Having a person that looks just like you may seem weird to most of us, but for identical twins, it’s their reality. And if you have an identical twin, you can’t resist the temptation to prank people from time to time or switch places at school. In addition to that, you always have a friend by your side who understands you like no one else would.
It’s not that often that you meet twins, but it does make you wonder what it’s like to have a copy of yourself. A Reddit user named OnidaKYGel also was wondering that and asked redditors: "In what ways did you take advantage of having a twin?" Twins and people who knew twins responded with some interesting stories and here are some of them.
More info: Reddit
#1
Am a twin. (If you're reading this twin brother-hi!)Inside jokes. My twin brother and I have so many inside jokes even now at 30 years old. And the best part is our minds work alike that we only have to say one or two words and the other one is busting up laughing. Our other brothers and each of our wives look at us like we're nuts but most people don't get it. There's a connection there that normal siblings just can't have.
He was my first roommate after all.
#2
I'm not a twin but have identical twins. One year, one of them got tired during a shopping trip for school clothes. She said to her sister, "Try this on. I want to see how it looks on me."#3
My dad is friends with identical twins and he told me this funny story. He was with them at an open house for their aero club (my dad and the two twins are all pilots and were supporting the event). Someone was really curious and asked the twins if there was any truth to the stories about twin telepathy (where twins have some sort of psychic connection). They were both quiet for a few moments and it started to get uncomfortable. The man looked a little embarrassed and said something along the lines that he was just curious and it was a silly question. One of the twins looked him in the eyes and said, "Oh it's not a problem, we were just discussing how we were going to answer." There was a moment of confusion on the man's face and the twins busted out laughing saying they had been waiting for an opportunity to try that joke out.#4
I visited my identical twin brother at his college where a lot of his floor didn't know he was a twin. That night he had some people over in his apartment and I hid in the bedroom.Note, he has a beard and I don't.
While they were hanging out (and me hiding), he announces to the group that he's tired of his beard and is gonna shave it off, so he escapes to the bedroom where I'm hiding as if to shave. We switch clothes and I walk back out to the group with my bare face. Everyone takes note and, while it's generally an unusual thing to do at a party, nobody thinks much of it.
After a bit I announce, "ya know, I kinda miss my beard. I think I'm gonna grow it back". At which point I go to the other room where my bearded twin was hiding. We switch clothes back and he walks back out to the group immediately re-bearded. People lost their freaking minds.
#5
I make absolutely every mundane task into a two-man job if I can. No matter how easy it would be to do on my own, if I can rope my brother in, I do.Grocery shopping, dishes, mowing, cleaning- no matter the job, I ask that he pitches in or makes me pitch in if he started the job.
I always include him with my friends and social obligations when possible. Same goes for him with me.
I always include him in every co-op game when possible, we try to tackle every game together.
I always seek his input on writing, on jokes, relationships, work, musical discoveries.
The cumulative effect is, absolutely everything is easier. I always have someone in my corner, someone who cares, my best friend is always there for me and he brightens up every moment of my life. I could not ask for anything more.
Love you Jim.
#6
I can unlock his phone with facial recognition and send stupid messages to other people from it.Edit: we are 37
Edit 2: wow thanks for all the awards, who knew being a jerk to your brother could pay off?
Phone was a Pixel 4 and yes Facebook confuses the two of us when it suggests that we may be in a photo
Edit 3: For all of you who asked, no the finger print scan does not work.
#7
Damn there are very few actually upvoted stories from first hand twins. Some of them are just plain boring. This is probably too late. But here are some of mine:Grade school. I took science period 1 and my brother had it period 2. I took a test and at the end the teacher goes over the answers. I took the test, walked out of class switched my sweater and walked back in to ace the test for my brother.
Multiple times i've forgotten my ID for bars or w/e. We regularly just had each other our ID's to get passes.
It's come in handy when we were making films in HS. We utilized the ability to make it look like 1 person playing 2 people.
I've switched classes in Highschool to ask a girl out for my brother. Didn't really work, and i was forced to take his class all week to convince the teacher we didn't switch.
Had an ongoing bet with my Physics teacher that we could switch on him without him noticing. If we succeeded I would get an A on the final. So for months i would come in acting confused where I sat and kind of just made it seem normal. On the day we were TAKING the final, we switched. It's easy. Everyone is not interacting it is face down looking at a scantron. He filled out the scantron with his name, and turned it in. Moments later i walked in being like "God damn it you took my test!". Got an A.
Edit:
Fun one for all. I literally have no clue which one i am regularly in old photos and videos. It could be the worlds most dangerous drinking game. Old home videos and no one in the family knows and kinda just guesses until someone in the video shouts our name. Old photos i've gotten confused, even of me in highschool. Probably not something talked about much.
My brother did post a good story below. Where my at the time fiance got like creep pictures of my brother on a date. She thought she busted wide open a cheating scandal
You also get pretty lucky as far as healthcare. Turns out we got the same problems.
So downsides? Our fico reports have been a constant headache when buying houses.
#8
I have a twin brother. The advantage is always having some one to talk to. No matter how good or shitty our days were we’re there for each other.#9
I was good friends with identical twins in college. My favorite story with them was one night at the bar, one of them was hooking up with a girl, and walked away to either go to the bathroom or get a drink or something. At that very moment, his brother showed up and walked into the bar, and the girl just grabbed him and started kissing him. The look of shock/happiness on his face was hilarious.#10
2 cakes on our birthday ??#11
This may get lost in the 1000s of responses but it was so special, and something I didn’t realize until late in my adult life: we always had a ‘built in best friend’. I never had to worry about having someone to sit with me in the lunch room, never stressed about attending a new school; going to summer camp or a new environment wasn’t as stressful as so many introverted children(and we are both introverts). We are both on the autism spectrum but never got diagnosed as children bc we were each other’s coping mechanisms. Having a connection with each other hid the fact we weren’t great at social norms with others. We always had someone to do school work with and excelled academically by helping each other. Looking back we had more confidence than many of our peers bc we had security in each other. To this day we’ve never replicated the connection we have with other people, though we both have happy fulfilling marriages with amazing partners. The advantage is someone who absolutely understands you and what that does for your confidence, psyche, and perseverance in life.#12
My brothers are twins and the only thing I remember them talking about that they took advantage of is one twin would take spankings for the other twin.One of my brothers is a marine, whose always been pretty “tough” I guess you’d say. And the other brother is a very feminine guy who gets very emotional and wouldnt take a punishment easily. He’s gay, although I am not saying it’s because he’s gay that he’s like that it’s just who he is.
So basically, the first brother told me when we were kids he would always take spankings for his brother because getting spanked only hurt for a second and didn’t really bother him and it would save our “weaker” brother from having to endure something that would seriously effect him.
#13
Identical twin here. To be honest I wish I’d done more with it growing up but it has come in handy. For example, when visiting my brother at his college I got approached by a random guy at a bar/party who asked if I was ready for that drink he owed me. Yes please! On the subject of parties, one downside of being a twin that I haven’t seen mentioned is the weird near out of body experience of seeing your twin looking like a fool as they’re busting moves on the dance floor and thinking to yourself “oh god is that what I look like”? It genuinely makes me so self conscious/is an absolute vibe killer.#14
my twin and i used to switch classes to take exams for each other in middle and high school. it was pretty fun, but we started to differ in looks as we got older so it probably wouldn’t work anymore lol. although, our voices still sound exactly the same, so we can often trick our parents on the phone and stuff like that. also not trying to say we have telepathy, but when you spend literally every waking second of your life together, we can always kind of know what each other is thinking. it’s like we’ve developed our own language#15
Not me, but my brothers. Not identical, but pretty close. Names changed to protect the guilty.When they were young, 16 or 17, Bob was out driving and got pulled over for speeding. He only had a couple points left on his license, so he said he forgot his license at home, and gave the cop Jack’s name. Cop goes, pulls up the record, gives ‘Jack’ his ticket and off they go.
Being a good bro, Bob told Jack, and of course paid the ticket. Warned him he better be careful because now he only has a couple points left on his license too.
Funniest part of the story. Bob is now a police officer!
#16
I have a twin brother but we never did a switcheroo or anything. It’s probably much more mundane than people think. To me he’s just my brother. One great thing though is I don’t have to try to remember the names of random acquaintances because no one remembers ‘which one’ I am.#17
Super naughty, but if we had a history test covering two chapters, I would read one chapter and he would read the other chapter. In the middle of the test, I would get up to sharpen my pencil, and he would go ask the teacher a question, and we would then sit at the others desk and complete the test. We are identical and the teacher couldn’t tell us apart so we never got busted.We both for 5s on the AP test so it obviously didn’t affect our learning too much. And no, we didn’t do this on the AP test.
#18
Yep, this. There was ONE time when I had my brother’s ID so I could pick up a food order he’d paid for with his credit card over the phone, but they didn’t even ask to see it when I got there.#19
One year in middle school, I ran the mile for my twin sister in gym class. She didn’t want to run and I didn’t mind going again. We swapped outfits after my first mile and I went back out pretending to be her. I remember worrying that the gym teacher would notice and we would get in trouble but they never noticed.Also, borrowing anything from her closet is always nice.
#20
I have an Identical twin brother. Basically any time there’s a “one per person” limit, I get a second time through with a different sweatshirt. If they say I’ve already gone through, I just say I have a twin brother and talk about how crazy it is that we both went though there without knowing it and show them a picture or two of us.Also a bonus for all places that give freebies for birthdays, I get two free items or orders if he’s out of town or isn’t planning on going to that place
#21
(English isnt my native language so there may be mistakes)I feel like he understands me in a way no one does. I won't go talk to him about stuff as I would to my best friend, yet he always knows when I am upset and how to cheer me up and make me laugh.
We have each others backs no matter what, which really helped us cope with emotional abuse/ neglect from our parents. We always had someone who gets and understands the other on a different level.
Also kind of unrelated but is somehow: (Pre covid) me and my brother love movies, we used to go with friends to the premiere of any movie we thought we would like and be able to avoid spoilers and what not.
One time my twins friends cancelled on him last moment so he went with me and it became a tradition. We love watching stuff together and nerding over movies.
#22
Taught a set of triplets, two of which were identical. One was a jerk, literally stole a kid's money in front of his friends and walked off to buy ice cream with it. When caught out, he tried to claim his parents gave it to him when both his brothers denied getting any ice cream money. The other identical was as sweet as could be, very sensitive and always wanted to help. Nice triplet always got yelled at until someone figured out they got the wrong one. Poor kid always ended up crying over it, while his triplet shrugged and went off to go break rules in whatever area he hadn't been kicked out of.#23
I know of a pair of twins, and when they were younger they developed their "own way of speaking". Not with different words and phrases, but they meshed their words in such a way that they're difficult to understand. They have a sibling who's able to understand most of what they're saying, but is "not fluent", so to speak.Around other people their words don't mesh, but around each other they revert back to their speech patterns.
#24
In my high school there was an unusually high number of twins. As in, minimum 3 sets of twins per 90-person class. One class had 6 sets.A common prank was for twins to "switch" classes for a period or day. Most of the time the teachers caught them (they were very used to it), but there were two brothers that always got away with it. They were just too identical in looks, voice, and mannerisms. One of those guys had a crush on me and to this day, I still don't know which one it was lol.
All the twins got a special group photo in the yearbook every year, too.
Edit: I'll address some common questions here:
This was in poor, rural West Michigan. Very few folks in the whole county could afford IVF, so I don't think that's much of a factor.
By "90-person class," I mean grade. Like 9th, 10th, 11th grade, etc. This was an average grade size for that high school (the biggest in the county). Again, rural Michigan.
To the folks saying I should have given it a shot with one of the twins and taken that 50% chance of getting it right, you're giving a lot of credit to high school SassiestPants.
#25
I have a twin brother (I’m a girl) and it sucked. We went to the same class for 8 years and shared the same bedroom, shared the same friends and were always compared. I always wished we were one year apart so that we didn’t have to see each other 24 hours a day. When it’s 2 boys or 2 girls it’s different. Those 8 years were hell. He was always mean to me, hit me, wouldn’t let me hang out with “his” friends even though we were all in the same class... We are 22 now. I don’t think there is a single advantage in my case (that doesn’t mean it’s bad). We’re grown up now. The problem was that they made us go to the same class and that made us grow apart. When you’re forced to do something, you want to do that less. They shouldn’t have forced us.#26
Twin here. This questions answers vary vastly based on if they're identical or fraternal. My twin brother and I are fraternal so the main advantage was always having something to do with someone. We are very different personally, so it was more akin to a life long best friend than having a copy of myself walking around.#27
My twin brother is into buying nice fashionable clothes. I'm not. They eventually end up in my wardrobe when he gets new stuff, same size fits all!We could also pool resources and buy friends/family much bigger gifts at Christmas than a normal present, from the both of us.
We worked in the same restaurant for a long time and would constantly send each other in to do each other's shifts if we needed a day off, basically decided our own timetable to an extent, boss didn't care as long as one of us showed up.
As kids we would have a long pre-arranged list of numbers in our heads if someone asked about twin telepathy, "twin telepathy?! Never heard of it, maybe if I say a number in your ear and you ask my brother what it was". Never really worked...
When we went to different universities (in the same city), it was nearly the first time we had significant different groups of friends. Having a classmate ask me "why did you ignore me on the street the other day?!" became a regular occurrence!
No pranks or anything, just mundane utilitarian things......
#28
Identical twin here. Some "twin-isms" that I have taken advantage of:One time I couldn't find my driver's license so I used my identical twin brother's. Who would know better?
In high school, my brother's girlfriend came up to me and started rubbing my back. Lucky for her, she figured it out in time...
My twin and I did the same degree in college, so having a "built-in" study partner/group member was highly advantageous.
Even our family has a hard time telling us apart on the phone, so it's easy to impersonate each other with or without caller ID.
On the flipside, there are some caveats to being a twin:
In high school, my twin and I worked on a project for the same class completely independently of each other. However, the end products were so similar that the teacher made us redo the entire thing, despite absolutely zero collusion.
My twin and I are extremely close and love being twins (it's all we know), but being referred to with each other constantly (e.g. "the twins" or "the last_name twins") has in some ways amplified our want to have unique identities. Wouldn't trade being a twin for anything in the world, though!
#29
My twin brother and I grew up with a love of pranks and excellent poker faces. Hilarity ensued.We once convinced someone at school that we were cousins that happened to look alike (looking back he probably thought our dad was messing around...)
We convinced someone in college that we had never met before orientation and were randomly assigned to the same room (kinda similar to Parent Trap)
We turned in each other’s papers and sat in on classes when the other was sick
For a year, I pretended to be my brother because I was too shy to admit we were twins. We’d meet up after classes and swap stories of how each other’s friends were doing, and that’s how we kept up with our friends at school until I finally broke the news in sophomore year ?
#30
I have a twin sister. We went to the same school, different classes. Sometimes we would want to repeat a class because we felt it necessary for a recap, and so would just swap with each other as our schedules were different . For example if my sister wanted to repeat a language class, she would check with me on my schedule and I would allow her to use my language lesson if I felt I didn’t need it. Or if I didn’t feel like doing PE that day my sister wouldn’t mind putting on her sport clothes and pretending to be me . It was quite handy, like a get out of jail free card. The best scenario was if one of us was late to show up to a meeting. One time I had to present to be her for one of her society meetings in university as she was out of town and forgot about it. She just briefed me on what to do and it went so well it was hilarious. You can feel like a double agent#31
It’s hard to talk about “taking advantage” of being a twin because there aren’t really opportunities to do that. I guess people think of the movies where you do pranks and trick people into thinking there is just one of you or something but real life isn’t really like that since even identical twins always look distinguishable to people who know them. One cool thing about having a twin is you are in the same classes together so if you are the irresponsible one and don’t remember what the homework is your twin probably remembers. Also you can have a wider friend group. But that’s all I can think of really.#32
My brother and I swapped one day in middle school when the teacher stepped out for a minute. At the end of the class, every one of our classmates were dying laughing and she refused to believe every single person in the room when they told her what was so funny.#33
I once got lost at the beach.. Mom took my twin and walked around asking people if they saw someone who looks just like herI believe my parents are the ones who took advantage of the twins thing.. Always getting discounts and such
Fun Fact:
For some reason people are impressed by identical twins.. They'll usually hand out candies and stuff just cause we looked so cute in our matching outfits
#34
Twice the clothes#35
My grandfather was one of a set of twins, and they were both in the navy together. Didn't get a chance to ask him because he died when I was young, but apparently he sucked at swimming and his brother didn't, so his brother would take his swim tests for him.#36
Ultimately it's so much easier to pretend to be the other person. Advantages my twin and I my twin have done: I've used his driving licence to drive. He has used my ID to get into clubs he was banned from. We can pick up each others parcels and take each others tests. When I got an injury during a sporting tournament I'd sneak off, swop gear and he would play for me. As we got older we played pranks each other friends to see how long it would take for them to realise.#37
I'm half of an identical twin. We never really did anything with this fact BUT we agreed to not donate any organs or stuff in case the other one needs it (organs which you can donate and keep living). No search or waiting list for these kind of organs since I've got my twin. We also have other medical search advantages#38
I have a twin! I'm a woman, and he's a man, and by far the most common question I get if I tell someone I have a twin brother is "are you identical?" So, I'd say the greatest advantage is alerting me to people who don't think before they speak.No really, now that we're adults, we are more like close siblings than anything, and we both lead lives in different professions in different states. But when we were kids, I would say the biggest advantage to having a twin is always having a friend and not being alone when the world is scary to a little kid. When I see friends posting pictures of "little X's first day of preschool!" my reaction is always "oh my God, you're sending that three year old into the world alone?!" and then I remember most of you poor sods had do do it all alone, even when it was scary, and it was so nice that we always knew we had a friend. :)
We actually opted to be together in classes until 3rd grade despite protests from the school, after which we tried different classes, and from 6th grade we were in different schools altogether. So not like we were joined at the hip for life, just for those formative years.
#39
Mainly playing in bands really helped. I played guitar and he played drums. We synced together really well and were able to write some cool stuff together. Being a twin is awesome because you’ll forever have their back and they’ll always do the same for you. Also it was easy to confront other people about grievances because of the amount of times you confronted each other.#40
Was in Vegas with twins and one had her wallet stolen. How to get thru TSA at the airport to get back home? I went thru security with one twin, took her ID back out to the non secure area, went back thru security with twin 2.from Bored Panda https://bit.ly/3cbSEEA
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