Amen! I thought I was the only one who preferred a good Bic pen. A Papermate Med. point is a good second choice, but the pen casing is thinner. I’m going to be using Papermate pens for a few years though (bought a case of them at CostCo), so I suspect they’ll become my favorite.
Fellow lefty checking in to say, “Me too!” I discovered those when I was in college and it seems like no matter what else I try, I always go back to those. The V7s are pretty good, too.
The only gel pen I’ve ever gotten to work for me is one I’m trying out now, the Pentel EnerGel needle tip. It does say that it’s liquid gel ink though. Does that make a difference?
Oh, and astro, I don’t know why but there really is a difference in using pens when you’re left-handed. There are a lot of pens I can’t use. Maybe it’s because we hold them slightly differently and pens are designed by right-handed people? It’s a cruel, cruel world for the left-handed person! 
Include me in among the fountain pen lovers. I’ve got two identical Parker pens that I love. I write a lot, and the smoothness of the ink means less writer’s cramp for me. Refills cost about three bucks for five cartridges that last for several months.
Robin
Pilot Dr. Grip Gel
Comes in great neon colors (blue is my favorite) and has and extra thick, easy to hold grip.
P.S. to people who have really nice, expensive pens with caps. Ann Landers, of all people, once gave a great tip how NOT to lose the pen when you let someone borrow it…hold the cap in your hand. Then, the borrower cannot “accidentally” put the pen in their pocket and walk away with it and you won’t forget you lent it to someone.
I love ink pens.
I bought the Sanford PhD pen at Wal-Mart not long ago. I was disappointed, as I thought I was getting something else.
As ballpoint pens go, though, it sounds like it’s just what you’re looking for. No smearing and it’s “light.” By light I mean the mark it makes isn’t as heavy as a Bic and you don’t have to press down as hard. Its tip, IIRC, is very fine. You can barely see the ball.
It’s kind of pricey for a pen, but refillable so you’ll have it forever provided nobody swipes it.
I’m a fountain pen user by preferance. Rotring has several that are about $20 and write beautifully.
I also love the gel pens. I kept breaking the clip off of the G2 so I started looking for other things. the Pentel Energel is a good choice. It’s a liquid-gel pen that doesn’t smear often and always writes well. I also like the direct ink porus point pens called “liquid espresso” or something like that. They write really well and don’t have any problems that I know of. Get the extra fine though, as the medium ones leak from the tip a bit and you get ink blots instead of words. :eek:
These have been my favorites for quite some time now.
Alas, I have yet to find a mechanical pencil that’s safe to carry around in my pocket. The tips always get smushed or bent or broken.
Isn’t it terrible? Even though I mirror-write instead of hook, I still push the pen enough that I can’t use the majority of gel pens they make. I’ve got a whole boxful of Milky pens that seemed like a good idea until I tried them and the ink wouldn’t come out at all at the angle I hold pens. Someone else Pensomethingorother makes cheaper medium point ones that I can use, but that’s it for gel pens 
Damn righty designers trying to still our pens…
You know that happy feeling you get when you’ve bought a pen and put it to paper the first time, and it flows oh-so-smoothly and you watch the ink do its thing and the writing is effortless and you know that you’ve picked out a good one?
We need to make up a word for that.
I for one am amazed at the sheer number of Dopers that have a favorite brand of pen.
Me? I’m a pencil man; unless there’s something that absolutely must be done in pen, or there are no pencils around. Brand of pencil doesn’t matter too much, so long as it’s solid wood and not that pressed fibery crap. But I do recall using a Zebra brand of pen and liking it.
Writing with a fountain pen solves that problem. No one wants to borrow my pens. 
Robin
As many have already stated, pushing on a tip makes a difference on anything that isn’t a traditional Bic style ballpoint pen (which is still a good pen and will withstand anything). They use to advertise the Bic by shooting it through a piece of wood and then writing with it. That was of course back when the entire top of the pen was brass (about 1966).
Rolling ball pens use a smaller ball and thinner ink. The pen I mentioned (Pilot V5 Extra Fine) writes more like a fountain pen then a ballpoint except the ink dries in less than a second. Most of the roller tip pens I’ve tried use flimsy material at the tip and the smaller ball gets smooshed into the pen, rendering it useless. I have thrown away almost every roller pen I’ve tried because of this. They write great for about an hour and then poof, they skip.
Many people like the gel pens because they lay down a lot of ink but I think this is something of a throwback to the days when ballpoints skipped. Or maybe people really like the bolder line. The Sanford Uniball 1.0 gel actually has a tip that is reminiscent of the Bic pens. Very large ball, different ink. It dries very fast.
I will reiterate my choice of the Pilot V5 because it has held up extremely well over time. It is the most skip free pen I’ve ever used. Strangely, the same version in red is not as good. Even stranger, Pilot makes a different red ink roller that works flawlessly (I only know it by sight). It has rounded ends instead of flat ends and I’ve never seen it packaged in bulk.
TellMeI’mNotCrazy, I’m with you. I stand in the pen isle and drool like Homer Simpson. If I don’t have my good pen and pencil at work then my day starts off on the wrong foot. Now if I could just get a real cup of coffee from a machine…
That, my friend, is the pipiest of all pipe dreams. Glad I’m not alone in my penophilia though.
:eek: One letter off from a really bad existing -philia. Let’s go with something like scribophilia…
Oh and when it comes to pencils, it must be a Dixon-Ticonderoga. Or those black barreled ones… Blackfoot? I can’t remember now. But Ticonderoga is by far my favorite. I just bought myself a Ticonderoga mechanical pencil; I absolutely love it, and I’ve yet to break the tip, which for me with mechanical pencils, is rare.
I was really disappointed in a Waterman fountain pen and always thought Sheaffers were okay but I fell in love with the Lamy pen I got in Germany. It’s a special edition called the flame that doesn’t appear in the website, bright orange with a red clip and fine point. The blue ink tends to run and bleed a little but when I replaced it with a black cartridge I found that worked much better. Just the right amount of friction.
Wistfully recalling the screaming display of American technological superiority for 19¢: Crystal Bic pens. The ads shot them from rifles, tied them to the shoes of flamenco dancers, and they continued to write! The Everready bunny had squat on them.
Ordinary work is fine with a ball-point, but Cross refills are smoother, IMHO.
Never used a MontBlanc, yet a fountain pen is the way to go for serious writing-I have a Cross and a Parker.
Long, long ago, shortly after the dinosaurs had disappeared and were replaced with office supply salesmen, we had to think about what we wrote, prior to putting pen to paper. Gad, I feel like Willy Loman.
DePENds on the purpose (I’m sure **Marley23 **will jump on me for that capitalization).
If you are writing checks, use a gel pen. The ink isn’t washed out with nail polish remover, and the check is subsequently more difficult to re-write with a different name and amount.
(See “Catch me if you Can”)
<Trashcan Man> Cibola!!! </Trashcan Man>