One of the most effective ways for your profile to stand out from the crowd is to write an appealing text in the free comment section. I often see comments such as “Hello. My name is ________.Please write me”. Chances are that this person will receive very few mails, because the viewer of this profile does not get any information about its writer other than his or her name. Even if this person does receive mail from somebody, she or he may not have much in common because neither of the two knows about anything on each other. So here is the tips for how to write an interesting comment:

Write about your hobbies and interests.

One of the greatest bases of a long-term friendship is common interests, whether it’s between friends that you meet or your pen pals. In other words, what would you write to someone whose interest is 100% different from yours? It is better that you let your potential pen pals know what you are interested in before they write you, since that way the following correspondence will be more smooth and enjoyable. Also, if you are a student, you can talk about your major, your favorite subjects and so on. You can also write about your occupation if you have already finished school. These topics are just a few of many common points that will connect you and your future pen pals.

Write about preferred country or area, if any.

Imagine that you are viewing the profiles of other people. Which profile would you feel like writing to more, someone who does not state anything about his or her preferred country, or someone who says “I am interested in making pen pals from ________(your country).”? Probably the second one. If you really have no preferernce about your country, you can write like “I’m looking for pen pals all over the world”, and more people will reply your mail because they know that anyone from any country can write to you.

Preferred gender and age.

Similar to the preferences above. In regard to the age, from my experience people are more likely to receive mails from somebody of similar age group than of different one, so on the other hand, write about your preference especially if you are looking for someone of different age group than yours.

If you are going to be pen pals with anybody who replies you, the following may not apply to you. However, chances are that you will receive mails from people that do not meet all of your preferences when you publish your preferences. For example, when I said in my profile that I was looking for only female pals, many men replied me. You don’t have to be pen pals with people you don’t really want to, and the ideal is that you’ll find someone whose background and interests 100% match your preferences. However, if you did not receive any mails from people of 100% match, how about writing back to people who meet all your “absolute preferences” but not “compromisable preferences”? For example, if you think that you absolutely want to correspond with a female (i.e. “absolute preferences”) but your wish to write to people of the same age group as yours is not as strong as your gender preference (i.e. “compromisable preferences”), you could start writing to a female person of a different age group. By not being too picky, you could perhaps establish close friendship, contrary to your first expectation. You could also be interested in countries or interests that you never thought about before by “lowering down” your preferences.

Here are some sample comments. The first example is about a person who wants to corresopond with anybody regardless of their age groups or countries. The second example is about someone who wants to have snail mail pals of specific criteria.

I am a male student from Japan who will turn 17 next month, looking for pen pals to share different cultures and lifestyles around the world. I like pop music, travelling to foreign countries, outdoors and so on. I will write to people of either sex and of any age groups. Answers guaranteed!

I am a 24-year-old female working for a computer company in Tokyo as a salesperson. I am looking for female pen friends all over the world, especially from Asian countries like China and Korea. In my free time I enjoy cooking, watching movies, playing piano and more. I prefer exchanging snail mails to e-mails, so please mail me and we can exchange our addresses after that.

Of course, you won’t have to follow exactly the same style as these examples; use your own words. By the way, the best way to learn about effective ways to write profiles is to look at the profiles written by others. What distinguishes profiles that you feel like replying from the ones that keeps you away? That’s how I learned about this subject.