I just got a card registred after 210 days. This card was for a teenager who only logged every 2 months.
He sent me nice and long thank you message.
I try to always send the most appropriate card with a long and friendly message. And then 
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I’m sending it anyway. And suddenly, this person just hasn’t reserved anything for long time and doesn’t come in because of this…
I pull an address and send love out into the world. No telling what will happen to it. I do look at their bio and I try to send something I think they’d like to receive. I’ve never looked at their activity level; not sure how I’d even go about it if I wanted to. What is important to me is that I sent the love. Maybe that card brings a less active person back into postcrossing!
At its core, this hobby is about sending love to strangers. Some people may receive the card but still not get the message. Some people may never receive the card. Some people may receive the card, get the message and then walk outside and get hit by a bus before they had a chance to register it. Who knows! I could speculate about what happens to the cards I send ad infinitum, but to what end?
What makes this hobby special and important to me is two things: the randomness of it, and the opportunity to give some stranger a little joy. Once I hand that card off to a postal clerk or drop it in a mail box, it isn’t mine anymore. That is what it means to give a gift. It now belongs to a capricious universe that will do as it pleases with the card. Maybe, just maybe, some person in Lima or Kampala or Taipei or St. Petersburg or Reykjavic or Pompeii, or even just down the road apiece in Philadelphia will actually receive it. Maybe, just maybe, it will bring them a smile. And if it does, what an amazing miracle is that ?!!!? A person hundreds or thousands of miles away, across oceans and mountain ranges, on another continent, got a little joy in their day! My silly little piece of cardboard somehow managed to get to them! Think about that for a moment. Nothing short of miraculous really.
So I keep sending cards to strangers. Inactive strangers. Active strangers. Small strangers. Large strangers. Strangers who can’t read the language that I write in. Strangers who have bombs falling on them. Strangers of all genders, of all races, of all levels of ability. Because in the end, they are not so strange. They are human, just like me. And when I go out in the pouring cold rain to the end of the driveway and grab the mail out of the box, maybe, just maybe, some other human, who really isn’t so very different from me will have sent me some hope, some love, a ray of sunshine in the cold, cold rain.
Two days ago I got my first card from the Bahamas. It was sent on May 30th 2021, over a year ago so I couldn’t register it. But the effort of that postcrosser was not in vain. I was absolutely delighted to receive it, grinning ear-to-ear. That made my day! And they were delighted to hear that I’d gotten it. We made a connection just for a moment, this stranger on an island in an ocean almost a thousand miles away. How cool is that?!?
That’s how I feel about it.
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Many months ago, I sent a postcard to China. This user had not registered cards in a long time. My card kept travelling for months and the user had been inactive ever since I sent the card. But, she registered the card once it was received.
Since then I stopped thinking about if a member is active or inactive. Just send a card and forget about it. Expect very rare cases, the user will register your cards even if they are not very active.
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Considering the prices have increased on everything, maybe that is a reason?
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What a beautiful way to look at it.
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That is very thoughtful. Especially to take a 2nd look. I’m sure the recipient will enjoy your card very much.
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I draw an address and send a card because I love to receive them hope to receive one in return . We don’t know why people do not send on a regular basis ,
I have been unable to send lately because I’m recovering from surgery to remove Cancer and post crossing isn’t my priority just now. Please don’t give up on people .
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Me too
For some reason this thread keeps popping up in my head. I have a lot of expired cards. I also send cards that i suspect will never get registered, like the one I sent 52 days ago…
Look at the “Hurray” message I got yesterday:
Hurray message removed by moderator
please don’t make it public - it is only for your personal use
I love this hobby!
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I just sent a card to Kyiv the other day! Will be very patient about it! Thanks!
This is why I was just in this profile and I didnt send the 5 cards many years ago
I lost my job, and then I had no money to go to the post office which was too far away and send them
It takes courage to be honest and admit this in front of the community who is so respectful and thoughtful here
This is why I stopped participating afterwards
Because I didn’t like this part of myself then
Only this year I decided to take part in again
Now that I can and never ask for 5 invitations if the postal service is not near
Now it is 
Well, yes.this is true. And thank you for being so considerate to respond like that
I am sure now, I am an example to avoid.
But now I am eager enough to send everything I love and make people smile
Thanks for the response Sir Lovise!
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So, it might teaches us not to wait for promises of reciprocation in life,right?
May you be blessed
Cordially,
Anna
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I sent a card 112 days ago to a PXer in the “top five” of Postcrossing countries, ( which has a good postal service). They had sent one card, received none , had not been seen on the site for three weeks and had no profile. When I sent them a card, I had no hope that it would be registered. They have logged into their site a couple of times since, and their stats remain at one card sent, none received. I am not inclined to send them another card.
It’s only a guess but I sometimes wonder if people join this project just so that they can experience sending a card abroad for the first time and once they have crossed it off their bucket list they forget about all other aspects of Postcrossing - that is if they ever read the guidelines in the first place.
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Where can you see if a member is inactive?
You can’t. A sender can only infer that from last log-in and/or activity.
Ok so I think I am a bit confused when other members say that someone is inactive. Is it an assumption after say, 30 days of no log in? I
have several cards expired and not seen for months.
And someone said the system does not give addresses of inactive members but of my
Expired cards, when I drew them it had been months on their profile then.
I think there are two meanings of inactive here. One being when a member specifically sets their account to inactive status; those are the ones that are not given out by the system. That term is also used for people who have not logged in for a very long time, at least a month usually.
It is, indeed, discouraging to imagine someone tossing a received card as junk mail.
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Thanks, I even messaged one user as it was sent to Belgium and has been out for over 100 days , but she did not answer. The others are Taiwan and Russia and Italy which I know from experience can take longer so oh well. I just don’t draw officials much anymore because this past year has been way too many expired cards for me.
Do you mean many of your addresses when you drew them were last seen months ago?
I don’t think this should happen (and I either understood your message wrong or something else is wrong and you should contact Postcrossing team about it).
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