A lifetime friendship in our digital world

In the summer of 2011, Andrew and I hugged each other goodbye as we left behind the protective gates of university and walked into the real world.

I was excitedly marching into my first job. Andrew, being the more adventurous of us two, was busy packing for his travels to Cuba, to learn Spanish and explore the country.

“I’m sure we’ll meet often. After all, Cuba is quite close to the United Kingdom,” I casually remarked.

“It’s been great to be your friend for our university years,” he replied. “I truly admire your intelligence, curiosity and poor sense of geography!”

Havana is 7,300 kilometers from London, a distance I managed to fully comprehend only many years later when I looked back and wondered why Andrew and I had met few times since school.

From Cuba, Andrew again went traveling, to Argentina, Brazil and Japan, to work, study, research and explore. I don’t ask him when he plans to be back in London or if he is looking to settle into a specific city or job. An explorer at heart, he never has answers for such questions.

In my mind, Andrew’s life is an extended gap year with no end. Knowing Andrew is how I began to understand how Britain had managed to produce explorers such as Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake and Captain James Cook.

I, on the other hand, Cecily Liu stayed on with my first job. Unlike my Chinese friends, whom I regularly go out with for fun, I rarely see Andrew.

But on the handful of occasions when we have met up, we delved into lengthy discussions, on politics, religion, culture and everything else, just like our university days.

Andrew was born on the British Isle of Jersey to Portuguese parents and traveled to London in the same year as me for university. We were both editors at our school newspaper. On Thursday evening every fortnight, our team would frantically lay out the paper before deadline.

More often than not, we would lose track of time and make last-minute edits until the security guards ordered us out of the building.

In a big city such as London, it is easy to make new friends, particularly online. But with Andrew, beyond the occasional postcards I receive from his travels, I do not even know which country he is in.

His last postcard arrived a month ago, sent from Jersey, sharing some reflections.

But I felt the brevity of the message did not at all diminish the weight of our friendship or make me feel any less connected with him.