Two’s Company
Itchin’ for a sneak peak into the article that I wrote for Maisonneuve Magazine about my experience growing up a twin? Find a cheeky little excerpt of “Two’s Company” below — and then grab a real copy of Maisonneuve’s Summer 2024 issue, so that you can read the rest!
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Comparisons are naturally projected on most sibling relationships. But twins seem to get extra attention because they symbolize a closeness that feels out of reach in other types of relationships. Every time someone tells me they wish they had a twin, I imagine it’s the presumed intimacy that they yearn for—as though having a twin would mean they get to share something beyond siblinghood, something special, exclusive. What I don’t think people consider is the fluff that comes with being perceived first and foremost as a twin, before any other part of your identity.
Pop culture is peppered with tropes about twins. They are often understood as a single character: twins might cutely finish each other’s sentences, providing a moment of comic relief, or they might stand and stare in matching outfits, sending chills down the viewer’s spine. Twins can be cast as polar opposites that complete each other’s personality, with one serious and one fun, one booksmart and the other practical. In all these cases, twins are seen in relation to each other, as though they’d be a complete person if they were united.
Growing up, I faced assumptions that because Nick and I share similar genetics and physical traits, we must also share thoughts, pain, and goals. Some people haven’t even tried to tell us apart. Though my sister and I are in our thirties, our family members will still take a fifty-fifty shot at getting our names right. The cheesy jokes and cliché questions feel like knee-jerk reactions, naturalized responses. But after all these years, it’s become exhausting to politely laugh and accommodate such ignorance. I’m still not sure how to respond constructively, and my first instinct is to become defensive.
No matter how independent we become, how separately we live and how different we look, Nick and I will always be the twins the world wants us to be. While I’m not ready to accept this defeat, I’m learning how to be patient, and to approach these annoyances with curiosity, rather than frustration.
