I love gel pens. They write smoothly on all sorts of paper, and they don’t bleed as badly as markers. They come in many brilliant colours, some of which literally shine. Best of all, they don’t hurt my hands to use.
However, is it too much to ask that they last for more than twenty pages of writing?
A typical gel pen costs around $2. You can get several ballpoint pens for that price, and they last forever (or, at least, until they disappear beneath furniture, as often seems to happen with me). With a gel pen, however, you can almost watch the ink draining out as you work. Refills are not easy to buy, and they cost almost as much as the pen itself. As a result, I’m sure that many empty gel pens get tossed away, adding to our landfill problems.
I want a pen that I feel comfortable using, that I’m not afraid to lose, that writes for pages on end, and whose ink refills are easy to find and use.
Am I asking for too much?