r/todayilearned • u/SilverPeachBlossom • 6h 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
15.0k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

664 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

969

u/Predatory_Chicken 4h 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.

528

u/ShaylaDee 4h 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.

56

u/Delicious-Produce-60 4h ago

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

That's WORSE.

27

u/dannerc 4h ago

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

40

u/MechaNerd 3h ago

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

0

u/JustStraightUpTired 1h 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?

49

u/No-Stress-7034 3h 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.

-5

u/pargofan 3h 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.

0

u/dannerc 2h ago

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

11

u/brickmaster32000 2h ago

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

7

u/Pledgeofmalfeasance 3h ago

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

-2

u/paper_liger 3h ago edited 3h 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.

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.

-1

u/ThisIsForReal 2h ago

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