send a postcard that I don’t like, that I’m keen to get rid of.

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I think some people don’t know English and don’t want to use translators. This is fully understandable to me.

If I get a blank card with only ID or “Happy Postcrossing” I always assume that this postcrosser can’t write in English. I prefer not to think that the sender was lazy, did not find anything interesting on my profile, or has an account only to collect postcards :wink:.

For the same reason, in the box for “thank you” when registering a postcard, I write briefly and in simple sentences.

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For profiles with minimal description or empty profiles, I also assume that this person does not know English well and is uncomfortable with using translator, so they prefer to leave the profile blank. In this case, I send any tourist postcard from Poland and write a short message. I assume that there is no point in writing more, because this person does not know the language well. I know that in many cases it is not true, but I prefer to have such an image of the addressee in my head than assume that they’re lazy :wink:. Oh, I also often use printed stamps than the “pretty” ones for these postcrossers.

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That’s a good way to look at it. I also use the profile to gauge how elaborate my postcard is going to be.

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