So I have shared a bit about myself in a few of my earlier posts, my love of sports, fantasy novels, etc.., but one thing that I didn't mention is that I have a twin brother. I generally don't think about it much but I suppose it does make me unique as only 3% of the population are twins. Growing up everyone would always tell me how much they wanted to be a twin and how cool it must be so I wanted to shed a little light on the pro's and con's of being a twin.
A little basic Twinfo
There are two kinds of twins, fraternal and identical. With identical twins, one egg from the mother is fertilized by one sperm from the father and then early in the development the embryo splits and 2 fetuses begin to grow. Fraternal twins on the other hand are formed when 2 eggs from the mother are fertilized by two separate sperm from the father.
Identical twins share the same DNA and look almost exactly alike (hence identical). Fraternal twins come from two separate eggs, they each have their own set of DNA. Like any other set of siblings, they might look alike, they might not. Fraternal twins can be the same sex or different sex, they are genetically as similar as any other set of siblings.
Now that you have a little background info on twins in general, I'll give you a peek into a few my experiences as a twin.
My life as a twin
I was born on a chilly December morning 1 minute after my brother and as with most things we managed to even disagree over those first few minutes of life. I maintain that after 9 months of dealing with his shit (literally and figuratively as we shared a womb) I finally got fed up and kicked him out. He likes to say that he decided it was time to leave and that I followed him out because that's what little brothers do. I can't tell you how infuriating it was to be referred to as a little brother, younger brother, etc.. due to being a whole 1 minute younger.
My brother and I are fraternal twins and we don't particularly look that much alike. We have the same color hair and eyes but I am about 4 inches taller and have about 40lbs on him. While I got the height, I also managed to get asthma and allergies out the deal, neither of which he has. Though to be fair, he wears glasses and as of now my eyesight is still decent. So if the genetics come out as a wash, what are the downsides to being a twin?
Cons of being a twin
People will always call you by the wrong name- I'm not convinced this has anything to do with actually looking alike, I just think it is because you are meeting two people at the same time and don't remember which name goes with which person.
Your parents are going to dress you alike- At least for first 10 years or so of your life you will dressed in matching outfits. If they don't match exactly you can bet that you will get the exact same pattern shirt, just a different color.
Sharing a birthday- An obvious but often overlooked consequence of being twins. You get half the presents a solo birthday would get and it's not really your "special day" when you still have to take out the garbage because "well its your brothers birthday too and someone has to do it".
Fraternal twins miss out on the fun stuff- I always wished I had an identical twin so we could do all that cool switching on people without having them realize it. He could have gone to my classes for me, work, and all those other crazy ideas you could dream up but no, I'm stuck with some just some dude who vaguely looks like me. I would have even settled for being boy/girl fraternal twins, at least there would have been a constant supply of available sister friends for a teenaged Fingolfin to work his magic on.
You are always being compared- People assume that because you are twins you should be similar in every aspect. If you do worse on a test, struggle to get a job, or something along those lines everyone wants to know why its harder for you when your twin was able to do it.
Its hard to get away- You will always be part of a duo. I know its not the case for everyone, but most of the other twins I know generally have the same circle of friends. You go to the same school, play on the same sports teams, run in the same social circle. It makes it tough to develop your individuality, spending that much time with someone in almost every aspect of life leads to more intense fighting than just regular siblings. I know for this reason in particular that once we graduated from high school we were both in agreement that we wanted to go to separate colleges just so that we could have some time to ourselves.
Its definitely not all bad though, there are more than a few benefits as well...
Pros of being a twin
You always have someone around- While I touched on this a little as a con, it was always nice to have someone there to entertain you. You have a best friend already there for you, sticking with you through all the good times and bad.
The closeness- I don't have any non twin siblings so I can't comment for everyone, but as a twin you generally get closer to your twin than normal siblings would. With all the time spent together you develop a lot of the same interests, same sense of humor. It's nice always having someone to talk to who understands you completely.
Pushing each other to do better- I've mentioned before that I was always big into sports and I feel like a lot of what helped me out was having someone to constantly push me and compete against. We would spend hours playing games, sports, competing against each other in just about anything. I feel like always having someone to play catch with, go 1 on 1 in basketball against, really helped me to excel at those sports and made me a lot better than I would have been otherwise.
So what does it all add up to?
While my list of pro's doesn't seem as substantial as the cons I can tell you without a doubt that the cons are all trivial things while the pro's happen to be some of the most important things in my life. If given the choice I would definitely prefer to have a twin as opposed to just a brother.
Obviously all twin experiences are different and I can't claim to speak for everyone but this is just a small sampling of my own personal experiences that have helped to shape the person I am today. I would also be remiss if I wrote an article about being a twin and didn't include at least a passing reference to one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of our time-
You're welcome
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin