Why You Should Try Fountain Pens

Thanksgiving last year one of my cousins held a dinner. Right before we went home, her brother gifted me a fountain pen. A Pilot Japan Metropolitan Fountain Pen, in “Retro Pop Gray”

I found out much later that this is the pen, a Pilot Metropolitan in “Retro Pop Gray”. It accepts ink cartridges and has what I would consider an almost-extra fine tip nib.

I ran out of ink in a little over a month. Because I didn’t know better and I wanted disposables like most of the other pens in my life (yes, not you G2, the others) I ordered some but when I got the “fine” tip disposables I found out that the engineering of the nib was not on level with the metropolitan. I should have expected this, but at least now I have fountain pens I’m not worried to lose, I can take them away from home (if I ever leave again lmao WFH amirite?).

So it turns out, the pens I grew up using my entire life, up until 28, pretty much suck in comparison in my opinion. Yes, you have to hold these in just one small area of angle or they don’t work. Yeah, maybe these use more ink. Maybe I have to improve my writing so that the cursive I’m almost forced to produce is more legible. Print is impossible unless the page is perfectly flat, and then I’m still used to coping with some give so I keep writing in the same broken cursive. So what? It’s fun! This computer is in my face just about every waking hour of the day and I found a reason to stop looking at it for a minute and write something down. I don’t care if it might be a waste of paper, I WIN! I win. I Win!

In fact, I’ve made pretty severe compromises to make this work. I now only write on the right side of the pages in notebooks and journals because the ink will surely bleed through at least enough to cast a shadow on the next page, if not dots. I’ve even lost some desk space to keep the pen caps upside down mounted in some blue tack so that I only have to reach for the pen in an un-snapped state so that I don’t dirty the nib or get ink on myself from opening or dropping the pen.

This is literally insane. I might as well be the guy advocating to go back from the slide rule to an abacus in a world selling calculators like hot cakes. Your notes should probably be in notion or some other app so that you cannot physically lose them. If you buy a pen, you probably shouldn’t buy one with so many damn flaws. But I just can’t help myself! I might never buy a ball point or other form of pen again unless I’m forced.

Try it; I dare you.