After many years living in the Isle of Man, Andrew was ready to start a new adventure. “In 2007, I was working for an insurance company and I accepted a two-year placement in Hong Kong,” he says. Shortly before he left, he began emailing Darcy, a company client based in Tokyo. “I’d only just moved to Japan,” she says. “I was raised in Venezuela but when the opportunity came up to go to Asia, it seemed like a fun change. I worked for a financial planning company and spoke to Andrew regularly by email for work.”
They emailed each other professionally for two years, before one of Darcy’s colleagues suggested she give him a call. “She told me he had the sexiest voice and suddenly I was really curious,” she says. “He did have a really nice voice and we started talking more on the phone.” Slowly, the conversation became more friendly, with the pair exchanging stories about their social lives. “I looked him up on LinkedIn and told him his picture there was really bad,” she laughs. “You couldn’t see it properly.”
Andrew says he always kept things professional, but admits he was intrigued by Darcy. As the friendship grew, they exchanged Facebook details and began sending each other regular messages. “We were both newly single and we would talk about dates,” says Darcy. Towards the end of the year, the conversation turned to travel. “He’d been to more places than me, so I was asking for recommendations for where to go on holiday and he suggested Vietnam,” she says.
With Andrew about to finish his Hong Kong assignment and return to the Isle of Man, they agreed it was a shame that they had never been able to meet in person. “I told her that if the job I was applying for didn’t come off, I would come and meet her in Vietnam,” says Andrew. When he lost out on the job opportunity, he kept his word and booked a holiday to Hanoi on the same dates as Darcy.
“We met in the arrivals hall. I was so nervous I was shaking,” she says. Although it was a “bit awkward at first”, they quickly found they had lots to talk about. “Suddenly, it was so easy, as if we’d always known each other,” she says. “We went on a day cruise and a lady came and told us we were a beautiful couple. We had to explain we had only met the day before.”
They spent the rest of their three-night trip together, and shared their first kiss. While they went on the trip with no expectations, they admitted it was a bit of a blind date and they both suspected there could be more between them. “I didn’t know what would happen, but the whole weekend turned out to be perfect,” says Andrew.
Soon after the holiday, Andrew found a permanent role in Hong Kong, while Darcy stayed in Tokyo. The couple had a long-distance relationship for a year, before getting married at the end of 2010. “After we got married, I moved to Hong Kong,” says Darcy. Their children were born in 2012 and 2014, and the couple continued to work in financial services.
Although they loved their time in Hong Kong, the family struggled during the pandemic due to the strict lockdown laws. “We missed family weddings and we were not able to travel when Darcy’s dad died in Venezuela,” says Andrew. In April 2022, with travel still unpredictable, Darcy moved to Dubai with the children for a more settled lifestyle. Andrew stayed behind in Hong Kong for his job, but the family hope they will be reunited soon.
Darcy describes her husband as her “centre”. “I can be freaking out, or super stressed and I know I just need to see Andrew. I can feel the connection between us and he finds a way to bring me back so I can breathe again,” she says. “He always makes me feel that there’s a solution and we will figure it out together.”
Andrew loves how they complement each other. “I follow rules and I’m an introvert who is always on time. Darcy is the opposite, but she gets stuff done,” he says. “I knew as soon as I met her that she was ‘the one’, and she still is.”
