Seniors Emma Manne and Richard Manne are fraternal twins, and both of them emphasized how they are independent from each other more than others would expect twins would be. Because of this, they rarely have conflicts with each other.
“We’re both very independent people that have grown up always being taught that we don’t always need to work together to do things,” Emma Manne said. “I think one of the things that I’m really grateful for is that we’ve been able to formulate our own identities. There are a lot of people at school that don’t even know that we’re twins, including a lot of our teachers. It’s nice to have our own identities – we’re not Emma and Richard, it’s separate.”
Throughout high school, they have had two classes together, one their freshman year and one last year as juniors.
“Sometimes when people find out that we’re twins, they can’t let it go,” Emma Manne said. “Last year, it was like we were the same person in that class. It’s not something that we experience all the time though, because we have such different lives.”
When they were younger, they shared a room together before their house got flooded twice. Even in the short period of time when they were living in a temporary space, it didn’t change the way they kept each other company.
“I remember late at night, we wouldn’t be able to fall asleep,” Emma Manne said. “We’d be talking, even if it was both of us closing our eyes. We couldn’t see each other, and when playing Rock Paper Scissors, we would think the other person was lying about what they had, things like that. Times like that, like just staying up, I always had someone to hang out with, and that’s nice.”
Emma Manne and Richard Manne grew up going to the same summer camp in Atlanta and have worked there together every year besides this past summer.
“He decided not to work, but I did,” Emma Manne said. “We were apart from each other for two months, which is the longest we’ve ever been apart. Over that time, I definitely noticed a difference in our relationship. I’d be on an off-period, and I was like, ‘Oh, let me call Richard,’ and we talked for like an hour while he was driving. I think us being apart helped us get closer, and I think that was a really helpful reminder for college.”
While Richard Manne made it clear that “the biggest difference” was that he had the car the whole time during that summer, having someone who knows him really well around all times does get to a point.
“At least while you’re a kid, they tend to be wherever you go,” Richard Manne said. “Like at school, I see her all the time. I see her so much that I get sick of them. And she annoys me quite frequently.”
On a school day, the two have moderately different schedules. Richard Manne does not have any class periods off and takes Theory of Knowledge for zero period, while Emma Manne has her sixth and seventh periods off.
“Unfortunately for her, she has to drive me to zero period in the morning even though she agreed to it,” Richard Manne said. “And then some days, if I don’t have a ride home, she has to come back at the end of school and come pick me up, which sucks for her.”
Richard Manne said that having a twin has taught him more patience with other people and their actions, especially the actions that “inconvenience” him.
“The other day I got in the car and opened the center console, and it was just filled with gum wrappers,” Richard Manne said. “The cup holders had three hair clips in them. For one, you don’t need that many hair clips, but two, they don’t go in the cup holder. That’s where my cup goes. And there doesn’t need to be trash in the center console. Keep in mind, this trash is like a day old, and she’s been in school that has like a hundred trash cans.”
As kids, they had joint birthday parties, and will get to host a joint graduation party.
“We’re sharing a graduation party with two other sets of twins that we’ve known since we were children,” Richard Manne said. “Alex and I, one of the other twins, we’re just letting the rest of them do all the work, because they’re the girls.”
Emma Manne said that a lot of the realization for the separation in college hasn’t hit yet, but when it does it will be “really hard.”
“As twins, you have some sort of bond that you will never really have with anyone else,” Emma Manne said. “You have someone from the beginning to the end.”
