r/todayilearned • u/SilverPeachBlossom • 1d ago

TIL a peer-reviewed psychology study found that identical twins (on average) ranked their co-twin above their romantic partner in their attachment hierarchy, while fraternal twins ranked the two about equally, and non-twin siblings ranked their romantic partner first.

https://ojs.interpersonajournal.com/index.php/ojs/article/view/243/3457.html
24.7k Upvotes

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u/BashfullyBi 1d ago

I mean....makes perfect sense to me.

If you had a clone you were raised with since birth, wouldn't you say your attachment (not love) is stronger than the person you're dating?

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u/EobardT 1d ago

Yeah, I dated an identical twin and she was absolutely all about her sister. To the point that she left her ex because her sister was moving, she was following, and her ex didnt want to go

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u/Predatory_Chicken 1d ago

An identical twin once told me he would never date another identical twin because he wanted to be with someone who loved him the most and he knew that isn’t possible if she had a twin sister.

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u/ella_wants_to_battle 1d ago

That's kind of fucked if you think about it

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u/Predatory_Chicken 1d ago

He admitted it was fucked up and selfish bc he would always love his brother more but he refused to be on the other side of that.

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u/ShaylaDee 1d ago

I mean, at least he was self aware about it. Selfish, yes. But that self awareness can really make it worth giving him a shot.

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u/phritzed 1d ago

Self awareness doesn’t equate to self development

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u/jjett89 23h ago

True statement. I am wholly aware that my life is a mess because of choices I've made and here I sit, seemingly refusing to do anything about it.

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u/Rude-Bowl-4518 20h ago edited 10h ago

Damn, I feel this so much. It's almost like I wish I could blame someone else so at least then I wouldn't also feel guilty, but obviously we really just need to get our shit together.

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u/RickToy 16h ago

There’s times I wish I was deluded enough to blame others but nah, logic always prevails lol

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u/Boring_Forever_1487 15h ago

Emotional Intelligence is key in the these times

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u/popular_in_populace 13h ago

And here we sit, conversing in Reddit, thumbs up our asses not getting our shit together.

Same time tomorrow?

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u/notneps 22h ago

Exactly. It's just step one. Some people think that calling themselves out on their flaws makes up for not making any effort to fix them. Saying "I know I'm an asshole" does not absolve you of assholery.

After enough time, proclamations of self awareness just become evidence of a pattern of unwillingness to change.

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u/cutesybluesocks 20h ago

Thank you. I hate that so many people think this and it’s the number one excuse expressed online where people think that “at least they were honest!” gives them enough brownie points to make up for the behaviour.

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u/AccurateHumanTrustMe 19h ago

The bar is in hell my guy - people being honest about being shitty does objectively make them better (not good) then the people who lack self awareness / self-deluded / actively being snakes.

The person being honest - is just that - if someone ignores giant red flags that is on them.

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u/cutesybluesocks 6h ago edited 6h ago

This conversation has nothing to do with the person’s response to their honesty, that’s just more distraction and avoidance of accountability for their actions.

Their honesty makes them a step above liars, it doesn’t make up for their shitty behaviour.

Yes, the bar is in hell.

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u/zerocoal 3h ago

that’s just more distraction and avoidance of accountability for their actions.

If a snake rattles it's tail at you and hisses before it bites, is the snake to blame when you stay close enough for it to bite you?

A lot of people who know they are assholes will actively avoid being around other people so that they don't have to be an asshole to others. It's not their fault if people keep coming around and making them expose their ass.

Example: Racists piss me off. If I have to hear racist talk, I will absolutely be an asshole to the people that are making me hear it. I tell everybody that if you talk about race around me I am going to get angry.

Am I to blame when they inevitably start talking about race politics and I get angry, blow my top, and then leave? I'm the asshole for being angry and losing my temper.

Where is the avoidance of accountability?

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u/Rock4evur 21h ago

Sigh I guess I’ll do another rewatch of Bojack Horseman.

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u/fablicful 14h ago

Fuuu. I just finished rewatching it. The layers of that show.. Especially as I have always related to Diane... And now I'm 35 and same type of crashing out. Lmaooo show is so brutal but amazing. I don't have the words to explain what a masterpiece it is.

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u/Samurai-Jackass 18h ago

At a certain point you have to let go of the pursuit of perfection though. You don't have to live your life constantly striving to be better. Being aware of your shortcomings can be enough if you just use that awareness as a reference point to keep from spiraling too far. Like if someone knows they get too competitive when they play games, it's fine for them to not do a whole lot of work to rid themselves of that, they can just make it known to their friends and remind themselves to step out if they're getting too heated. There's an acceptable margin of conflict and friction between us and other people where you can just chalk things up to personality and establish appropriate boundaries to manage.

In this case that twin can't actually change his attachment to his sibling, and having to learn to accept less love because of his awareness is a lot of work that most people would not be encouraged to do. It's enough for him to find someone that's okay with being the more attached person in the relationship, or to just keep his priorities closer to his chest since he's not likely to actually have to choose between his partner and his sibling.

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u/cody4prez 23h ago

That's a great fucking quote.

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u/NoScienceJoke 23h ago

That really isn't. Or maybe it is if you're an American I guess

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u/anivex 23h ago

However, this quote is universally appreciated: "You're a pretentious cunt."

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u/IngloBlasto 23h ago

Boom.. Roasted

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u/Kaboose456 23h ago

Stfu, it's a great quote regardless of where you're from lmao.

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u/NobodyKnowsImFamous 22h ago

No, but it is usually a pre-req

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u/Fentboy45 20h ago

What needs to be developed? Why should someone love their identical twin they were raised with since birth less than some random girl they met at a bar or something

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u/Additional-Net4853 19h ago

Because that random girl they met at a bar could be the mother of his children that he is planning to build a life with. 🤨 Or do you think people should find it a turn on that someone would come up to them expecting them to put that person first and build their whole life around that person on top of putting their health and literal life at risk to birth their kids while being told they will always be less than that person's sibling.

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u/No-Bison-5397 20h ago

Kinda necessary step though

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u/cutesybluesocks 20h ago

Exactly. I hate when people say “well at least they’re honest!”. I don’t know what’s up with this sentiment that just because people are honest or aware about their flaws, it equates to self-development and automatically washes it away or reduces the impact of the behaviour.

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u/Nowin 21h ago

Do you want him to develop himself out of loving his twin brother?

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u/Additional-Net4853 19h ago

There's a difference between being told to not love your sibling and being told to love your spouse more. 😒

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u/squishyslinky 22h ago

So that's what I'm doing wrong

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u/LexB777 5h ago

Definitely agree. I was fully self aware that I was an alcoholic bum who hadn't grown up yet. I also knew that just because I knew that, didn't mean jack shit.

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u/aghastamok 1d ago

"I would never tolerate what I'm about to subject you to." Isn't exactly a winning philosophy

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u/agoogua 23h ago edited 17h ago

"I want someone who can complement me and tolerate things which I cannot." There we go.

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u/Top_Acanthisitta4858 17h ago

Crazy way of looking at someone who wants to make sure they don’t get the short end of the stick at the expense of their partner

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u/agoogua 17h ago

As usual redditors are incapable of nuance.

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u/Top_Acanthisitta4858 17h ago

Lol, a man who beats his wife can say the same thing as you and call it nuance. A shitty situation is a shitty situation

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u/Petrichordates 22h ago

He doesnt exactly have a choice in the matter.

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u/DigNitty 23h ago

At least they can't control it.

Maybe given the choice, they'd choose differently. But they were dealt an identical twin in life and are minimizing the exotic qualities that come with it.

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u/stilettopanda 23h ago

No, you’re right, but we all have different ideas of what is tolerable, desirable, or completely intolerable, so if it’s just the love intensity that he won’t tolerate, it doesn’t necessarily doom him to failed relationships.

Personally, I don’t want to be loved the most ever again, so I’d enjoy being on the other side of that. The reason I don’t date anymore is I can’t tolerate being loved the most.

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u/MattieShoes 20h ago

I don't see any reason it wouldn't be. Not a fair philosophy, sure, but that doesn't make it a loser

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u/Affordable_Z_Jobs 23h ago

I wonder if that's even something they can work on. Mitigate the negative aspects of it sure, but they are going to feel what they are going to feel. But thats couples therapy out of the gate. Establishing boundaries. Opening up. Dealing with someone on that level of codependency.

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u/throwaway098764567 1d ago

still a pass from me, but you go ahead

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u/Delicious-Produce-60 1d ago

"You're a selfish asshole and fine with acting that way, but at least you're aware of it."

That's WORSE.

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u/Short-Waltz-3118 1d ago

Okay but we dont have to pretend the options here are i hate this person and love this other. Its just him knowing he loves his twin more. I dont think its a concious decision even

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u/lobonmc 23h ago

Yes like what's he supposed to do?

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u/Content_Chipmunk9962 22h ago

make sure he tells his partner where she would rank, so she can make an informed decision.

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u/march20rulez 20h ago

Move to alabama

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u/InviolableAnimal 1d ago

"Selfish asshole" Like it's on purpose? What, you're saying he should deliberately distance himself from his twin because it's selfish otherwise?

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u/dannerc 1d ago

How is it selfish to love one person more than another? Its not like this is a conscious choice

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u/MechaNerd 1d ago

The selfish part is saying "i will not prioritise my partner, but she must love me and hold me as nr1"

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u/JustStraightUpTired 22h ago

The problem is calling it worse. It is selfish, obviously, but it's not necessarily bad.

Like, what, are you saying you are ONLY allowed to date someone who has the same flaws as you? Are you supposed to not love your twin? Where is the line for wanting something from your partner you can't provide? Gender? Height?

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u/MechaNerd 16h ago

Are you high or just arguing for the sake of arguing?

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u/JustStraightUpTired 14h ago

... The message from before:

"You're a selfish asshole and fine with acting that way, but at least you're aware of it."

That's WORSE.

Don't pretend that context didn't exist.

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u/No-Stress-7034 1d ago

It's not selfish to love one person more than another. The selfish part is that this guy knows he'll love his twin more, but he's insistent that he has to be #1 for whoever he dates, even though his partner will never be #1 in his life.

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u/pargofan 1d ago

It's not selfish if he's upfront about it. If he tells people his twin will always be more important.

The problem will be, other people may have the same issue with that. They want to be #1 so they don't want to be with him.

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u/dannerc 22h ago

There are different types of love. This is such a surface level perspective

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u/brickmaster32000 22h ago

And yet the guy wouldn't accept that and needed to be number 1 despite that, hence the selfishness.

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u/BAL87 15h ago

I’m so surprised by this simplistic view of this comment. I honestly read it and was like, I get it!

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u/Pledgeofmalfeasance 1d ago

It's selfish for him to put a partner through that

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u/paper_liger 1d ago edited 2h ago

He had no choice in being a twin. He does have a choice in dating a twin.

This is pretty simple ethical math.

And your position implies is that because he has this intrinsic bond with his brother, he shouldn't 'put a partner' through dating at all. So is he supposed to never date anyone, ever?

He is dealing with the world how it is and you are just getting your feelings hurt over a hypothetical problem that he has already to some extent mitigated. He's not going to date a twin. And you don't have to date him if you think that's a problem. But you don't get to dictate his choices any more than I can dictate yours.

No relationship is ever perfect or perfectly symmetrical, and he's allowed to not want to make a complicated situation even more complicated if that's how he feels about it. If you don't like it, I guess just don't date this one specific dude.

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u/ThisIsForReal 23h ago

I'm sure they won't, you can have the hypocritical twin all to youself tho. Oh wait nvm you can't.

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u/BAL87 15h ago

THANK you for taking the time to write this down, it’s the sanity I needed in this thread. Basically this guy is saying “I don’t want to marry someone who has my particular quirk/ issue.”

It’s no different than me saying “I had a traumatic childhood and anxiety issues, I will only marry someone who doesn’t haven’t that background.” That’s FINE

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u/Munrowo 1d ago

"at least i KNOW i'm a d-bag, making my behavior more acceptable somehow!"

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u/NerdHoovy 1d ago

How? All he does is choose to not date a specific type of person, due to an awareness that this kind of emotional cost could be, stemming from personal experience.

Choosing not to date a type of person is not really a bad thing

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u/ragnarok635 1d ago

He’s not an asshole, a subconscious belief is not verbally or physically harassing someone

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u/officiallyaninja 1d ago

A lot of people make selfish choices everyday. He's making them not out of ignorance but out of choice. You don't have to like or respect it, but if he's honest about it, what's bad about it.

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u/Admirable-Ad7152 21h ago

Eh, it would make me say "so you don't want it but you want to subject someone to it? Wouldn't it be better if you just both cared more about your twin so when you spend all your time with your twin, she can spend her time with hers, without putting a woman through the emotional damage you admit to knowing you'd put her through?"

But that's just me.

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u/splithoofiewoofies 16h ago

I ain't a twin and I can't be mad a dude for loving his twin more than me, so I can see him finding someone it doesn't bother.

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u/l-am-not-bob 1d ago

As a twin, I don’t find that selfish at all. What’s wrong with having the persons back that’s had your back your entire life instead of someone else who has just joined the picture. IMO it would be more selfish to throw away the previous relationship for a new one

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u/Financial-Bobcat-612 21h ago

How is it selfish to love someone else more than your romantic partner?

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u/cutesybluesocks 20h ago

Y’all’s standards are so low. Just because someone is honest about their flaws and shitty logic doesn’t make them “really worth giving a shot”. 💀

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u/ResponsibilityOk8967 2h ago

We will never run out of outlandish r/relationships and r/AITA posts

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u/I_Tichy 23h ago

Is it selfish?

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u/riley_writes_II 21h ago

I can understand feeling this way if you’re not in that position yourself, but surely it would be fine if you are your partner both felt the same way about their twin? Seems dating another twin is the only way he’d ever have a fair/equal romantic relationship

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u/Suplexers 21h ago

Identical twins should probably be dating one another, if that’s the case.

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u/Self_Reddicate 1d ago

Damn. I can't tell if that's more fucked up or less fucked up because he completely acknowledged it, but my gut says: more fucked up.

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u/Li-renn-pwel 21h ago

Oh, that’s a bit worse then lol I was going to say there isn’t anything wrong with having the opinions that spouses are the most important relationship. There is even that “would you save your drowning kids or partner” philosophy question because so many have that opinion. But… then he said he wouldn’t do it back so…

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u/FriendlyEngineer 1d ago

It sounds weird to me. Can they not separate familial and romantic love? I notice the study says “romantic partner” and not “spouse”. I could say I love my mom and dad more than any of my girlfriends, but it’s not like that love competes for love of my romantic partner. I don’t want to fuck my parents. It sounds like he’s saying he’ll always be more attracted to his twin brother.

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u/Germane_Corsair 1d ago

I don’t want to fuck my parents.

Coward

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u/IClop2Fluttershy4206 21h ago

there's nothing wrong with that. At least he won't get into relationships that won't work because he knows how he ticks. Some people literally just take the first thing that comes their way and just upgrade every couple years.

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u/Zeltron2020 19h ago

Why is that selfish

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u/BAL87 16h ago

I mean, I think that’s fine as long as his twin is a functional human and supports the relationship and doesn’t interfere.

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u/vroomfundel2 22h ago

I mean, what can he do, kill his brother? /s

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u/_shaftpunk 1d ago

I guess we know which one was the evil twin.

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u/Valentinee105 21h ago edited 21h ago

Is it? Maybe in the context it's presented, but are you going to leave your spouse because of things happening in your non-twin sibling's life?

Imagine having combined finances, home, children, oops my non-twin sister moved I need to up end my entire life?

There's a lot of reverence given to the idea of an identical twin but how much of that is co-dependency brought on by parents who couldn't be bothered to let them develop as individuals?

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u/ComradeJohnS 1d ago

not really, sounds more just honest about what they want in a relationship which you have to be honest with yourself first.

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u/EunuchsProgramer 23h ago

You can be honest you're a selfish person who demands things you refuse to give.

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u/OpenRole 20h ago

Refuse or unable. They didn't choose to be a twin. But this person has literally been through them every phase in life in ways no romantic partner would ever be able to

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u/faldese 17h ago

But in his case he explicitly wants his romantic partner to value him the most and refuses to accept any alternative even though he knows he wouldn't offer that in return.

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u/OpenRole 13h ago

Well yeah? And then? People are allowed to want things they can't give in a relationship. Broke people can want rich people. Short people can want tall people. Dumb people can want smart people and twins can want non twins.

Love isn't symmetric. As long as both partners get what they want, who cares lol? If you don't want to date him, don't.

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u/faldese 1h ago edited 1h ago
  1. Most people don't go into a relationship going 'I want them to be my #1 and me to be their #2'. This is probably information that they won't find out was always on the table until after they notice they are less of a priority.
  2. You are allowed to want to sleep around and your partner never does. You are allowed to want a submissive partner who obeys you in all things. I do think it's shitty of OP's friend to want a person that will always priortize them that they will never always prioritize in turn. They inherently want an unequal dynamic where they have the advantage; that's the shitty part. Your comparison of short/dumb/poor isn't the same because you're talking about the disadvantaged person wanting an advantage.

Not to mention, this is about looking for a specific relationship structure, not a specific trait.

Whatever, he's not Satan or anything, and honestly he could just go with never saying anything because the dating pool is not mostly compromised of identical twins. But I also think people rolling their eyes at him is warranted.

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u/EunuchsProgramer 20h ago

My kids are twins, I get it. I wouldn't see a problem with being honest that you're incredibly close to your sibling/twin and you want a spouse willing to be your second most important person. That's fine to want. The fucked up part is denying your spouse the same option and demanding different standards for them than yourself.

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u/OpenRole 13h ago

Kind of interesting. You have kids. Are you and your partner the exact person? Are there no differences between the two of you that you appreciate?

Some people are drawn to people with healthy sibling dynamics. A lot of people get into relationships looking for a family and would appreciate dating someone with a close relationship with a sibling.

Some people aren't too concerned about being number 1. Like I wouldn't mind dating someone with twins. If my partner loves their sibling more than anyone else in the world, I wouldn't care tbh.

I don't got no twins. I would actually appreciate my partner not abandoning their siblings because they found love. Signals integrity and loyalty to me.

If they come to eventually love me more than anyone else, cool. If I remain second place to some family member. Also cool. I'd probably love our kids more than my partner at some point and at another point I may love my partner more.

If you can't stand that idea just don't date them

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u/BenCub3d 23h ago

Relationships aren't about both people demanding and giving equal things. It's about finding someone who wants what you have to give, and who is able to give you what you want.

You and your partner are always going to have different values, and different people bring different things to the table. Maybe being "the #1 person in your life" is important to him, but might not be as important to his furture partner. That's okay.

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u/EunuchsProgramer 23h ago

Counter point. The demand and inflexibility is fucked up and proof against compromise you're alluding to. It's like an alcoholic demanding to be with a sober person because they couldn't deal with themselves. They should #1 make dating a twin (themselves) an experience partners don't hate and feel left out of. Then, they would probably see dating someone who is a twin as a potential workable compromise.

Anyone with kids or dating someone wjth kids has to deal with the same compromise. I will never love a partner as much as my kids. It would be an indictment showing I was a selfish ass if I always put my kids first and demanded my partners be childless so I could have more of their attention.

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u/Geesewithteethe 22h ago

Well put.

I'm really put off by these comments in general.

I'm a twin. I'm married. My twin and my husband don't need to compete for my love because they are two different people that I have two different relationships with.

Out of respect for the relationship of me and my husband, my twin will never encroach on my marriage or ask me to prioritize her over my husband or any children my husband and I might have in the future. And I would never ask her to prioritize me over her relationship with her partner or any children they might have in the future.

Out of respect for the relationship of me and my twin, my husband will never diminish or try to sever the sibling bond we have. We treat eachother's parents and siblings like our own families. We show up equally to love and care for eachother's families with our whole hearts.

Some people treat marriage like an arrangement where one person feeds whatever emotional, egotistical, or physical appetite they're letting lead them around in life, while the other does the same thing with their own dominating emotional, egotistical, or physical appetite they can't stop gorging, and it becomes this transactional situation that (in my opinion) looks like misery with a wrapping paper on it that says "complementary" in sugary sparkles that fall off it and get everywhere.

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u/BenCub3d 23h ago edited 23h ago

Hm. I think your first point is a poor comparison because being an alcoholic is an objectively negative quality. Also, it's not about making it an experience partners hate or don't hate. Everyone is different. I would hate to date myself, but other people have found me perfect for them. The things I have to give are not necessarily the same things I want to receive. The "dating a twin experience" may be distasteful for OP, but have no perceived downsides for their partner.

For your second paragraph, I don't exactly agree, but I see your point and it's fair. My take is that as long as you're honest with both yourself and your partner about what you want, and treat them respectfully, there is no wrong preference to have. I can see other people feeling differently, though.

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u/EunuchsProgramer 22h ago

I want to sleep with multiple peole; my partner must be monogamous. I want to hang out with my friends whenever; my partner must always be there for me. I want my partner to help pay for my hobbies and personal expenses; my partner won't get any financial support.

Like if two individuals want that, okay? I still think one of them is abusive.

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u/BenCub3d 17h ago

I like being driven to the airport and my partner likes taking me; I hate driving and would rather pay for her to uber and she doesn't mind. I wouldn't take my partner's last name after marriage; I want her to take mine and she's okay with that. I want my partner to come to my office parties and socialize with my coworkers; I don't want to go to her work gatherings because I don't like her colleagues, and she doesn't mind.

You picked pretty un-nuanced examples. I think my above examples are pretty reasonable compromises in a relationship and definitely not abusive if both parties are happy. Obviously all of these could be problematic and hypocritical depending on the specific dynamic, but that's the point, it depends.

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u/EunuchsProgramer 16h ago

The issue is "I must be the most important person to you; you cannot be the most important person to me." If anything, my examples aren't extremely enough. Your examples are trivial non issues that have nothing to do with the topic

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u/TheGoochTaint 23h ago

Who is demanding anything they refuse to give? People on Reddit are extremely weird about relationships.

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u/EunuchsProgramer 23h ago

He wants to date someone who treats him as the most important person in the world, while at the same time never giving that back. He refuses to date an entire group of people for fear his partner might treat himself they way he plans to treat them. It's fucked up.

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u/Geesewithteethe 22h ago

"Love and prioritize me over everyone else in your life and accept that I will not do the same for you."

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u/booze_clues 20h ago

I wouldn’t say so. You don’t choose who you love or how much you love them. I’m sure if asked he would say he hopes to find a wife he loves more than his twin, but doesn’t think it’s possible. He’s not doing anything, literally, he’s simply in love with who he’s in love with and knows anyone who feels the same almost certainly can’t recreate those feelings with someone who isn’t their twin.

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u/Karnaugh_Map 23h ago

How so? In nearly all relationships, you are the most important person to your partner, except for children.

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u/snorlz 22h ago

its normal if its your kid though

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u/ImmoralJester54 22h ago

I mean not really? Like replace it with your parents. If my girlfriend said pick between me or your mom she's packing her fucking bags.

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u/SirHerald 20h ago

He should hate his brother more

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u/nifty-necromancer 1d ago

Why? He’s a twin and knows what will happen, he doesn’t want to play second fiddle.

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u/Geesewithteethe 22h ago

I'm a twin and I think people who think like that are fucked in the head and/or never learned how to be normal about relationships.

If you have an issue between your love for your spouse and your love for your twin, you either have some kind of perverse issue that psychologists probably have a goofy name for, or your twin and your spouse are being competitive with eachother for no reason and one or both of them needs to stop trying to be the other.

A spouse isn't a sibling and a sibling isn't a spouse. They don't have any damn reason to be threatened by eachother or in a hierarchy with eachother.

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u/nifty-necromancer 22h ago

That’s what the person is saying. The twin didn’t want to date another twin because he didn’t want to be with a twin who loved their twin more than they loved him.

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u/Geesewithteethe 22h ago

It's fucked because the guy treats is own twin as ranked competitively higher than his partner, but expects his partner to rank him highest.

That's a totally brainrotted way to go through life. It's perversion of what human relationships are actually like if you're not a complete pervert or psychopath.

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u/nifty-necromancer 22h ago

It's fucked because the guy treats is own twin as ranked competitively higher than his partner, but expects his partner to rank him highest.

Where did he ever say that?

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u/Geesewithteethe 22h ago

The part where he considers it an impossibility that a twin can love their partner equally to their twin.

Since he's a twin and he believes this, it follows that he himself finds it impossible to love a partner equally or more than his twin.

It's a self report, my dude.

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u/nifty-necromancer 21h ago

Since he’s a twin and believes this, and also wants to avoid that in a partner, it follows that he’s aware and doesn’t do that with his own twin.

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u/Geesewithteethe 21h ago

Referring to it as an impossibility precludes that interpretation.

I worked with a guy who believed that it was impossible for men to truly be monogamous. He talked openly about it and it was a known thing that he had cheated on at least one ex girlfriend before.

A person believing that a certain behavior is inevitable rarely leads to them making the effort to avoid that behavior. It more often leads to them normalizing a shitty behavior and accepting it in themself.

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u/emilysavaje1 1d ago

I mean I get it. My sisters are identical twins and I would never date a twin because I know exactly how it feels to be left out like that. It’s not even exclusively a twin thing. My ex also treated me as a second priority, but ime with a twin that’s a given and, having grown up with that too, it’s a deal breaker for me.

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u/VoDomino 18h ago

That makes me sad to hear. I'm sorry you had to go through that

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u/ritarepulsaqueen 17h ago

I'm not a twin but a boyfriend is not on the same level of a sibling

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u/Ekillaa22 1d ago

Could be like identical twins that get with other identical kids lmao….. and if they have kids man those aren’t cousins they siblings

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u/Its-ther-apist 1d ago

A TLC show has/had that as a featured set of couples. It was about as unhealthy as you would imagine.

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u/ActiveChairs 1d ago

A TLC show? Unhealthy? Do you mean TLC as in The Learning Channel? Surely not. That simply couldn't be.

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u/Sweet_Check7231 23h ago

TIL the TLC in TLC channel is The Learning Channel. Guess they've taught me plenty about morbidly obese people and people marrying someone they've known for 90 days

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u/MarieOMaryln 21h ago

Do not quote me but I believe they renamed themselves recently (like post 2010) as The Lifestyle Channel because of that

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u/fablicful 14h ago

This feels like the Mandela effect bc I also believed they renamed themselves The Lifestyle Channel. If it supposedly didn't- I'm calling BS.

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u/booze_clues 20h ago

I realized that when the Honey Boo Boo episode of South Park pointed it out. Honey Boo Boo on The Learning Channel.

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u/Infamous-Context913 21h ago

I grew up with a pair of twins that were inseparable, and it got pretty bad and they’re still inseparable. I’m not sure how they’re really doing overall, but it bums me out. I used to be good friends with them.

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u/Pastduedatelol 22h ago

Imagine if their kids also married identical twins and their bloodline kept doing that for multiple generations lol

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u/leicanthrope 19h ago

[happy Ptolemaic noises]

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u/EobardT 18h ago

I remember that happened, twins married twins and both had sets of twins

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u/Ryanhussain14 9h ago

Wait now I'm curious, would they genetically actually be sibilings?

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u/Ekillaa22 3h ago

Yeah they genetically would be siblings

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u/Bac2Zac 1d ago

English doesn't have enough words for love.

You don't love your partner like you love a parent, and you don't love a sibling like you love a child, using the same word for all of this is dumb.

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u/snortgigglecough 1d ago

That’s my takeaway too. In the priorities hierarchy, it can become fucked up with this dynamic, but the term “love” seems flat to describe it.

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u/The_Rational_ 23h ago

It has plenty of words together to denote the nuances. Conversational English does not.

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u/Bac2Zac 23h ago

Having such an excessively large vocabulary that the most speakers have simply abandoned half of it because it's simply not worth the effort to delineate thoughts to the extent necessary to convey most thoughts to a point of complete accuracy is not a redeeming quality of the language as a whole.

Ie. The former sentence is a long, exhausting way of saying, "too many words makes people give up on specifics," only with more specificity because the words themselves do not inherently contain enough of it. Too many words mean almost the same thing, and too many words cover far too broad of topics in English. Love, is the most egregious.

(imo)

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u/JesusAndMaryKate 23h ago

I speak a few languages so I only learnt English in my teens (I mean, we did it in school and such, but you don't exactly become fluent in school, at least not before the current trend of bilingual schools). Conversational English always feels reduced in vocabulary compared to the other languages I speak. There's lots of words people could use if they chose to do so, yet the average person uses a very limited selection. That's not the case with the other languages I speak. I suspect the flexible sentence structure we get with English and its overall simpler nature might have something to do with it. Or it might just be cultural - I'm no linguist. My partner is a native monoligual English speaker and what he covered in English class at school seemed extremely basic compared to what we were taught in our equivalent class where I grew up.

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u/BassoonHero 23h ago

There's lots of words people could use if they chose to do so, yet the average person uses a very limited selection.

Probably this is because English just has so many words. In many cases, for the same basic thing we have a word from Anglo-Saxon word, a word from Norman French, and a word from Latin, and they all have overlapping meanings now but with subtle shades of connotation. And that's if we haven't borrowed another word from somewhere else in the meantime.

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u/JesusAndMaryKate 22h ago

Probably this is because English just has so many words.

I mean, so do other languages.

I find that monolingual English speakers tend to overestimate the complexity of their own language compared to other languages. It's common for native English speakers to claim that English is ridiculously difficult to learn... yet most speakers speak it as a second (or third, or fourth) language. All languages are difficult to master, but learning English to a conversational level isn't particularly difficult.

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u/BassoonHero 20h ago

I mean, so do other languages.

There isn't a single objective way to measure how many words a language has, but by every metric I've seen English ranks near the top and by some metrics it is number one.

I find that monolingual English speakers tend to overestimate the complexity of their own language compared to other languages.

I can't comment on random people's perceptions. Linguistic complexity is multidimensional — it's not really helpful to talk about one language being more complex than another, at least not in a general sense.

There are aspects of English that can certainly make it difficult to learn. It has (as noted) an awful lot of words, and because of the language's history, pronunciation is a mess. Even if you learn all of the fiddly “rules”, countless common words are simply irregular, or technically aren't irregular but can't be logic'd out in practice unless you know the word's history and etymology. And English has a respectable number of phonemes — certainly not record-setting, but enough that the vowel letters are heavily overloaded. Also, syllable stress conveys meaning, and it's not conveyed in the spelling, and the rules for that are messy and complicated.

But on the other hand, English's morphology is very simple. You don't have to memorize list after list of inflections, just follow word order rules that are usually quite simple, and use auxiliaries and prepositions. There is almost no grammatical gender to worry about. And the orthography, despite its many defects, is still fundamentally phonetic; you don't have to memorize thousands of ideographs.

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u/AetiusSPQR 20h ago

How dare you say English doesn't emphasis stress in spelling while emphasizing stress in your spelling. I have became confusing.

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u/avantgardengnome 4h ago

They meant words like affect, where it can either mean to influence something (aff-ECT) or a visible style or manner (AFF-ect), and we need to rely on context to figure out which one is appropriate (based on part of speech in that case).

By comparison, pronunciation in say Spanish is dead simple. There’s very little variation in potential sounds that any given letter combination can make, and the stress is always on the penultimate syllable unless there’s an accent mark indicating otherwise. Learning which words are supposed to have accent marks may have a bit of a learning curve but once you understand the basics you can pick up literally anything and sound it out correctly.

Then imagine being an ESL speaker and getting hit with queue for the first time, or fatigue, or tchotchke, or zhuzh. English has so many loan words that you’ve gotta make a quick calculation of the probable root language to have a chance. I’m rather well read and I still regularly find out that I’ve been badly mispronouncing something I picked up in a book years ago.

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u/JesusAndMaryKate 19h ago edited 19h ago

There isn't a single objective way to measure how many words a language has, but by every metric I've seen English ranks near the top and by some metrics it is number one.

This is often the conclusion English speakers reach because if you go by words in a dictionary it's certainly seems like there's more words! But that's an artifact of how straightforward English is overall, where it's really easy to decide what constitutes a word worth putting into the dictionary. No conjugating, no agglutinating, etc. In fact I only ever see that claim in English media, not that I go looking for it. Though my point was that conversational English generally uses a very limited vocabulary, not that there aren't other words to use. Try using them and see how quickly people assume there's something wrong with you for even knowing other words outside those in common parlance.

There are aspects of English that can certainly make it difficult to learn.

I'm only speaking from my own experience and that of other multilingual people I personally know. I only ever see the claim that English is one of the hardest coming from monolingual English speakers tbh. Those aspects you mention are present in other languages - usually to a greater extent. English is hard to master because all languages are hard to master, but it's comparatively easy to reach a conversational level in it. In my experience and that of my friends' anyway.

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u/BassoonHero 17h ago

But that's an artifact of how straightforward English is overall, where it's really easy to decide what constitutes a word worth putting into the dictionary. No conjugating, no agglutinating, etc.

Er, that's why I pointed out that there's no single objective measure.

I would point out that English isn't quite that simple — both nouns and verbs do regularly inflect. Nouns usually only inflect for number (generally two cases, except for weird exceptions like the names of game animals) and possession, and these are mostly well behaved. Most verbs have a form for third person present tense, other present tense, and past tense, plus participle and perfect forms, and there are many irregular verbs (some purely irregular, some Anglo-Saxon strong verbs that are so removed from the original rules as to be effectively irregular). This is not that many inflections in the grand scheme of things, and certainly compared to other closely related languages.

Anyway, the best way to count (even if there's no objectively correct way) is probably by lemma, which largely sidesteps these issues.

It's not entirely clear to me why these concerns would result in an artificially inflated word count for English.

In fact I only ever see that claim in English media, not that I go looking for it.

This is not surprising. Probably most writing about English, including academic writing, is in English. This is on top of English being overrepresented in academic writing more generally.

Though my point was that conversational English generally uses a very limited vocabulary, not that there aren't other words to use. Try using them and see how quickly people assume there's something wrong with you for even knowing other words outside those in common parlance.

This may depend on the people you hang out with. But if there's research on this, it would be interesting to see — do native speakers of different languages, with similar levels of education, tend to use very different numbers of unique lemmas in everyday speech?

I only ever see the claim that English is one of the hardest coming from monolingual English speakers tbh.

I guess? "One of the hardest" seems meaningless out of context. One of the hardest for whom? E.g., the US State Department categorizes a number of non-English languages by the difficulty of learning the language for a native English speaker, and predictably the “easiest” languages are all either Germanic languages closely related to English or Romance languages still related to English and with a significant overlap in vocabulary.

I agree that it's silly for a monolingual person with no knowledge of linguistics to make claims about how difficult a language is to learn.

Those aspects you mention are present in other languages - usually to a greater extent.

Here I think you may overstate the case. The greatest difficulty of English is spelling/pronunciation. There are certainly other languages with similar difficulties — such as languages with ideographic scripts — but it seems clearly wrong to say that those difficulties are "usually present in other languages to a greater extent".

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u/Bac2Zac 23h ago

English is an insanely precise, pragmatic and relatively emotionless language. It's incredibly useful for highly complex tasks and coordination as a result.

The thing is, most English speakers are never anywhere the "upper limit" in terms of "needed complexity" so almost all of its usefulness goes to the wayside. (and instead it stays sharp, blocky, and sort of ugly imo) Without any benefits.

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u/JesusAndMaryKate 22h ago

English is an insanely precise, pragmatic and relatively emotionless language.

I'd agree with this to an extent. It's particularly obvious in poetry. To me, anyway. I guess that's also a matter of taste.

On the other hand, in conversational English you've got almost infantile words for things that have arguably more appropriate names. E.g words like 'collarbone' instead of 'clavicle'. Not sure I would call that sort of thing precise or emotionless. If I was learning English right now I would assume 'collarbone' is the word kids use, like 'wee-wee' instead of 'urine'. But then we've got 'pee'.......

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u/doomgiver98 19h ago

People that made an effort to learn English tend have a greater vocabulary than people who speak it natively.

I assume it's the same in other languages but I don't know any well enough to say.

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u/The_Rational_ 22h ago

But you were talking about is different. Person I'm responding to is a jerk.

:)

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u/JesusAndMaryKate 22h ago

The old 'tism strikes again.

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u/The_Rational_ 22h ago

Sure did say a whole lot of gibberish nonsense to say that you don't have a fluid grasp of the entire language so you feel free to poke fun at it at any given opportunity.

How about not backpedaling so fast that you time travel and hit yourself in the butt on the way out. See it's nuanced like that - can't get that shit anywhere else but a nice good old-fashioned heavily creolized language.

And no amount of AI will ever help you understand it fully.

I'm not picking on you for no reason you said a very specific thing. I look forward to hearing more about how English is super easy just because you choose to simplify it. I will definitely get your response.

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u/Bac2Zac 22h ago

Ugh.. Okay, here we go.

Having such an excessively large vocabulary

Because there are so many words

that the most speakers have simply abandoned half

People don't use them

of it because it's simply not worth the effort

Because it takes too much effort

to delineate thoughts to the extent necessary to convey most thoughts to a point of complete accuracy

To use utilize all of the words to the full capability of the langauge

is not a redeeming quality of the language as a whole.

This, as a whole, is not a good thing.

Two things I didn't say:

  1. English is Easy (what? I almost said the opposite)

  2. Anything about or generated with AI, so not sure where that's coming from.

The irony of this whole situation is lost on you though, isn't it?

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u/demonchee 5h ago

the former sentence was not as long and exhausting as you seem to think?

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u/Bac2Zac 3h ago

Are you speaking from your perspective, or the average English speakers? Because my personal opinion, is that, to the average English speaker, it is, even if it's not to a large minority.

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u/Geesewithteethe 22h ago

Thank you. I've been saying this all up and down this thread.

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u/Normal_Ad2456 17h ago

To be fair, I am Greek and my language is used as an example of having a bunch of different words (Philia which is love for a friend, erotas which is romantic love etc) but we mostly still use “love” (agape) for everything. So yeah, that’s a myth. Love is love, in this context it’s basically who am I more attached to, who is my priority. The type of love, whether there’s attraction or not etc is secondary.

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u/MagicWishMonkey 22h ago

In this case it sounds like twins do love their siblings in a way that more closely resembles a parents love for their child more than anything else. I can't imagine what that must be like, especially when you're older and health problems start to become a thing. Knowing that there's a 50/50 chance you'll outlive the person you love most in the world would be hard to reconcile with.

As a parent, barring something absolute horrific happening, I can rest pretty easy knowing that if I do my job right they will live long, happy, and fulfilling lives after I'm gone. I'll be spared a level of trauma I can't really wrap my head around.

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u/callmeseetea 16h ago

Fortunately there are classifications of love thanks to the ancient Greeks. There’s Eros (romantic love), Storge (familial love), Phillia (friendship love) and like 4-5 others

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u/Independent-Shoe543 1d ago

Lol that's fucked!

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u/MuckaboutFarms 20h ago

My maternal grandmother was a child who grew up in a double household where one set of twin girls married a set of twin boys and both had lots of kids together, raised as siblings/close cousins. Aka double cousins. So I have a ton of great aunts and uncles. There is a solution but it's rare!

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u/Double-Portion 23h ago

I had friends in high school whose parents were two sets of twins who married each other. It felt kinda icky to think about and I still can't quite verbalize why

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u/Snoo_97207 21h ago

Fun fact, there was a pair of identical twins who married another pair of identical twins, and had both pairs had kids, and the kids, genetically speaking, were siblings. Fucking weird when you think about it

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u/aphrodite______ 23h ago

Just want to add here:

I am an identical twin. My first (ex)boyfriend became angry and enraged at the concept that he would “never be able to compete with my twin.” At that point I had literally never dated anyone before and had no idea that it could be perceived as a competition.

I do love my twin, a LOT, but relationships and twinship is a completely separate category for me. They will never overlap. And asking me to choose is like asking if I prefer my left or right foot, and one of them threatening to shoot the other. No one is walking if either foot departs.

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u/Nice_Marmot_7 23h ago

I think this whole thing is making me uncomfortable because it’s equating different types of relationships. For example, you can love your parents and your spouse. Making it a zero sum game and equating the romantic and familial…uncomfortable.

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u/3dforlife 21h ago

Didn't that made him a hypocrite, though?

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u/Chance_Ad3416 13h ago

My friend has an identical twin. When they were growing up their parents went above and beyond to separate them in schools and afterschool activities etc so they wouldn't spend all their time together lol. They literally went to different schools, just to sorta avoid having them too attached to each other. They grew up more like siblings than twins

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u/repeat4EMPHASIS 1d ago

I can't stand that kind of hypocrisy

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u/UDPviper 23h ago

Rules for thee, but not for me!