Through my experience thus far on this earth, many people have taken note of the fact that I’m a twin. Not only that, but my brother Jonmarzie and I look a bit alike. Upon hearing this, many folks have questions. So, in the interest of the “Ask the…” threads, I’m proud to present my own.
Some starting info might be in order. My brother and I are 18 year old males, now Freshman at seperate colleges. One in Northfield, Minnesota, one in Washington, DC.
So, anything you’ve ever wanted to know? Ask away! No question is too dumb!
Would you recommend that new parents give their twins names that rhyme or are alliterative, such as Molly/Holly or Michael/Mitchell, or should they avoid those names?
What are your feelings on dressing small twins in identical clothing?
How about starting with what you do and don’t like about it? One hears that twins like being close. One hears they don’t like being seen as a “copy” of another person, and that differences are intentionally exaggerated.
What do you think non-twins miss out on? Would you rather not have been a twin? Would being a triplet be even better than a twin? Do you have any special feeling about movies that involve cloning? Or any feelings about cloning that come from your experience as a twin?
Of course, I cannot speak for everyone, but personally, I wouldn’t reccomend the naming thing. What would be the point, anyway. It’s not like their twin-ness will ever need pointing out.
On the “closeness vs independence” thing. I would think that everyone would want to be close to their siblings. It would be no different with twins. On the same note, everyone wants to be thought of as an independent entity.
What would non-twins miss out on? I’ve always had someone to do things with. I’m never in a position where there isn’t someone to sit on the other side of the chessboard, for instance. There’s always someone to play cards with, or do homework with, or tell jokes to. I’m never at a lack of inside jokes. It’s particularly advantageous in school, when I lose a homework assignment or leave my textbook at school, I can usually rely on having an “extra copy” around the house. And, if my brother was missing something, I’d usually let him borrow my copy.
Of course, there are things that I miss out on, as well. People percieve twins differently than they percieve “single-births” for lack of a better term.
To illustrate a particularity: My mother once told me that birthday parties during elementary school were a particularly sticky situation. When someone invited one of us, and the other got rejected, think of how difficult that would be for both, when we were young. As a corrolary, I could never be sure why someone invited both of us. Do they honestly enjoy both of our companies? Did they want to invite one of us, and felt sorry for the other? As a result, I was at quite a few birthday parties where I didn’t really know the birthday kid. So, probably, was my brother. As an additional point, I could never really rely on the “invitations” for guidance. If I recieved one addresed to Soup, and only I showed up, folks would ask me “Where’s Jonmarzie?” as if they were expecting both. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to crash a party where only Jonmarzie was invited and expected, as it would be rude and awkward. This same principle can apply to just about anything.
As a twin, I always question whether I truly belong somewhere, or whether I’m just riding coattails of another.
On cloning, I think that being a twin lends me to a more “liberal” position that otherwise would be expected. Identical twins with the same DNA don’t “share” souls, even if they were once the same embryo. As such, cloning really doesn’t bother me.
Unfortunately, in the media, twins are often portrayed as just that, twins. I’m reminded of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” The two redheaded brothers (I cannot remember their names) had no memorable qualities aside from their twin-ness. A few years back, if a character in a movie/play/TV show were gay, than nearly every line, gesture, everything that the character did, had something to do with being homosexual. It defined their roles in the story. They were, for instance, “the gay lawyer”, rather than “the lawyer who happens to be gay.” The same happens nowadays with twins. I challenge anyone to find a twin in any piece of modern literature whose twin-ness is not integral to his/her place in the story.
Sir Ian McKellan is not defined by being gay. Denzel Washington isn’t defined as a “black actor.” Mary-Kate Olsen is defined by being a twin. Why is this?
As a final note, I couldn’t possibly want to not be a twin. Of course, I don’t have the luxury of not being one, so I can’t really compare. Would you rather be a twin?
Huh, I’ve never had the chance to ask anything of a twin, so forgive me if you’ve heard these a thousand times:
You or your brother ever had the occassional odd feeling that you knew what was happening to the other twin, even though you were physically apart? I’ve heard even non-twin siblings get this feeling sometimes but my closest sibling is 10 years younger than me so we didn’t really “grow up” together and I have nothing to compare to.
Did you and your brother fight over or pester your parents about who was born first (and therefore the elder sibling)?
I’m guessing “No” on this one but do either of you belong to any “Twin” organizations or associations?
I’m an identical twin, too. I hate the similar name thing (our names both end in a long “I” sound which sucks). Don’t dress them alike, either. It makes a cute joke out of their existences.
As for the “psychic connection” thing, apparently not. The one time my sister got badly hurt I had no idea for many many hours and then I felt sort of empathic sick to my stomach about it when I did find out. On the other hand I got a bizarre phone message at 4:30 AM the other day from her: “I just had a very bad dream about you, so. . . um. . . wanted to make sure you weren’t. . . dead or something, which of course you’re not, but. . . um. . . bye!” You get trained by the rest of the world into thinking you’re supposed to have a special link, so you start wondering whether things are significant all the time. “I just had a moment of deja vu. . . I wonder if my sister’s ok!?”
As for individuality/ corporate-ness, we were both glad to go to different colleges-- it was the first time in my life I’d been only accountable for my actions and considered an individual entity like everyone else. By the time we’d hit high school we started developing opposite affectations to try to differentiate ourselves. Man, I felt sorry for a set of triplets at our elementary school–totally identical-- two of them seemed to get a kick out of it while the third was a bit odd and seemed to resent the world.
It’s interesting to be an adult, though, with someone the exact same age as you that remembers all of childhood-- few people have that. “Remember in 3d grade when you made me sit in the front of the sled on the really steep hill with the fence at the bottom?” “Ye-ahh. . . sorry.”
And you have no idea how often you hear “How old are you? How old is your twin?”
Soup du Jour-- did you guys ever do the 'what number am I thinking of?" tests of your psychic connection with each other? Around 7th grade we did a lot of that for hoots and found that we had a harder time guessing with each other than with random friends-- interesting.
Oh, and I can’t stand hearing ANYTHING about my sister’s sex life. it gives me the willies and I totally don’t want to know a thing, more than with any other sibling. That whole twin sisters fetish thing aint never gonna happen, guys. I hate that, too-- the pop culture swedish stewardess twins trope. Not funny. I hate Doublemint gum commercials, and any other “twin” themed films or sit-com plot devices. I hate Hallie Mills and the Bobbsie twins for ruining my childhood.
Everyone, twin or not, I’d wager, has these feelings, myself included. I must add, though, that these feelings rarely turn out to be accurate.
Actually, we have an older sister. Thus, the question of being the eldest sibling never really came up. We never really thought about who’se being “older” or younger, because there aren’t really that many gains to be had by being 12 minutes older than someone else. Oh sure, we spent out time complaining about how our sister got to do things that we didn’t, and the like. We never fought it out with each other, though.
On the “twin organizations” thing, you’d be right. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t belong to any twin organization, unless you consider Jonmarzie and I to constitute a “twin organization,” that is.
capybara, it’s nice to know that there’s someone else out there who experiences what it’s like to be a twin. (Heh.)
No, we didn’t really do anything like that “guess the number” thing.
I agree totally with the sex life thing. Major “eeewww” factor.
Oh my gosh! I, too, hate Doublemint commercials! It kind of cheapens the whole experience, don’t you think?
Finally, to clarify, my brother and I aren’t identical twins. We’re fraternals that just look a lot alike. And, for everyone out there, stop disagreeing with me when I say that I’m a fraternal twin, just because I happen to look a lot like my brother. Trust me, I’m right.
Keep the questions coming!
My dad, who was a psychiatrist, always used to ask twins the “Which is the evil one?” question. I always thought people would get offended, but they all seemed to think it was funny.
I remember twins saying something to the effect “You’ll never know what it’s like being so close to another person, and I feel sorry for you.” That didn’t sound too implausible. I lost a brother and became an only child for awhile, and I thought I could detect that “only child” loneliness in other children without siblings.
I thought, hmm, if being a twin is so great, maybe we should rig it so that all people are born as twins.
So Soup de jour and capybara, it sounds like most of the advantages you enjoyed as twins probably wouldn’t be enhanced by being triplets? Having your experience, do you think it would be good to have a clone who was an exact duplicate of you?
Ah, buy yojimboguy, my brother and I look nearly identical. Perception is everything, you realize. People have actually tried to tell me that I’m identical.
More people should realize that “fraternal” and “identical” labels have nothing to do with looks/personality. It simply has to do with whether or not the twain were formed by a single fertilized egg splitting or formed by two seperate eggs fertilized seperately.
partly_warmer, I practically do!
Oh, Internet Legend, I’ll give you that one about Mary-Kate Olsen. Besides, everyone knows that Ashley has the real talent!
[hijack]So singles, what’s it like being a single?[/hijack]
It’s not even close. I’m clearly the evil twin. Dizogotic here. My brother doesn’t look at all like me. We were just womb mates. As far as the whole psychic thang that people always ask, my take on it is that I know him so well that I can look at him and have a good guess at what he’s thinking. I’m not blood related to my wife (I don’t think, she’s never found her biological parents) and I can do the same thing.
I hated getting one present to share on birthdays.
Heh. You people ARE evil. Both I and my sister agree that the other one is the evil one.
No, you know, we NEVER tried to pass for the other, until last year I went to a party of her extended friends in SF-- big big theme party; I went there with her fiancee about an hour earlier than she was supposed to meet us. Immediately,
“Oh my god, I love your new hair cut!”
“Oh God,” I think, “This again. . . but. . .”
‘Oh, thanks! I decided to try something new out." “Oh, and congratulations on the engagement!” “Thanks! It was all so sudden. I’m all aglow!” It was a hoot. I just went along with it for about an hour. It was also fun to see peoples’ doubletakes when I would visit her at her college. Now that we live apart and are only together occasionally it’s less annoying, but when we walk around town together and people stare I remember what it was like to feel like as a freak. “Are you guys. . ?” “Yeah, yeah yeah.”
We also have a sort of evil competition to see who can call the other most obnoxiously early on our birthday-- usually depends on hangovers.
I don’t think being a twin is SO great, although I can’t imagine what it would be like otherwise. I suppose with the pain in the ass you break even, good and bad elements. A lot of identity crisis.
I don’t know if there’s a question in this, or whether I’m just relating anecdotally.
My wife has a twin brother, and they’ve noticed a certain bond between them, which, of course, everyone attributes to their twin-ness.
Often, my wife will be thinking of her brother all day, only to receive a phone call from him for “no reason, just wanted to say hi and see how you were doing.”
Frequently (and this is somehow even freakier), they will dress alike. Not that Jeff wears a skirt or anything, but often, by eerie coincidence, they will wear the same color shirt, often the same pattern, e.g. blue and white checked shirt, or red and white stripes.
We no longer live in close proximity to my wife’s brother, but when we visit, it starts up all over again, and I can tell that there is a bond between them that even supercedes the husband/wife bond.
Have you noticed the same thing happening? (There, I knew I’d find a question in there someplace!)
My mother was a triplet in utero, a twin at birth (the third baby was stillborn) and I have no questions, just an interesting comment. When my mother refers to her twin brother, you would be AMAZED at how many people say, “Oh, you’re a twin? Are you identical?”
Sir Ian doesn’t tend to take parts where being gay is key to the character; Denzel has taken some parts where ethnicity isn’t the be-all and end-all of the character, but Mary Kate and Ashley have taken two kinds of parts:
They’re playing twins,
They’re twins playing the same character because of how many hours a day a little kid can work, so
they’re twins and identify as such. Plus, that’s how they’ve SOLD themselves as actresses, unlike Nicholas Brendan and Linda Hamilton.
I don’t think you have to be womb mates to think alike.
Mr. Ujests two best friends and himself will often dress exactly alike, buy the same record…eh…CD…at the same time ( never a newly released thing but an older “classic”) and love the same stupid manly movies.
When I met Mr. Ujest, 14 years ago, with one of said best friends, who looks a great deal like him I could not tell the two of them apart ( except one had more hair and still does.) They knew I was having a problem telling them apart and messed with my mind. These two doofuses have even bought the exact same watch from the same department store in different towns for the same wedding that we were going too.
The other best friend, the only thing I can tell you is that they are joined at the colon they are so damned alike. It’s freaky.
