MY PEN PAL

"PEN PAL" might be a strange term for the younger generations who have spent their lives tethered to instant messaging, chat rooms, and social networking sites. To them, the concept seems to belong to a bygone era. After all, why do you need a pen when you can reach old, new, or potential friends with just a click of a mouse?

As the name implies, pen pals are two people—usually from different places and originally complete strangers—who regularly exchange friendly, mostly handwritten letters, alongside physical photographs often bearing corny dedications on the back. These relationships usually reach a major turning point when one person finally travels across the distance to meet the other in person. Sometimes, they fall for each other if physical attraction happens to overpower the emotional intimacy they previously shared on scented stationery. More often, like many friendships in life, the correspondence burns brightly for a short time before fading as life gets busy and responsibilities pile up.

Today, there is an internet version of this phenomenon. It still carries the original premise of remote friends in different parts of the world writing to one another, though it now happens via email or private messages. The "pen" has simply become electronically written communication. There are even dedicated pen pal websites designed for single men and women to connect online and eventually arrange dates. Call me old-fashioned, but despite the absolute dominance of Facebook and Twitter in our social lives, I still prefer the deeply personal touch of traditional letter writing. I truly believe that a person’s real personality shines through most clearly in their own unique penmanship.

Long ago, when I was still young, I found my very first pen pal—a connection that would ultimately span many years. I was in my third year of high school when a cousin asked if I wanted to start writing to someone. My cousin, Aileen, had just returned from a vacation at our aunt’s house in Santiago, Isabela. There, she had met a girl her age who lived just next door. They became fast friends and promised to exchange letters.

"You might want to have her as a friend, too," I remember Aileen telling me. "And why not? You'll have a much better reason to visit Auntie Vita if you have a friend waiting for you there." She had noticed my hesitation. I was incredibly shy, and I had never attempted to write to a pen pal before.

Ultimately, I took the leap and wrote to Lani during the first month of my junior year at a high school in Narvacan, Ilocos Sur. I wrote the usual introductory things: details about myself, my hobbies, and my likes and dislikes. Looking back, I suppose it was my very first autobiography. However, I made sure my sentences were heavily garnished with highfalutin words pulled straight from my Roget’s Thesaurus, alongside cute phrases meant to impress her.

As it turned out, I had a secret, rich reference library for friendly letters. Years earlier, Auntie Vita had handed me a box of old personal correspondence to burn. I only ended up burning a few of them in our compost pit; I secretly kept the ones that were sensible and beautifully written. Now, these "missives"—as people loved to call them back then—became an invaluable cheat sheet of romantic lines for a beginner like me. I tucked a print of my latest photograph (arguably the best photo I had at the time) into the envelope, mailed it, and asked Aileen to write to her friend to back me up. Then, I waited with intense anticipation.

Her reply arrived nearly three weeks later, which was relatively fast for snail mail in those days. She enclosed her own biography and a photograph of herself in her school uniform. Aileen hadn’t exaggerated; Lani was pretty, with beautiful chinita eyes, a warm personality, and an excellent command of written English. That initial exchange set off a steady correspondence that would carry us all the way through our college years, developing into a friendship we would both cherish forever.

Her letters were typically long, deeply detailed, and incredibly well thought out. In return, I spent countless hours drafting replies, baring my heart and sharing everything on my mind. I used the opportunity to consciously hone my writing skills, practicing how to craft brief but engaging autobiographical narratives. Looking back, this correspondence sparked the most intense and productive writing period of my youth.

We wrote frequently and in great detail. The length of my responses always depended on how much I had to say, but I made a conscious effort to ensure writing never felt like a chore, lest my letters become uninteresting. I frequently experimented with my writing style to fill the pages and avoid becoming a bore. Because I was highly active in extracurricular activities at school, I always had plenty of stories to share.

I finally met Lani in person during the summer vacation of 1991. It was my very first visit to my aunt’s house in Isabela, and it was a moment we had both long anticipated. Even so, after arriving at my aunt's house, it took me an entire week just to gather the courage to walk across the street and visit her family home.

It was early afternoon when I finally went over, and she was sitting out front, strumming her guitar. At first, we were both incredibly shy and cautious. But the awkwardness evaporated the moment we realized we felt exactly like lifelong friends reuniting after a lengthy absence. Suddenly, we had a million things to talk about. She introduced me to her family, who reacted to my presence with so much warmth it was clear she had already told them everything about me.

Lani and I became closer than ever after that initial meeting. I felt a genuine, deep affection for her that was difficult to describe at the time. When summer ended, we resumed our correspondence with a renewed energy. I even composed an original song for her, with Aileen helping me map out the musical arrangement. Lani’s next letter arrived with a massive surprise: bundled with the envelope was a small package containing a cassette tape. It was a recording of her voice singing her favorite songs—including the very track I had composed for her.

I knew right then and there that I was falling for her.

Yet, like many young friendships, ours was bound by unspoken rules, boundaries, and realities. There were heavy factors to consider that outweighed my fear of falling in love and potentially ruining our bond: her religion (she was a devout Pentecostal Christian), the vast physical distance between us, and a distinct lack of encouragement from my aunt. Ultimately, I contented myself with simply receiving her letters. We promised each other that we would remain good friends for as long as there was a postal system left to deliver our mail. We decided to keep things exactly as they were.

As happens with most pen pals, our letters began to dwindle as we neared college graduation. Then, one day, the letters stopped altogether. This silence lasted until we unexpectedly crossed paths in Manila two years after I graduated.

By then, I was working at a publishing house, and she was finishing her teaching degree at a university in the city. We instantly snapped back to our usual closeness. I visited her at her boarding house near campus almost every weekend, and we became constant "phone pals" during the workweek. However, when she returned home to Isabela a few months prior to her graduation, we exchanged only a couple of final letters before the communication faded once more. Soon after, I got married, and she married a year later.

Fast forward several years. I received an unexpected text message from her offering her belated, heartfelt condolences after the passing of my wife. She had gotten my phone number from my aunt. Today, she teaches at a public school south of Manila, where she resides with her family. Since that text message, we have become "text-mates" and are now friends on Facebook.

To some people, keeping a pen pal is a foolish waste of time. Many who try it write three or four times before giving up, never to hear from the other person again. But for me, it yielded a lifetime bond. I feel incredibly proud that I spent the best part of my youth experiencing the pure, tactile joy of traditional handwritten letters, and that I gained a lasting friendship with a truly wonderful person—my pen pal.