Joy and Austin 16: Touring the Texas Rodeo

[Georgiana]

On the flip side of this discussion: my niece shares NO more genetic material with me than with a random stranger (my sister is adopted) and in fact is a completely different racial mix (I'm white with a dash of Native, my niece is white/black/Colombian).  HOWEVER, everyone says that we "look so much alike", even people who know we don't share DNA.

The reason? Facial expressions. It creates an incredible resemblance that totally pegs my niece and I as having a close, family level connection.

Humans factor in expressions (even minute ones) and other factors such as body language or speech when sizing people up especially to identify them, which is often how a lot of people just "know" which twin is which if they know them very well.  One twin has better posture, one speaks louder, one makes more eye contact, etc.  They aren't going by physical features as much as they are going by habits, reactions, quirks, etc.  Physical resemblance is ONE way of determining who "belongs to whom" (an essential survival skill in social animals), but shared behavior is another and on a very minute level humans unconsciously lump them together sometimes.  

[Jana814]

 

32 minutes ago, AtlanticTug said:

For the life of me I can't tell them apart, and their parents don't dress them the same or anything. But my son totally knows who is who and insists that he only likes Owen lol. I've observed him correctly identify them and I'm just amazed. I want to know his secret.

Where I use to sub about 8 years ago their were twins Alex and Zach none of the teachers could tell them apart but all the kids could.

 

[Rachel333]

I look mostly like my dad and don't particularly resemble people on my mom's side of the family. I have an aunt by marriage who looks a bit like me, though, as does her daughter. I'm not genetically related to either of them, but other people have told us they can tell we're related because we look so much alike.

[louisa05]

I only taught two sets of identical twins. The first I was having a hard time telling apart until their mother clued me in: one had a mole on his cheek and the other did not. It was amazing how many teachers could not remember that simple way of telling them apart. They even successfully switched classes for several weeks running for one to take all the math tests and quizzes for the other until another teacher figured it out--both teachers for the classes they were switching for had failed to notice it for like seven class days of them doing it. 

The second set I could not tell apart until one was assigned as my teacher's assistant their senior year. Once I was interacting with one more one on one for just a short time, I could tell them apart easily by mannerisms and the way they carried themselves. 

I think that sometimes people see resemblances by the power of suggestion. A ridiculous example : one of my cousins is adopted and full blood Native American with the darker hair, eyes and skin plus defined cheek bones to go with that. I am a fair skinned blue eyed blonde with a round Irish face. For years, knowing we were cousins and apparently not knowing she was adopted, the pastor of her family's church insisted we look exactly alike which never failed to crack us up when he went on about it. 

 

 

 

[SamiKatz]

10 hours ago, louisa05 said:

I think that sometimes people see resemblances by the power of suggestion. A ridiculous example : one of my cousins is adopted and full blood Native American with the darker hair, eyes and skin plus defined cheek bones to go with that. I am a fair skinned blue eyed blonde with a round Irish face. For years, knowing we were cousins and apparently not knowing she was adopted, the pastor of her family's church insisted we look exactly alike which never failed to crack us up when he went on about it. 

 

 

 

I come from a blended family, and people always think that myself, my younger sister and my step sister are biologically related (all shortish blondes, two with blue eyes, one with brown), and that my other bio sister and step brother are bio siblings (taller, both have dark hair and eyes).  People frequently tell me that my niece looks like me, even though we are not biologically related at all, and EVERYONE in my family says my non bio nephew acts like me (meaning stubborn and unreasonable)

Funnily, when looking back at old photos, we frequently comment that my non bio sis, younger sis and I do actually look alike and have on occasion misidentified oourselves in the photographs.

Osmosis, maybe.

[manda b]

I have a Morgan. I have always liked the name. Of course my mean granny said I was naming my daughter after a breed of horse.

[SassyPants]

I'm not getting the "ugly" identical twin label. If they're truly identical, wouldn't they both be nice looking or both be unattractive?

[cascarones]

@SassyPants Perhaps it comes down to styling or hygiene.  One may dress better, have a better haircut, less acne, be in better shape, etc. Identical genes doesn't mean identical personality or identical gene expression.

[Rachel333]

People look for little differences in identical twins. Calling one twin the "ugly" or "pretty" twin is usually a relative descriptor, since it's unlikely there will actually be huge differences in attractiveness.

[SamiKatz]

3 hours ago, manda b said:

I have a Morgan. I have always liked the name. Of course my mean granny said I was naming my daughter after a breed of horse.

The Morgan in my family is male, named after Morgan Freeman.  

[SassyPants]

2 hours ago, cascarones said:

@SassyPants Perhaps it comes down to styling or hygiene.  One may dress better, have a better haircut, less acne, be in better shape, etc. Identical genes doesn't mean identical personality or identical gene expression.

The only identical I know look exactly alike- except for the fact that they are mirrors of one another. Did all the same things, all the same sports, went to the same university, shared a dorm- are both in the same professional career. Exact same size. 

[Jana814]

I know a set of twins both girls who went to the same college (university of Pennsylvania) but they were in separate dorms. (They always had separate rooms). They are in the same profession (lawyers). Infact one of them is now expecting identical twin girls. 

[SassyPants]

20 minutes ago, Jana814 said:

I know a set of twins both girls who went to the same college (university of Pennsylvania) but they were in separate dorms. (They always had separate rooms). They are in the same profession (lawyers). Infact one of them is now expecting identical twin girls. 

The girls I know are NPs and their twin brothers (frat) are DDSs

[Still have a free arm]

My baby stats guess. Clay Robert 7#11 oz 19 inches, March 3rd.

[Eponine]

16 hours ago, louisa05 said:

I think that sometimes people see resemblances by the power of suggestion. A ridiculous example : one of my cousins is adopted and full blood Native American with the darker hair, eyes and skin plus defined cheek bones to go with that. I am a fair skinned blue eyed blonde with a round Irish face. For years, knowing we were cousins and apparently not knowing she was adopted, the pastor of her family's church insisted we look exactly alike which never failed to crack us up when he went on about it.

Another flip side to this sort of thing - I have cousins who are half Indian and have typical Indian coloring with almost black hair, dark eyes, darker skin than me. I'm white, super pale with light-ish hair. However, my one cousin and I look really similar in terms of bone structure, facial features, even mannerisms and voice.  This was especially true when we were younger.

SO many people would insist that we couldn't possibly be blood related because of the difference in our coloring! Sometimes people refused to believe we were cousins, or suggested that she must be adopted (because, I guess, it couldn't be the white kid who was adopted). They saw a very surface-level difference and assumed they could tell the whole story because of it - sort of like a reverse power of suggestion. The suggestion came from their own heads and they ran with it.

My mom used to pick my cousins - her nieces and nephews - up from school sometimes, and on multiple occasions she got in trouble for trying to "take" them when she clearly wasn't related, despite the fact that my aunt and uncle had given the school written permission to release them to her.

[AprilQuilt]

I did my degree alongside identical twin girls, and I can't explain really how I told the difference between them - it was something in their bearing and their attitude towards the world. One was more boisterous, one was delicate and shy. Their facial expressions and mannerisms were quite different. I don't *think* I'm kidding myself...

[Quiver Full of Kittens]

Mr. Kittens and I have a girl's first name picked out. He hates he middle name that I love with it, but has no suggestion on what else would go with that name. Rufus help us if we have a boy since we can't agree on anything for a boy. 

[Rachel333]

I can normally tell my sisters apart right away, but it's a lot harder when they're sleeping. It's like their personality is gone then.

[MargaretElliott]

Twin here. My mother, in her infinite wisdom, named us the phonetic equivalent of Rebecca and Regina (not our real names, but you get the idea). We are not identical, but people are always mixing us up, because our nicknames are even more similar than our actual names... it's a massive pain in the ass. It's funny though, when we're having a conversation, it's almost impossible for anyone else to keep up, because we have so many shared references and shorthand that we can finish the other's sentence in our head, and therefore respond to it before she's said it. 

That being said, many people can hardly believe we're related, because our personalities and styles are quite opposite. It's pretty funny sometimes.

[MakeItSo]

stories like all your identical twin stories make me glad I'm a fraternal twin haha even though I would have loved to send my twin to write tests for me It's fascinating how different the experiences of identical vs fraternal (the again same sex vs boy-girl) can be. Understandable but still fascinating to me...

 

Edited because I can't proofread, apparently

[Bad Wolf]

I went to school with identical twins, Tessa and Prudence. They dressed alike, but so did the rest of us. Ugly school uniforms.

[ophelia]

18 hours ago, SamiKatz said:

The Morgan in my family is male, named after Morgan Freeman.  

Morgan Freeman is a great namesake.

[Oh_Dear!]

My high school graduating glass of 109 included 3 sets of identical twins. I could always tell the twins in two of the sets apart on sight (slightly chubbier or slightly different color red hair), but the third set, they were not only identical, but their personalities were very similar. However, none of these sets of twins had cutesy matchy names.

[Jana814]

The set of twins that were a year  ahead of me in school had matching names. One now has 4 kids the other one 3. They have each have a daughter who both look like their mother's and because the girls are identical their daughters look like each other. 

[church_of_dog]

56 minutes ago, Jana814 said:

The set of twins that were a year  ahead of me in school had matching names. One now has 4 kids the other one 3. They have each have a daughter who both look like their mother's and because the girls are identical their daughters look like each other. 

Makes me wonder how similar the husbands look to each other — and not sure if I would find a strong similarity to be funny or squicky, lol...