Two Peas in a Pod

Bri and I are always asked if there is a trick to telling us apart or if we have any distinct features that make us look different from each other. I think the answer is actually pretty simple: we don’t look alike. I was talking to Brianna about this the other day because everyone at work is having trouble telling us apart since we have to wear the same uniform. I think she explained it best when she said, “When I look into the mirror, I don’t see Britt staring back at me. I see myself. “

So the question is, do identical twins look exactly the same? I personally don’t think so. Like Brianna said, I always see myself when I look at pictures or in the mirror, not Bri. When we tell anyone that we don’t think that we look alike at all, they usually look at us like we’re crazy.  I guess we just see ourselves differently than everybody else does.

I personally think that as we’ve gotten older, we don’t look very similar anymore. When we were little, it was a different story. We looked almost exactly the same and even I can’t tell us apart in some of the pictures!  (My Mom can’t either!) I guess my family would paint our nails different colors so they wouldn’t get confused and mistake Bri for me or vice versa. We also had t-shirts with our names on them that said, “I’m Brittany. That’s my twin sister Brianna.” I think it’s pretty silly, but I guess it worked for them!

Now that we’re older, I think it’s funny that people can’t tell us apart. Sometimes other students will start talking to me about a test or quiz and I have no idea what they are talking about.  After staring at them dumbfounded for quite some time, I usually realize that they think I’m Bri. Recently we’ve both resorted to saying hi to people we don’t know to avoid explaining that we are twins and to also spare the feelings of the people we’ve ignored because we didn’t know them. Life seems much easier that way!

However, when I talk to my friends, they say that when they first met us we looked completely identical, but now they can tell us apart.  They say that it’s easy now and they don’t know why they couldn’t tell before. I’ve noticed that when I’ve know someone for a long time, they can easily tell us apart. I’m not sure why this happens, but it is very common.

To answer the question, to other people we look exactly the same. However, to Brianna and I, we feel as though we look like completely different people.

Switch It Up

Anytime someone discovers that Brianna and I are twins, it is almost always guaranteed that a person will ask, “So, do you two ever switch places and play pranks on other people?” It is a question that I’ve been asked frequently and I really do wonder why so many people think that this is a common practice for twins to do.  I always question, “Do I look like I would do something like that? Or is it something a lot of people just assume about identical twins?”

I wish I had an interesting story to tell, like Brianna going out on a date with a past boyfriend of mine to see if he would notice the difference or I took a math test for Brianna because she wasn’t doing very good in the class, but I don’t. To tell the truth, Bri and I have never really thought about switching places.  However, when we were five years old, there was an exception. What we did was, in reality, pretty cruel.

When we were little, my great-grandma, who I called Nonny, used to take care of us when my mom went to work.  Bri and I would wear the same outfit every day in different colors and my mom would tell my Nonny who was wearing which color in the morning when she dropped us off. Bri and I were not known to misbehave, but one day we decided that it would be a good idea to switch our shirts without my Nonny’s knowledge. After she fell for it the first time, Bri and I got a kick out of tricking my great-grandma. I do not remember this since we were five at the time, but I’ve been told countless times that Bri and I really found it funny to confuse my Nonny and we continued to do so until my mom found out. We were in A LOT of trouble then and soon stopped. That was the last time Bri and I have ever switched places.

To answer the question, yes, I have switched places with my twin. However, it was for a very short period of time and we have not tried it since. I don’t know if we ever will. It might be pretty entertaining to try sometime, but I really can’t picture us doing that again. I can’t speak for other twins, but in my experience, switching places really wasn’t for me.

Hello Everyone!

My name is Brittany and I’ve had the greatest best friend for 19 years. She is Brianna, my identical twin sister. This blog is all about us, but more importantly the variety of questions we’ve been asked about being twins over the years. These questions range from interesting to downright ridiculous. Also, I have heard many different ideas that people have about twins. I’m going to address some of these questions and perceptions based on the experiences that I have personally had being a twin. Enjoy!