One of the more unique aspects of the stationery hobby, and especially being a part of the online stationery community, is how much you get to see other people’s handwriting. With most things now done on computers, your average person probably doesn’t see much of other people’s writing, whereas a quick scroll through my Instagram feed will show me hundreds of examples. 

And I genuinely think that’s a lovely aspect of the hobby: handwriting is such a fascinatingly unique thing, and that’s before you even start looking at all the pretty inks and fancy nibs people are using. 

However, as with anything you see on the internet, there can be an urge to compare yourself against others, which, for me, has given rise to a peculiar feeling of envy around other people’s handwriting. Which yes, I am aware is ridiculous! 

It isn’t even that I hate my own handwriting. In general I think my handwriting is pretty legible (probably because it’s massive!), but I certainly don’t think it’s particularly aesthetically pleasing. It certainly isn’t lovely and dainty, or beautifully elaborate, like a lot of the handwriting I see online. I can make it look nicer by making an effort (you can see in the above picture the difference between me trying, and not trying!), but it still ultimately looks how it looks.

And I know that a lot of what people post online is probably not their regular writing. A lot of people will be posting photos of their most aesthetic notebook pages, with their best writing, or they are posting samples of their cursive writing or calligraphy practice. But as someone who can write with a calligraphy pen, and it still comes out just looking like my handwriting it does make me wish I could write like that too!

I have come more to terms recently with the fact that my handwriting is what it is. It isn’t the prettiest, but it is uniquely me. Plus I do think that writing with fountain pens has improved the neatness of my writing a lot, as it forces you to hold the pen differently, and the way it glides across the page makes everything smoother. But it did make me wonder if other people in the community ever felt the same.

So how do you feel about your handwriting? Have you ever experienced handwriting envy?