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When best friends are really best friends, there’s something truly special and lasting—as in these relationships.
There seems to be quite a bit of misunderstanding about just what a “best friend” is. Merriam-Webster defines it thusly: “One’s closest and dearest friend.” That would be the singular “friend.”
Trouble is that people don’t often limit the definition to a single person, except in rare cases. We often hear, “She’s one of my best friends.” Or, “He’s my best friend. And so is she.”
It’s so confusing that MIT did not one, but two studies and discovered that people can have “no more than five best friends,” which would contradict the dictionary definition. Another MIT study says people are kidding themselves: “Almost half of all the friendships reported in the survey weren’t reciprocal.”
A study at Yale tells us that genes have a lot to do with those we consider alone at the top of our friend pyramid. Your best friends, it concludes “are often genetically similar, and can share as much as one percent of the same gene variants [with you]. In genetic terms, that’s a lot.”
Finally, there’s this: Researchers at the University of Plymouth in England, apparently with little to do, “found that people who insult their friends aren’t necessarily mean-spirited. [They] just want the insult-ees to benefit in the long run.”
Insults and genes aside, we went looking for some best friends and found them. Some in this group of 14 people have other close friends who seem almost like family, but these pairs have been together for quite a while, weathered life’s challenges and made each other better, almost without exception.
Here are their stories:
Angie Chewning (50) & Melissa Blankenship (50)
They met 45 years ago at Vinton’s Hardy Road Elementary School kindergarten and have rarely been farther away from each other than a full-throated shout would cover. They cheered William Byrd High School teams together, slept over, rode bikes, talked late into the night under the covers, lay in the summer sun at the pool, dated friends, roller skated, married and divorced, planned class reunions, shared kids, grieved the death of parents.
Angie lived in Myrtle Beach for 18 years, following a marriage there, but it didn’t increase the distance between them. “It was 300 miles,” she says, “and we still talked, still did all that [they had done].”
Melissa is a bookkeeper at Roanoke County Schools and Angie is the economic development director for Vinton. Melissa has one child, Angie three.
Angie: “We both have other best friends, but our bond is long and we cherish that.”
Melissa: “We grew up in a different time when you had to make an effort to be social.” Yep, says Angie, “We’d go to each other’s family reunions and know everybody there.”
There’s security in that. “When something good or bad happens,” says Angie, “she’s the first person I want to call.”
Melissa calls it a “no judgment bubble, no boundaries. You know what’s said is said with love and there’s nothing we wouldn’t say.” It is, says Angie, “a no maintenance relationship. We don’t have to talk every day to know what’s going on. There’s a comfort level.”
And, yes, there’s a ripple effect. “It works into other relationships,” says Angie. “Our kids,” says Melissa, “have learned from it; they know how we cherish our friendship.”
“It’s something a lot of people never have,” says Angie.
“It’s like an appendage,” adds Melissa, finishing Angie’s sentence, as the two often do.
William Sellari (36) &Stephanie Fallon (31)
But for the simple fact that Stephanie Fallon was already married when she met William Sellari in 2016 at the Taubman Museum of Art (where Stephanie is adult education manager), this relationship might have evolved differently. However, “I love Stephanie and I love her husband, too,” says William, who works at Foot Levelers and makes movies.
These two are like a 1930s romantic comedy, engaging in what Stephanie calls “verbal sparring” nearly constantly. With others, their exchanges often “fell on deaf ears,” but they heard each other from the beginning. After they met, says William, “we didn’t stop talking for a year.” He’s “more fervent,” says Stephanie, “kind of the king of wild tangents.”
They meet for lunch, go to antique shops together, hang out. She has an understanding and supportive husband, who “is not remotely threatened,” says Stephanie. His girlfriend is equally understanding. “William and I do not have that weird tension” that might occur were neither married. She says they enjoy spur-of-the-moment experiences that their flexible schedules allow.
From the beginning “there was a kinship that we recognized as a special thing,” says Stephanie. “I was newly-married, but it seemed obvious that we were ‘bests’.” They said it “out loud on Day 3,” she says, recognizing “similar sensibilities.”
William likes it that Stephanie “understands how to fight” and she says, “I trust him wholeheartedly. If I need him, he’d drop everything. No, it’s not scary. It’s amazing.”
If conversation moves to the edge and begins to look like it might get out of hand, they have an “unsafe word” that is said, stopping the disagreement. And the conversation goes on.
“I think we’d love to live in a commune,” says Stephanie. “That’s the dream.”
Angela Drinkard (49) & Robert Pilot (49)
It is a modern cultural cliché that pretty women and gay men have a shared attraction that creates solid lasting friendships. That would describe Angela, who works at Hunting Hills Country Club, and Robert, a customer service manager at American Airlines, who used to cut hair. In fact, that’s how they met: in Robert’s chair.
“It was instant,” says Angie. “He has a great sense of humor and we started off by laughing. A lot.” It was mutual: “I saw this beautiful person inside her and we just loved to hang out.”
Her long-term boyfriend has had no problem with the relationship between Angela and Robert. “If he can’t go somewhere with me,” says Angela, “he’ll say, ‘I think Robert could go’,” even though Robert now lives in Charlotte, where his job is.
“I’m different from a lot of gay men,” Robert says. “I hate shopping and things like that. I had a best friend who recently passed at the age of 90. I don’t let a lot of people in. Less is more.”
Angela appreciates the relative permanence of a best friend.
“Boyfriends come and go,” she says, but “best friends” are permanent.
They’ve both been through difficult breakups together and “I’m sad when he’s sad,” she says.
Next year, they turn 50 together and the plan is to do that in Paris. As best friends.
Mark Dearing (64) & Allen Shiplett (64)
They met 60 years ago “out in a field throwing dirt balls at each other,” says Allen. The stories began at that moment and they haven’t even slowed since. The two native Salemites (just listen to their authentic accents) are born storytellers who missed their calling (Allen is a plumber, Mark a Volkswagen mechanic with his own shop—Salem Imports—and three engineering degrees).
They’ve done what guys their age and temperament often did as kids: raised hell, drank beer, went to concerts with bands like Trucker’s Delight and the Grevious Angels, experimented with mind expansion, took a VW bus across the country and got in a dither with Arizona police.
In 4th grade, they were separated into different school rooms to quell their disruption. In 7th grade their homeroom burned down and, says Mark looking sheepish, “they blamed us.” Aw, pshaw! The powers wouldn’t even let them ride the school bus together in middle school and by high school “we got separated again.” School administrators knew.
They got married and Allen had a daughter. Mark has a dog. They’ve both been married more than a quarter century. They settled into long-term careers and found traditional comfort and security.
They never really changed much, though. Mark was always the “redneck hippie,” says Allen. “He was the first hippie I ever knew.” Allen claims to be more conventional.
Mark’s legendary dad, Hank Dearing, was chief of engineering construction for years at Norfolk & Western Railway and a character of some note. His influence was indelible on both boys. Allen’s dad was a plumber and that was passed on, too, almost as soon as Allen was out of high school. Mark’s dad also taught the boys to work on Volkswagens.
Their two-month, 17-state, 14,000-mile trip in a VW bus—with eight people piled in—following Richard Nixon’s resignation in the early 1970s remains a highlight, one they visit often for stories they don’t necessarily want to tell in a publication. Mark opened his VW shop before he entered Virginia Tech as a junior to study engineering.
They have a large circle of old friends and they still party like it’s 1999. And they’re still best friends.
Tammy Hale (58) & Cathy Jennings (59)
These two met in church, where Tammy’s dad was a new minister, and have rarely been far from their religious underpinning or their friendship, which began in 1969. Tammy met her husband at church and they now all attend the same church. Tammy says, “We lucked out in the ‘good guy’ category.”
This “best” friendship has not exactly been a roller coaster ride: “We have never had a cross word, an argument or disagreement,” says Tammy, a retired health educator and former child care director at Carilion, and now content director (editor) of South Roanoke Living magazine. Cathy is a cardiac nurse specialist at Roanoke Memorial, but together they have worked weddings, using their unique skills.
Tammy has been married 34 years, Cathy 31.
On the day they met, as children, Tammy “was the new kid and Cathy was the nicest person I’d ever met. She was the friend who could immediately say, ‘You have something green between your teeth.’” It was a “natural gravitation,” says Tammy. “We had common interests: music, books” and they took part in myriad church youth activities from the beginning. They joined a musical group and even cut a record (with 30 other kids and a band). They were “together every day, night, weekend, summer,” says Cathy.
Cathy went off to school at Radford College (now University) and Tammy headed to Indiana to Anderson College (also a university now). But the distance did nothing to the friendship.
They have both nurtured other friendships over the years, but the difference, says Cathy, “is longevity. … We call each other ‘forever friends.’ It’s about the longevity. It is simply a unique situation.”
It is a secure feeling, says Cathy. “We always have each other’s backs.”
Stephanie Martin (38) & Simon Nolen (41)
A lot of married couples proudly announce that they are “best friends” because it sounds right to be that and be married at the same time. Stephanie Martin and Simon Nolen were best friends before they were married and the marriage has only deepened the friendship commitment.
They met when she was at William Byrd High and he was at Community High School in downtown Roanoke where she is now a counselor/teacher and he teaches. They’ve been married for two years and split two children each from earlier marriages. They worked closely at Community High School, which has 65 students and 14 faculty members—many of whom have a variety of duties.
She had been divorced for a while when they met and he was going through one. She helped. “I cooked for him, brought him leftovers, invited him over. We became friends. It’s how we became more than just work colleagues. It was sort of, ‘Let me help you.’”
They wound up with similar child custody arrangements and for a while the kids were separate. “We’d hang out when we didn’t have the kids,” says Simon. The friendship developed steadily and with a solid base. “I have to force myself to do things with other people,” says Stephanie, “but there is nothing I do that I want to do without him … even if it’s going to a dress shop.”
“I’m myopic and single focused,” says Simon. “She balances that. I’m an introvert; she’s an extrovert. I like people, but I don’t know how to approach them.” She does. “There is a romance. There’s a lot of polarity that allows me to be a dufus. She gets my insecurities. She allows me to ‘do things stupid.’ I get that marriage is supposed to be that way.” But isn’t always.
“My ex-husband and I were not best friends,” says Stephanie. “But now I find friend/wife to be seamless. We try things and we support each other. I’m the only girl on the faculty basketball team” and he’s all over that.
They introduced their kids to each other before they were married. The kids were 9, 10, 11 and 12 and for the kids it wasn’t a big deal. They dated more than three years and were engaged for more than two. Today they “argue more, forgive more, make jokes about what happened,” says Stephanie.
Simon likes that Stephanie “is like a buddy. It makes the romance stronger.” So do the dirty jokes and the risque conversations. “It cements the romantic,” Stephanie cracks.
“I’m not a knight on a white horse,” says Simon.
“No,” says Stephanie. “He’s more real than that.”
Savion Trigg (17) & Angel Maysonet (17)
When Angel Maysonet’s family bailed out on Harlem 10 years ago, moving to a wildly different culture in Roanoke, he had no idea what to expect. What he found was Savion Trigg, who has been his best friend since they met in second grade.
The boys are 17-year-old seniors at William Fleming High today with similar ambitions for their futures, each having influenced the other along the way.
Angel (he prefers AJ) moved here “for a better life,” he says. “It was getting kinda crazy in Harlem.” AJ moved to the far reaches of Virginia with his mother, step-father (whom he calls one of his heroes) and sisters. Two brothers and his dad stayed behind.
The boys met on AJ’s first day of elementary school when Savion struck up a conversation about football and offered to share one of the two football jerseys he owned. From that point, they’ve been best friends, they agree.
Even their college prospects are close: Savion Radford or Old Dominion; AJ Radford or VCU. AJ wants to study business and advertising; Savion sports marketing.
Savion works as an intern with Mike Hamlar’s New Virginia Economy and AJ works part-time at JC Penney.
Their paths have crossed and re-crossed through the years. They were separated in grade school, then re-united in middle school, only to attend different high schools (AJ at Fleming, Savion to PH) before Savion transferred to Fleming as a junior in order to play varsity soccer. Even with the official separation, however, the friendship remained strong.
“We were always at each others’ houses, doing stuff together,” says AJ. Savion and AJ occasionally double date (dating close friends).
They “argue like brothers,” says AJ, “forgetting about it the next day” and they don’t mind giving or receiving criticism of each other. “I think we’re as close as brothers,” says Savion. “I know everything about him and he knows all about me.”
They are constantly bouncing ideas off each other “to make sure we do the right thing,” says AJ.
One of those “right things” was becoming friends in the first place.
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