I joined Slowly last month. I try to look for penpal by replying opening letter. Sigh, no one reply my email. However, for the incoming letter, I replied them and still keep in touch. So, I definitely keep replying to open letters. People come and go. I believe I will receive reply. Fate made me to see those letters, it must bring me to the right people.

I’ve been using Slowly for 6 months. I’m a bit of a *hikikomori* [social recluse], and I’ve had both good and bad experiences—you end up getting attached to people who, for one reason or another, eventually leave. Right now, I only talk to one person who became my friend; miraculously, we’ve been in touch for about 4 months, and we no longer use the app—we communicate through other social media platforms instead.

I met this Korean guy on Slowly, a pen-pal app where you exchange letters instead of chatting in real time.

He's older than me by eight years, and at first, our conversations were genuinely interesting. We talked about our countries, culture, politics, books, technology, music, games, and just random things about life.

He's quite knowledgeable, and I enjoyed reading his thoughts. He also seemed to appreciate mine. We would exchange long letters, recommend things to each other, and discuss topics that you don't normally get to talk about with random people.

Honestly, I thought I had found the kind of pen pal I was hoping for.

Eventually, our conversations became more personal. We talked about relationships, what makes people feel connected, and how you gradually discover someone's personality through letters.

I also shared that I've never been in a relationship and that I'm bisexual, although I'm mostly closeted. I wasn't trying to flirt or anything. I was just being honest about myself and wanted to know whether he was homophobic.

Then came his next letter.

He told me that he was married and had a family.

Okay, fair enough. I wasn't looking for a relationship with him anyway.

But then he said that because he was married, perhaps we could feel more reassured and have fewer restrictions or barriers between us.

He also mentioned the possibility of our feelings growing stronger.

And then he talked about his sex drive, mentioned how short human life is, and asked if we could exchange photos when we became curious about each other's appearance.

I was caught off guard.

I genuinely enjoyed talking to him, but suddenly I was wondering what kind of connection he was trying to establish with me.

I mean, this wasn't a dating app. I thought we were building a friendship through letters.

I understand that married people can have friends of the opposite sex. I have no problem with that.

But why introduce the possibility of stronger feelings and sexual undertones while presenting your marriage as a reason for having fewer barriers?

It made me uncomfortable, especially because I didn't even know him that well yet.

I started thinking about his wife and children, too. Would they be comfortable reading those letters?

Would I be comfortable knowing that I was becoming someone a married man turned to for a deeper kind of connection?

I told him that I liked our conversations and appreciated the intellectual connection we had, but I didn't want to become a married man's unrestricted emotional companion.

I also made it clear that even if I could potentially be interested in an older man, I had no intention of getting involved with someone who was married.

I ended my letter by saying goodbye.

And that's where the our conversation ends.

I'm not sharing this because I think married people can't have close friendships, nor am I claiming to know exactly what he intended. Maybe he genuinely enjoyed our conversations and got carried away. Maybe he was curious about something more. I honestly can't know for sure.

What I do know is that I enjoyed the connection, but I wasn't comfortable with the direction it was taking.

Have you ever had a pen-pal friendship that started out genuinely interesting but eventually became something you weren't comfortable with? Or similar situation?

How would you have handled this situation?

Im not good with picking ai, so i kinda need help, for me it just sounds like im talking to chat gpt. I only started using this about a week ago but this just gives too much ai vibes. Is that a common issue with this app?

Also does this sound like ai or am I overthinking?

I wrote a letter to a woman whose profile said she moved to my country, so I asked her in my letter how she adjusting to moving and if she had made friends yet. I also asked her about what kind of art she does because she mentioned it in her bio. In response she wrote me a letter saying she finds my small talk boring and she sounded very angry.

I am wondering what she meant by not wanting small talk. I normally just try to get to know people at the beginning. Do people mean they want me to start talking about philosophy or about my interpretation of a historical event? What kind of things count as not small talk?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

I've been using the drawing feature a lot, but I'm only noticing this issue now.

I use the app in dark mode, so I make my drawings with colors that look good on a dark background. However, I recently noticed that when I switch to light mode or when my penpal views my drawings in light mode, the black and white colors get inverted.

It's pretty annoying because it changes how the drawings look and kind of ruins the original design.

Is there any way to prevent this from happening? Or is this just how the drawing feature works?

I (16) joined the app 4 days ago I have only one penpal but I’m kinda suspicious about the app it just makes me have a weird gut feeling but at the same time happy! Is the app safe and legit?

Hey guys!

I’ve been in Slowly for quite a while now. Now, I was deleting/ removing users who did not reply to my introductory letter and then I came across to my old friend’s profile.

We talked a lot on Slowly before then we exchanged social media accounts and that’s where we talked even more. Maybe some things happened and she just ghosted me. I moved on. Well, just now, I came across to her Slowly profile and poof! EVERYTHING IS GONE. Does somebody here know I this happened? Or how to do this? AFAIK, when you remove users or delete/deactivate your account, you still cannot automatically remove the letters sent & received. I am so confused right now how this happened. Can someone explain to me? Can someone teach me how to do this? I don’t wanna reach out and her how to do that lol

Hi all! I have recently (about two months ago?) joined slowly, in hopes of making meaningful connections and getting to know new people and cultures.

I have posted an open letter, put in a lot of thought and effort. In reply to my open letter I keep getting generic, often AI generated letters that make me feel like people haven’t read/or bothered to react to my letter in any meaningful sense. It’s not even big things—for example I describe my interests and some of my favorite books/films, then ask some questions. In the replies I’m getting, people ask me about my favorite books/films (which I’ve already described?) and answer none of my questions. It’s a bit of a bummer because I genuinely had thought if somebody replies to an open letter, they do so because they’ve resonated at least with bits of it.

hence the question: how do you reply to low effort, generic replies (if at all)?

Hello! I've recently gotten interested in connecting with new penpals from a few small countries, but I've noticed that most profiles are inactive.

As their send:received ratio was pretty reasonable, and as I couldn't see their "last online" field, I decided to send them a letter. Most of my letters, however, were left unopened. It's been a few weeks, and the situation hasn't changed, so this makes me believe that those accounts are inactive.

I was wondering if unopened letters can affect my send:received ratio, as it wouldn't be ideal to have it possibly altered due to this. I know I can always hide it, but you know, I'd like to maintain my 1:1 ratio.

I just found out about this, so wanted to share, maybe not everyone knows about this. You can just click "Switch" in your shop and select which country of your penpals you want to switch and then you can just buy any stamp, also works with the free exclusive stamps.

Okay so I removed a penpal from my list and also removed them from the Removed users list. Is it possible to find them again? Like, say, if i add them through Slowly ID, will all the letters come back? (That person apparently sent me a letter so) someone help me!!

Did anyone notice that Slowly has released only one location based stamp for Afghanistan? Although Afghanistan has a flag, Slowly has not released a flag stamp for the country..!! I suppose that is usually one of the first things they do..

Even North Korea has a flag stamp, despite there being no users from North Korea!! But there are users from Afghanistan, yet there is still no Afghan flag stamp. I wonder what the reason could be.... What do you guys think about it??

P.S. There may be other countries that don’t have a flag stamp either!!

I see that my letter hasn't been opened (no double check mark) and it's been 4 weeks since it arrived. If I delete the contact will my letter also disappear in their inbox?

My letter was a reply to an open letter, if that matters.

So i am a guy from india,so i rarely get a reply from people or get new letters,but after this open letter feature and give a try i start receiving tons of replies from my open it's so overwhelming and quite tiring to reply everyone 😅.

Appreciate that person who suggested this feature.

I just started sharing this new art features with every of my posts, what do you think of these feature? Do you like it if someone shares something similar with you? With every letter

I know it's mostly stamp exchange, but it was funny how I didn't have a full minute to be proud of myself before noticing the number 🤣

I'm definitely gonna attach one with every letter now!

Don't know what would be the right flair correct me if I should change it :)

I've been exchanging letters with someone from Lagos, Nigeria for a short while (like 3-4 letters each). The letters were a bit flirty from the very beginning BUT highly personalized to my open letter and profile.

They sent semi-long, thoughtful letters that were imperfect. I think it's highly unlikely that it's a chatbot or AI.

The reason I'm unsure is because they hinted about wanting to switch away from Slowly because they are probably going to delete it soon. This in combination with the rather flirty messaging style and the location (which happens to be a hub for romance scams).

They did not ask me out-right about changing apps but hinted at it. Their letter ratio is also a bit off with 100:65.

I just feel like SLOWLY would be strange plattform to try a romance scam due to the long letters. I just always assumed these kind of scams would be more bot-ish and faster plattforms. Not this personalized.

My question is if anyone had experiences like that or if I'm likely just talking to a person that just has a flirty tendencie and happens to want to leave the app.

I do not need advice if I should switch Apps. I will not switch. I just want to know if romance scams are a thing on this app.

I answer a open letter of a person and she dont answer for some weeks so i though she would not answer so i Just forgot about that. but then some weeks later she send me a letter saying Just this:

Hi, I'm really sorry, but this is my first and last letter to you.

good luck

Soo This made me feel kinda bad like, Maybe i Said someting terrible idk? but This letter made me feel like that being ghosted is better than goodbye letters sometimes 🫠

*Free for:
- Locals and visitors
- Plus members who have pen pals currently in Ukraine by switching to their local stamp store. Available only in the version 10.0 of the app.

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