MY PEN PAL

“PEN PALS“ maybe a strange term for the younger generations who have been living almost day to day with instant messaging, chat rooms, and social networking sites. To them, pen pals seem to come from a by-gone age. What do you need a pen for when you can reach your friends, old, new or potential friends, by just a click of the mouse?

As the term suggests, pen pals are two people, usually from different places, originally strangers, who regularly exchange friendly letters, mostly handwritten, and pictures with corny dedications at the back. The relationship would reach a major turning point when one would eventually travel across the distance to finally meet the other. They may fall for each other, that is, when physical attraction overpowers the emotional attraction they may have intimated on scented stationery. Or like with any friendship in life, they remain pen pals for only a short time. They would get to the point in their lives where they have too many things to take care of.

Today, however, there is an Internet version of the same thing. It still has its original meaning of remote friends in different parts of the world who write to each other through e-mails or private messages on social networking sites. The “pen” now means the electronically written communication. There are also pen pal sites for many single males or females to meet their “pals” online and later set up dates for themselves.


Call me old-fashioned, but in spite of the domination of Facebook and Twitter in our social lives, I still prefer the more personal touch of letter writing. I believe that the real personality of a person comes through clearly through letters in his or her own penmanship.

Long ago when I was still young, I had my very first pen pal and this one would last for many years. I was third year in high school when I was asked by a cousin if I wanted one. Aileen had just come from a vacation at the house of an aunt in Santiago, Isabela. She met a girl of her age, our aunt’s neighbor, and they became close friends and exchanged letters after that. “You might want to have her as a friend,” I remember Aileen telling me. “And why not, you have more reason to visit Auntie Vita if you could have a friend there?” she added, noting my hesitation to accept her offer. I was too shy to write and I never had tried to write for a pen pal before.

I wrote Lani on the first month of my junior year in a high school in Narvacan, Ilocos Sur. I told her the usual thing for an introduction, something about me, my hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc. It was my very first bio, I should say. But I had to see to it that my letters were garnished with some highfalutin words I picked up from my Roget’s and some cute phrases that might impress her. I remember, I had a rich reference for friendly letters. Thanks to a box of old friendly letters that Auntie Vita gave me to burn some years before. I burned only a few of the letters in a compost pit, and I kept the ones that were sensible and better written and now these “missives”, as they love to use that word then, were very helpful as reference for romantic lines to a beginner like me.

I inserted in my letter a copy of my latest picture, possibly the best one that I got then. I mailed the letter and asked Aileen to write her friend just to back me up. And I waited with much anticipation of her reply.

I received her letter almost three weeks after (but that was relatively fast for a snail mail then). I also got her early bio and her picture wearing a school uniform. Aileen was right, she’s pretty with chinita eyes, very friendly, and could write very good English. That was our first exchange, and this was followed by exchanges that would last through my college days. Our friendship developed into one that we will both cherish forever.

Her letters were usually long, detailed and well thought out. I also spent countless hours drafting letters to her, baring my hearts and everything that I’ve got to say. I made the most of this opportunity to write to hone my skills in writing brief but interesting narratives, obviously autobiographical ones. This somewhat sparked a very intense and productive time of my writing life during my school days. We wrote to each other frequently from high school to college, and in great detail.

The length of my letters would depend on how much I have to say. But I made an effort that writing to her would not become a chore and end my letters uninteresting. I usually change my style to fill up pages, thus avoiding becoming a bore. Being active in extra-curricular activities in school, I have lots of stories to tell her.

I first met Lani in person in the summer vacation of 1991. It was my first visit to my aunt’s house in Isabela. And it was the one we both longed to happen. I was already staying at my aunt’s house for more than week, but it took me another week to gather enough courage to visit her at her family house just across the street.

It was early afternoon, and she was strumming her guitar at the front of their house. We were both shy and wary. But as soon as we felt that we’re like long-time friends meeting after long absence, we had a lot of things to talk about. She introduced me to her family, and it was as if they had learned so much about me with the way they reacted to my presence in the house. Lani and I became close as ever after the meeting. I felt a genuine affection, something hard to describe then.

So after that summer, we continued our correspondence. I even composed a song (Aileen helped me with the musical arrangement) for her which I sent to her. Her next letter gave me a big surprise: it was bundled with a small package, containing a record of her voice in a cassette tape, singing her favorite songs, including the one I composed for her! I knew right then that I was falling for her. But like in ordinary friendships, ours depended on rules and impositions to maintain our relationship. There were more important things to consider, aside from my fear of falling for her and sacrificing our friendship: her religion (she’s a pentecostal Christian), distance between us, and lack of encouragement from my aunt.

So I just contented myself receiving her letters. We promised to each other that we will remain good friends as long as there’s a postal system to deliver our letters. We could just remain friends the way it was.

But like any pen pals, our correspondence began to diminish before we graduate from college, and one day her letters stopped altogether. And this lack of correspondence would last until we met again in Manila two years after my graduation. That time I was already working in a publishing house while she’s completing her teaching course at a university in Manila. We remain close as ever, I would visit her at her boarding house near her school almost every weekend. And we became phone pals during the week. When she went home to Isabela months before her graduation, we exchanged a couple of letters then it was stopped. Soon I got married and she got married a year after.

Fast forward a few years after. I receive a text from her, expressing her belated condolences of the passing of my wife. She got my number from my aunt. She is now teaching at a public school south of Manila and residing with her family near the school. Since then, we have become text-mates and we’re now friends on Facebook. 

To some people, having pen pals is a foolish waste of time. Many who had one would write to the other person maybe three or four times and then gave up, never hearing from their pen pals again. But for me, I gain a lasting friendship. I feel proud that I enjoyed the most part of my youth, experiencing the joy of writing in the traditional handwritten style, and for gaining a lasting friendship with a very wonderful person, my pen pal.