Letter 3

Our friendship began when we were 14 – you were almost 14. You were in high school and I was in secondary school. Some say it is a wonderful age to be. Others say it is a terrible time.

For me, it was not terrible, just unhappy. But our friendship made it much less so.

Your name and address were in a students’ magazine, in the pen-pals section, under ‘Girls’. It makes me smile to remember that. Of course I would write to a girl. I was in a boys’ school and had enough of them everyday. And when we were not talking about games, we were talking about girls. Some of us had begun to talk about music. I had started guitar lessons at Yamaha just a month before. In those days – and perhaps now still – it was important for boys to play guitars if they wished to impress girls.

But always, our conversations came back to girls. And so, the first reason I chose you for a friend was simply because you were a girl.

I am learning English and want a pen-pal to write to me in English. I like music, singing and dancing. That was all you wrote about yourself. I can remember those words so clearly because I read them over and over again.

English was the only subject I was good at in school and since I was the child of English teachers, I felt I was in a good position to write to you. Even then, I felt a need to have a good reason to write to you. I did not want you to think I was writing to you only because you were a girl. Boys lie. They lie to girls and to themselves. I lie mostly to myself now, so I think I have improved.

But at least I can say I did not write to you only because you were a pretty girl. There were no pictures in the pen-pal listings, just names, addresses and that little line or two about interests.

Of course, I did hope that you were a pretty girl. Now, when I think of you, I wonder still.