>>527883432
I understand why you would compare them, but it's a rather different experience. Chatting online is a very fast experience, while penpal was way slower. You also had a limited amount of things you could say and you had to make them count. The anticipation of recieving an answer also led to the feelings simmer and the time and effort commitment meant that if things started going the in the right direction you WANTED things to go right as a payoff. And the limited knowledge due to the medium also meant that a lot of blank space filled with your own ideas that usually meant a more ideal scenario in your head building up over time