Thank you! It helped me a lot 
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Oh thank you! I got it! Thank you for your help
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This is such good advice! I always worry about taking too long, but sometimes the wait is part of the charm of hand-written letters!
(Although occasionally my penpal will decide sheās waited long enough and just send a second letterā¦ which inevitably arrives just after Iāve mailed mine 
)
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Removed due to privacy
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Regarding official postcards, as long as you send them, thatās enough. If you can send them in a time frame that allows itās arrival within the 60 days threshold, better for you.
As for penpals, they are supposed to become friends in time, you have a regular communication with them and you can tell them when are you busier and when you have more spare time. Most people will understand, for almost everybody has a life.
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Glueing a picture on a cardboard is perfect for https://community.postcrossing.com/t/handmade-postcard-tag-simple-easy-fun/7561
or āfast and easyā -group in the Handmade RR. And it is just a step away from making collages, sticker bombing, washi tape art, stamp art and stamping art. (All but stamping you can do by glueing things on a cardstock 
). There are a lot of possibilities out there!
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And if you use pictures you cut out of advertisement or if you want to recycle an old postcard or somehing else, you can send them in the 
Environmentally Friendly Tag, too. 
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I wouldnt call it stress exactlyā¦but I get a bit anxious when a draw an official and realize I have nothing even close to a wish. I have hundreds of cards on hand, but nothing in anime, fantasy, unicorns, blue cats, fairies etc. I go through my cards over and over again until I just give up and pick a map card or bird or whatever (this actually just happened). I love finding a card thats a good match and challenge myself, but somedays I get frustrated & disappointed. Fortunately I will have just what the next draw is wanting!!! It all evens out.
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I experienced a huge stress in February when I got an emotional and aggressive political personal message from unknown person here. It happened exactly the day I knew my cousin died, so it was a double stress. Before, I used to think this was a safe community to be in, but since then I made a decision to stop postcrossing. As I have a few notebooks travelling, I have to keep an eye on it, but each time I open personal messages on this forum, itās a stress for me.
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I believe you can flag a post even in personal messages in the forum and let the moderator check it out if you feel thatās inappropriate like bully
Feels bad for what happened to you, I felt like postcrossing is kind of āsafeā place in crazy online world but ehā¦ I guess I was too naĆÆve lol
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Short of refusing to register your card, what are they going to do? Send a message along the lines that it was disappointing? I sent what I considered the closest I could manage to someone with several specific requests, getting back a very nice Hurray message.
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So sorry to hear that. Still I hope you stay!
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Sorry to hear you have had a bad experience at such a tough time. Can you block people from sending you messages? I hope that some time here as you check on notebooks etc helps you feel safe and happy again, it would be a shame for anyone to stop you doing something you have enjoyed.
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I know what you mean. I sometimes get messages like āPlease register my postcard, itās been X days and you havenāt registered itā but I didnāt get their postcard yet (it takes a while to get mail from non-EU countries). I used to stress about it but not anymore. I donāt even bother replying, I register it when I get it, send a thank you message and forget about it. This is not a job with deadlines, if someone doesnāt understand that then itās their problem. Try not to worry too much 
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I strongly dislike overly āpickyā profiles, too. I like wishlists in general, because itās fun for me to choose a card that the receiver might enjoy, but the fun quickly vanishes if a person only lists very specific (and often expensive) types / brands of cards, even if I might have such a card on hand. To me, Postcrossing is about the joy of sending and receiving postcards and not about filling the gaps in someoneās huge postcard collection.
Completely empty profiles used to stress me, when I first started Postcrossing. Now I just send either a tourist or a random card, because clearly thatās what the person wants. I once made the mistake of politely asking such a person if they could add a few wishes or something like āI like surprisesā to their profile, to make it easier to choose a card for them (I was still new to Postcrossing then) and received a very rude answer that they did not care about making life easier for other people, so I never did that again.
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I also hope you stayā¦
If you leave , ā theyā win.
But if you stay there is a chance to send and receive kindness and goodness.
I wish you strength in your loss and all the best for the future!
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Iām very sorry to hear about that. Iām afraid that especially German members tend to do that and Iām deeply sorry about that. There really is no excuse for such rudeness and I sincerely hope that you will be able to enjoy Postcrossing again in the future.
In case anyone has wondered why (some) Germans tend to do such things:
Apart from rude / mean people who simply use the opportunity (who exist everywhere), many Germans believe that our terrible crimes against humanity in the past would not have happened if people had been less ignorant about the crimes the Nazis commited. Then, people would have stood up together, would have overthrown the Nazis and no further harm would have been done. Thatās why they think it to be their duty to āinformā Russians about what is going on, even though Postcrossers are probably the least likely group to be in the dark.
The reasoning mentioned above is obviously faulty. For example, it completely overlooks the fact that many people truly adored the Nazis and simply would not have believed any negative information about them. Others knew full well what was happening and believed that it was the right thing to do. Also, only few people are likely to stand up for their beliefs if they may get hurt or killed in the process. (You can surely find additional reasons why this line of reasoning above is false.)
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I also wanted to find the perfect card for each member and ended up with a supply of thousands of unwritten cardsā¦ 
(The picture doesnāt show allā¦)
And there are still profiles I donāt have a matching card to send to!! 
So if Iām allowed to give you a piece of advice: If you donāt have the perfect card, you should send whatever you have. Always keep in mind that Postcrossing is about connecting, not collecting. If people have narrow wishes, they might get surprised with something else!
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Was not really looking for any advice, just saying that I find joy in matching a card to a wish. Iāve been in PC 12 years (longer than some and thru all the fads: maps, Nouvelles, and now the new stuff that all has to be special ordered) and I send what I have. However folks with super narrow wishlists could be advised to open them up just a bit.
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Removed due to privacy
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