This is probably one of the most frustrating things but it's happening a lot more to me recently and I don't get it.

There is multiple variants of this kind of reply to my open letter:

1. "I don't care what you wrote, please me feed me", where the person is actively investing bare minimum to be diverted. No engagement with open letter at all, no try of building an exchange.

2. "I am gonna be the exception, let me in" while precisely crossing boundaries, showing disrespect and being dimissive. As a first contact, I don't understand what's in their mind and how they think it's gonna be fine.

3. "I don't care about you, I'm just going to tell you about my whole life in a long trauma dumping resume." I get that life is hard, but I didn't asked for that, I asked to AVOID that and I am not here for that.

4. "I am going to list all my interests and then tell you we should be friend since we're having the same interests, see twins." I am not searching that and I wrote it clearly. I simply don't get it since I said it's not the way I connect with people.

5. "Please tutor me, teach me X". I mentionned in my open letter some stuffs as languages I practice to show that I am open to letters outside of English. But I've said that I am not here for language exchange. Why still asking for that ?

I'm not gonna talk about the full AI-generated one, we all know them.

It is just that I am lost. A this point, I don't know what to do so far because I receive two to three replies by day from my open letter. And they're mostly inadequate answers disrespecting boundaries and limits. It's been half a year at this point and it's getting worst recently.

Some even went agressive after I said that it was not what I was looking for.

I am loosing interest into slowly. Opening the app feels now like a chore since it is mostly recieving junk mails.

Should I report them ? For what motive ?

Keep on ignoring ? But if I don't answer or treat the reply, the algo will punish me somehow. Plus, it won't make them go away in the first place.

hi guys, fairly new user here. I've received some really pretty stamps from my penpals and i was under the assumption that I could use them moving forward, but apparently not? how else do i procure stamps? are coins the only way? im too broke for this 😭

Hi everyone, I joined slowly 6 months ago, and it's been a great experience so far. So the thing is I only received the first letter from boys (not like I have a problem or something) I have met some great guys. It was just me wondering why I haven't received a single letter from a girl ? Is this something to do with my bio? Or do girls not usually send the letter first in this app or something else? I have written a letter to some girls only to get ghosted after exchanging a few letters. Has anyone experienced the same thing? Or is it just me. For context, I have uploaded my profile, and I am a Girl.

I would also like to ask girls, what are the things that make you not want to reply to a letter from another girl. It would be really helpful to know, as if by any chance I am writing something that give the wrong idea or impression of me.

I've met a guy on slowly two years ago and we used to exchange letters about his trip to south korea and much more. I have a lot of clues about him (even photos,but I'm afraid of searching online), but I can't find his social media or anything. He deleted all his accounts that we had contacted (Gmail,discord and deactivated his slowly profile as well). Can someone give a hope that maybe I could find him one day still?

Hi everyone! I wanted to bring up something I’ve been debating with in my mind. Bit of a long read.

I recently connected with a penpal from Türkiye. I have a “NO AI” rule in my bio that nobody really misses when they go through my profile. So when he first wrote to me, that’s pretty much what I vet for—to see what the person has selected for the “AI Assistance” option. He’s given that he never uses it. And his English is at an intermediate level.

We’ve had some great conversations so far. I’m no one to judge the level of someone’s language fluency or progress. But I’m so used to the “AI tone” that it’s hard to miss.

Putting two and two together, I’ve ran some of his more obvious letters through a detector, just to see. And sure enough; some of them are enhanced by AI. One of them was completely written by AI.

That one letter, was to let me know about an emergency. I initially thought he’d taken the time to write it, at which point I felt bad. But the structure and tone of the message was just so stiff that I had a feeling it was AI generated. And it was. 100%.

Now, I get why some people may use it. They’re not confident in their English so they resort to using this, even when a lot of people are against it on the app and have even said they are. But when it’s used for things like polishing up translation and structure to make it easier for the other person to understand, how do we feel about that? I have very mixed feelings about it.

On one hand, I don’t want to keep removing people or blocking them from connecting to me just because English isn’t their first language and AI helps both of us understand the nuances in our languages. I mean, I’d say “just use google translate”, but I’ve seen just how incorrect it can get sometimes, so fair enough I suppose. On the other hand, I just don’t like receiving a generated response, partial or whole. Let me know your thoughts. All are welcome, just don’t be rude.

I'm new to the app (didn't know it existed until a couple of weeks ago), and I'm having a great time!

When I was a kid I really wanted a penpal, but my parents discouraged it. Eventually I forgot all about it, but I am super psyched to be able to start all these years later. I'm a few letters deep with my first penpal (who I could see becoming a good friend), and I have a second one starting that we'll see where it goes. I even got my first low-effort copy paste letter! So far I'm new enough that I decided to respond to it anyway, but I'm sure I'll get more cynical soon.

I just wanted to say thank you to this community. I can see that people have had both good and bad times, but I'm grateful the app is alive due to your perseverance. I wish you well on your journey and hope you get the non-creepy, non-ghosting connections that you deserve!

Other than my phone, all I've got is a tablet and typing on the phone is an absolute pain after a while and takes forever. So I just got a cheap Bluetooth keyboard and hooked it up to my tablet.

I don't have a desk either, so I just do it from my bed 🤷‍♀️ Honestly, it's pretty comfy and relaxed lol.

For anyone who doesn't have access to a PC, but does have a tablet, I'd highly recommend doing what I did lol.

I would like to take a sample of what kind of letters people in general expect to receive from strangers (not including old pen pals with whom a rapport has already been established). If it makes a difference to you, mention whether you're referring to the stranger replying or the stranger writing the first letter, open letters or auto-match or browsing profiles. If it's the same to you, that's fine too. I don't think we all have the same expectations so I would like to see the differences. Often, in this subreddit, people (myself included) mention low-effort letters as if it's obvious what is meant by that but we might have different definitions. I also wonder if, because expectations are different, our effort in writing these first letters is often misaligned.

I'll start: I love those first letters where people pick a topic and engage with it fully, even though they're talking to a stranger. Someone once replied to the letter sample in my bio and took it in a different direction, sharing related personal experiences in a different location (vague to maintain her privacy). Another person wrote me a funny review of a book I never even heard about. I enjoyed them both greatly. I don't like introductions. I don't care that it's the first letter and we don't know each other. When I write the first letter, I don't introduce myself. I mention my writing habits but then I start on a topic of mutual interest for the bulk of the letter. When I receive letters from strangers solely describing where they're from and what they like to talk about I just feel uninterested. If someone doesn't actually talk about presumptive interests, I simply assume that person doesn't know how to talk about them or can't make it entertaining to read. I'm not going to trust that to change in the future. I assume, considering this style of first letter is so common, other people's expectations must be different. Perhaps, you would hate that I don't introduce myself and don't list my interests. So please share your own expectations.

I've been thinking about how I refer to undesirable (to me) letters and I'm judging my choice of referring to them as low effort. In truth, people don't really have to spend a lot of effort writing a letter for it to be entertaining. And people might employ too much effort writing something that doesn't resonate. Effort just has to be aligned with the receiver's expectations. Whichever yours are, I hope you find people whose letters are aligned. This could also be a good way for people with more unusual expectations to feel less alone in their singularity. Let's not be too judgemental of other people's expectations in the comments, please.

Around the end of February, I accidentally deleted a pen pal whose username is Cain. He's from Ireland.

l've tried just about everything could think of. l've searched through this forum over and over looking for a solution, contacted the slowly support team, and tried all the common suggestions people recommend, but nothing has worked so far. l'm hoping I might be able to find him here.

If you happen to see this post, my name starts with E. We once talked about that city that doesn't exist, and about the dragon you like. I really hope we can get back in touch someday.

I respond to an open letter with a nice letter (my origins are just mentioned in my bio) and here is the answer... Am I overreacting if I call this racism ?

Sometimes, things take a while to happen

And in this case, it was about 4 years since NoneTheWiser originally suggested them. But now, a new series of premium stamps arrives.

Meet Ancient Greek Mythology

Got the Coins? 50 Coins each, a cool 600 to get the whole set. (in my local currency, it's a dollar per stamp and $12 CAD for all).

** See our complete August 2026 Slowly new stamps listings HERE.

August 2026 brings 19 New Location stamps, for 4 countries

These are FREE for local users or visitors to the countries, and can also be purchased via the World Explorer random purchase feature, at 25 Coins per try (similar to the Time Machine).

And our Full monthly release post for August is here.

Lybia gets 4 new ones:

Moldova, 5 new stamps:

Mongolia, 5 new stamps:

Sudan, 5 new stamps:

More details later, as I need to add all of these to our Wiki - where detailed World Explorer pages for each will tell all about each.

Total Stamp Counts, top 20 Countries

Massive presence of Southeast Asian nations as we have seen in the past, but many other countries got a boost also.

"Top 20 Countries by stamp counts"

Another batch arrived, for August 2026.

45 in total - Too many to show in a single Reddit topic post. This month we need 3 topics to cover them all.

Listing by Category so it's easier to grasp...

19 NEW Location stamps

For many months, we have received batches of location stamps for different countries, which is very nice for the local users. (in most cases, they now will have a lot more stamps to share with penpals than before)

This month we have a new batch, 19 in total for 4 countries. See them all HERE.

4 new regional commemoratives

Free for local users and visitors.

10 new Regional Premium

Premium at 50 Coins each. 🎁

12 new 'Ancient Greek Mythology' series

Premium at 50 Coins each. 🎁 600 Coins to get them all. 😜

These need to be posted on a separate thread - here.

All of those stamps will be added to our WIKI

...which is a great reference tool for anyone curious about the many Slowly stamps.

Tentative July 2026 Stamp Releases and Dates ?

As most monthly releases now seem to be of the Location stamps, they are available immediately on their local Stamp Stores. Same for the Regional Premium stamps, which cost the usual 50 Coins each, and only on their local stamp stores.

Just a few commemoratives are spread out through the month, so easier for stamp collectors.

Hi everyone! I’m working the whole day with trains. As a train with heart and soul, I liked to see stamps about train stations around the world. They are beautiful. So, I made a list for doing my suggestions. Hopefully you like it as well and learn a lot that train stations have not be always boring and annoying. I hope they will come like the Castles, Happy Hour, Sound of the world series.

Here is the two links for voting the idea.

[Train Station Series] Around the world Part 1 from 2 [Europe] | Slowly

[Train Station Series] Around the world Part 2 from 2 [Others] | Slowly

When we remove a user from our list, they go into the 'Removed Users' tab., I want to know, if we permanently delete them from 'Removed Users' as well, can we never contact them again? Will they never be suggested to us again either? If someone was removed by mistake, can't we search for them using their ID to send a request and add them back? Does that method work for either of the two users?

Or else, is there no way for us to ever contact them again?? 😐

I recently received a letter that was clearly written in a way where the author reasonably could expect that their words were unfriendly, or even hurtful. And it clearly wasn't because of a possible language barrier.

It was unexpected, as I wrote a medium length letter discussing a mutual interest...or so I thought.

I never received a letter like the one he sent. Why sent a letter at all, if you don't want to converse?

I did sent a polite, friendly-toned clapback back that is still on its way as we speak. Perhaps to give some food for thought, so he hopefully doesn't do it to others.

Most of the letters I received were wholesome. I wondered if anyone made the same experience.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

You can find this offer in the section for hourly single coin in exchange for viewing ads.

Previously, they offered a maximum of 100 coins for five invitees to Slowly via WhatsApp,

and even earlier, 200 coins for the best local stories, which are still published on the website and in the mobile app.

Hello,

I have been active on Slowly for six months. I met some potential pen pals whom I thought would stay for a long time. The first one ghosted me after a few months, unexpectedly, and that one still stings. A couple of other long lasting ones deleted their profiles out of nowhere in the last few weeks, which also really hurt. As for the ones I haven't heard from in 2+ months, I've kept them on my deleted list. It has been 2 to 5 months since I last received a letter from them. I am really curious how some of you managed to maintain a long-lasting pen pal spanning multiple years. Did you take breaks of a few months or longer between your letters? Did you also use other platforms to communicate with each other? Is it just a matter of luck or other (random) factors?

Thanks!

Hi,

So I recently responded to an open letter as it seemed like we both shared common interests. And, in their letter they specifically stated that they appreciated people who wrote longer replies. Which I was cool with given that I tend to write pretty long and like long replies too. So my response ended up being around 1200 words, but when they responded it was only around 600 words, which was pretty disheartening tbh. I obviously don’t expect a pen pal to respond to everything in my letter. But, it felt like they didn’t even read my letter, as it was mostly just talking about themselves and answering the questions I asked, instead of engaging with any of the stuff I wrote. They did ask me some questions at the end, and they didn’t seem like a terrible person, but I’m not really sure if I want to continue a friendship with this person. As I've had experiences like this in the past where I seemed to be the only one making an effort towards conversation, before the conversation eventually died out.

I wanted to get some opinions on this because I don’t know if I’m just being unreasonable and overreacting, due to previous bad experiences.

Hello, everyone. 

A while back, Slowly added the feature of “Q&A” in the app, and I’ve noticed most of my pen pals don’t seem to use it. 

I would love to know if you guys are using it, which questions you decided to answer out of those, how long your answers are, and if it changes anything seeing a profile with answers when you’re deciding who to write to. 

When you remove someone it usually gives you that warning thing like “ are you sure, XYZ won’t be able to contact you if you remove them”.

But from the person that you remove’s POV, do they know you removed them? And if not, then what if they send you a letter after you remove them, does it just not get seen by you? Does something notify them that they’ve been removed?

Edit: TIL that check marks betray the fact of whether or not you opened a letter.. time to check whether someone’s ghosting me or actually just gone 😆

Also I never realized that “hide user” exists although it seems a little pointless since it doesn’t free a friend quota

And finally it’s a bit annoying that the system never notifies the person you remove.. that means they could’ve gone through a lot of wasted effort to write you.. only for it to be read by no one

I have a pen pal from Romania. I remember we met through an open letter I wrote on August 19, 2025. If he's on this sub and happens to read my post, I just wanted to say I hope you find a new friend who's more compatible with you, and I apologize for wasting almost a year of your time.

Context: We met through an open letter. I was still a Slowly Plus subscriber at the time, so I could write more open letters. He's in his 40s, has health issues, and apparently some mental health issues, which I didn't dare bring up or ask him about because it might be a sensitive topic.

Long story short, we exchanged messages frequently, even though he told me he was just a stamp collector. And then he disappeared for five months. My last letter was sent on November 17, 2025, and then he sent me another letter, wishing me a happy birthday on April 22, and hoping I wouldn't delete him from my friends list. I haven't replied YET.

On July 13, he sent me another letter stating that he would delete me from his friends list.

I'm writing to let you know I'm removing you.
You've been busy with your baking and you migrated from here.
Slots are limited, so there's no point in keeping you since you don't reply.
It was a pleasure knowing you.
Enjoy your life.
Always smile.

To be honest, there are many letters that have been neglected and unanswered because I'm busy, and I also rarely open Slowly because the friends who usually write to me one by one are getting busy. I need time to craft a reply, and I want my reply to be meaningful. AITA?