Guidelines
Community Guidelines
Our Promise
Dear Stranger exists as a sacred space for honesty, vulnerability, and human connection. These guidelines exist to keep it safe, respectful, and meaningful for everyone.
When you participate, you’re entering into an unspoken agreement with another human being—someone who is being brave enough to share their truth with you. We hold that bravery gently.
What This Space Is For
Dear Stranger is a place to:
✓ Share what you’ve been holding inside
The truths you don’t say out loud. The feelings you carry alone. The moments that haunt you. The things you’ve never told anyone.
✓ Be vulnerable without fear of judgment
Anonymity creates safety. Use that safety to be honest in ways you can’t be elsewhere.
✓ Connect through shared humanity
Even if you’ll never meet your pen pal, you’re connecting through the universal experience of being human—messy, complex, and searching for understanding.
✓ Witness another person’s truth
When you receive a letter, you’re being trusted with someone’s private world. Hold it with care.
✓ Practice emotional honesty
This is a space to feel, to question, to wonder, to grieve, to hope, to confess, to dream.
What This Space Is Not
Dear Stranger is not:
✗ Therapy or crisis intervention
While writing can be therapeutic, this is not a substitute for professional mental health support. If you’re in crisis, please contact a helpline or mental health professional.
✗ A place to give unsolicited advice
Letters should be about your own experience, not telling others what to do or how to fix their problems.
✗ A debate or argument platform
This isn’t a place to persuade, debate, or prove a point. It’s a place for personal truth, not universal claims.
✗ A dating or networking service
All exchanges are anonymous and one-time only. This is not about making connections for romance, business, or friendship outside the exchange.
✗ A promotional platform
No advertising, selling, or promoting products, services, or personal brands.
Letter Guidelines
What Makes a Good Letter
Letters should be:
Personal and honest
Write from your own experience. Share your truth, your feelings, your story.
Vulnerable
Take emotional risks. Say the things you don’t normally say. This is the place for it.
Respectful
Even when sharing difficult truths, write with respect for yourself and the stranger who will read your words.
Appropriate
While we welcome honesty about difficult topics (trauma, grief, mental health struggles), avoid graphic descriptions of violence, explicit sexual content, or anything that could be deeply triggering without context.
Standalone
Your letter should be complete on its own. Your pen pal has no context about you, and that’s intentional.
What’s Not Allowed
Letters will not be exchanged if they contain:
✗ Hate speech or discrimination
No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or any form of bigotry or hatred toward any group of people.
✗ Harassment or threats
No targeting, threatening, or intent to harm anyone (yourself or others).
✗ Graphic violence or explicit content
No detailed descriptions of violence, abuse, or explicit sexual content. You can write about difficult experiences, but avoid graphic detail that could be harmful to readers.
✗ Identifying information
Don’t include your full name, specific location details, workplace, social media handles, or anything that could identify you. Protect your anonymity and others’.
✗ Solicitation or promotion
No selling, advertising, recruiting, or promoting anything—businesses, causes, social media accounts, etc.
✗ Spam or nonsense
Letters should be genuine attempts at honest expression, not jokes, tests, or random content.
✗ Content that breaks the law
No illegal activity, plans to harm, or anything that violates laws.
Content We Handle With Care
Some topics are welcome but require thoughtful handling:
Trauma & Abuse
You can share experiences of trauma, abuse, grief, and loss. This is often exactly what people need to express. However:
Avoid graphic, explicit descriptions of violence or abuse
Focus on your emotional experience rather than detailed accounts of events
Remember that your pen pal didn’t consent to encountering detailed trauma narratives
Sexuality & Relationships
You can write about desire, longing, heartbreak, intimacy, and complex feelings about relationships and sexuality. However:
Keep it personal and emotional, not explicit or graphic
No sexual content that objectifies or degrades
When in doubt, ask yourself: “Would this letter feel like a gift to receive, or a burden?”
Privacy & Anonymity
Protecting Your Identity
Do not include:
Your full name or nickname
Specific workplace, school, or organization names
Detailed location information (street addresses, small town names)
Social media handles or contact information
Photos or identifying details about your appearance
Unique identifying information (very specific situations that someone could trace)
You can include:
General location (country, region, “a city in the South”)
General age range or life stage
General job category (teacher, artist, office worker)
First name only if you choose (though full anonymity is recommended)
Respecting Others’ Privacy
Do not write about:
Specific, identifiable people in your life (use general descriptions: “my mother,” “a friend,” “someone I loved”)
Private information about others
Details that could identify someone else
If you must reference someone, change identifying details or keep descriptions general.
Receiving Letters
Reading With Compassion
When you receive your pen pal’s letter:
Remember:
This person trusted you with their truth
They were brave enough to be vulnerable with a stranger
You don’t need to agree, relate, or respond—just witness
Every letter is valid, even if the experience is foreign to you
If the letter is difficult to read:
Take breaks if needed
You’re not required to relate to it, just to respect it
If it violates guidelines, let me know
If the letter moves you:
Sit with it. Let it affect you. That’s the point.
You can’t respond directly, but you can hold what you read
Enforcement
I review all submissions before matching. Letters that violate these guidelines won’t be exchanged, and I’ll reach out to explain why.
If you receive a letter that violates guidelines: Please contact me immediately. I take this seriously and will address it.
If you repeatedly submit inappropriate content: I reserve the right to remove you from the exchange. This space must remain safe for everyone.
The Spirit of These Guidelines
These aren’t rules for rules’ sake. They exist to protect what makes Dear Stranger special: the ability to be radically honest in a world that rarely allows it.
Be brave. Be vulnerable. Be kind—to yourself and the stranger who will read your words.
Write the letters you need to write. Trust that they’ll reach someone who needs to read them.
With love,
Dakkota