- I get annoyed when people act like my twin and I are the same person but some stereotypes are true.
- A developmental study described twins who used one name and the pronoun "me" to refer to themselves.
Julia and I were working at a library a couple of years ago, on projects with tight deadlines, when I heard myself say distractedly, "I'm going to the restroom. Do you want me to go for you, too?"
Julia's concentration-glazed eyes lifted from her laptop, quivered briefly, then settled into an expression of derision.
"Oh, wow," I said, blinking. "What the — "
"I think I will empty my own bladder, thank you," Julia suggested.
"Fine," I replied, collecting myself. "You do you."
As I headed to the toilet, I could hear Julia sniggering behind me. I was amused, too, but also unsettled. We'd spent practically all our time together over the past month, during my annual visit to New Zealand, and this was a vivid sign that I'd lost significant grip on where I ended and she began. I try to ward off a creeping sense of interpersonal merger whenever I spend more than five consecutive days with Julia, but clearly the ramparts had collapsed once again, and my resulting assumption that we somehow shared a urinary system suggested my departure would be wrenching.
Throughout history, twins have been connected
I was also annoyed at myself for a more intellectual reason. Some rogue part of me had apparently adopted a view about the metaphysics of twinhood that I've spent much of my life resisting. Singletons have a habit of implying that twins aren't fully distinct people, but rather — somehow — a single person spread over two bodies.
To cite a random set of examples: Antonio asks of Sebastian and Viola in "Twelfth Night," "How have you made division of yourself ? An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin than these two creatures." The Nuer people of South Sudan don't hold a ceremony when one twin dies because they believe the surviving twin will continue the life of its sibling. The twin protagonists of Michel Tournier's novel "Gemini" are collectively referred to by a single name, Jean-Paul. And the chief surgeon of the Hôpital Bichat in Paris explicitly announced in 1926, as a matter of medical fact, that single-egg twins are two copies of the same person, not genuinely individual human beings.
If asked directly, most people would deny that they consider twins a metaphysical unit, but their behavior often suggests they're inclined in that direction. Especially as children, we twins are given a single present to share, are referred to as "the twins" instead of by our individual names, and are treated as interchangeable in friend groups or by teachers.
Despite the stereotypes, some parts of being a twin are true
Keeping track of who we are doesn't seem super important because we're assumed to sub for each other in most social roles. And people get an evident satisfaction out of grouping us together. When I post photos of me with Julia on my trips back home, they blow up with likes in seconds. Our friends are happy we're having fun, sure. But it's also as if our geographical reunion has mended a puzzling tear in the fabric of the universe and everyone feels better now.
You might think only a singleton would be tempted by the idea that twins are a single or duplicated person, or a split self, but some twins seem drawn to it, too. One developmental study describes a pair of twins who, between the ages of two and four, routinely used a single name, singular verbs, and the pronoun me when referring to themselves collectively. After observing them chatting at thirty-six months, the researcher recorded in his notes, "They talked as if they considered themselves one." As for adults, many members of the Facebook group for identical twins that I lurk on refer to their siblings as "my other half," in a way that reads to me as only surface ironic.
Julia and I have distinct personalities; we live independent lives in different countries; I don't have access to her calendar, let alone her thoughts; when someone steps on her foot, I don't feel it. If there's any basis for thinking we're one person, I've always assumed, it must be some incoherent or mystical conception of personhood that it'd be not only unprofitable but uncharitable to examine.
That's been my public take on the matter. Then I find myself offering to pee on behalf of my twin. It could have been nothing but a meaningless linguistic slip, but to me at the time it felt more like a trapdoor opening over an inner existential cavern. Whatever my level of distraction, I'm pretty sure there's no one on the planet other than Julia whose bladder I would offer to empty — setting aside myself.
Excerpted from "How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins" by Helena de Bres. Used with the permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury. Copyright © 2023 by Helena de Bres.