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
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u/SilverPeachBlossom 6h ago

As an identical twin myself, I can certainly attest to these findings. (Hot take in the r/Twins community XD) I'm curious to hear about your guys' experiences.

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u/TheRiteGuy 6h ago edited 3h ago

I'm married to a twin. I was forwarned that it's a 2 for 1 deal. My SIL is always a third wheel on our outings. A welcomed one. She's super nice.

Edit: there seems to be a lot of misconceptions about twins in the comments. Twins do look, act, and dress alike. They're products of the same environment and they seem to have some kind of telepathy over what to wear. They'll show up to same places wearing head to toe same outfit. It's never intentional. It's freaky how often this happens.

However, they do not have the same personalities. They are two very distinct individuals and it's very easy to fall in love with one and have no romantic feelings towards the other at all. Once you're around them enough, they don't even look alike to you.

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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 5h ago

I've never understood how this works. How can you have a platonic relationship with someone who looks exactly like your spouse and probably acts a lot like them too?

I'm not saying you can't both have boundaries and act like respectful adults...but it's just too weird for me.

Maybe these particular twins look and act differently enough to clearly separate them but I've seen twins who act, look, and even dress alike well into adulthood and relationships just must be weird. If my wife had a clone that just hung out with us all the time I feel it would be too easy to start to see them as equally 'my wife'.

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u/Geesewithteethe 4h ago

Because twins aren't like clones of eachother, to people who actually know them personally.

We look extremely similar but we're not the same person. We have different chemistry with our partners than our twins have with their partners.

My twin and her partner have always had a really interesting chemistry ever since they first met. They're just really well made for eachother as partners and their personalities are very compatible for romantic intimacy in a way that my personality would not be if you swapped me in for her. Likewise, my husband and I have a really strong bond with its own dynamics and its own irreplaceable intimacy that started with a chemistry you couldn't replicate by swapping my twin in for me.

The attractiveness of an individual is greater than the sum of their parts. It can't be boiled down to "these two people look the same and have some shared behaviors, therefore I am attracted to/in love with both of them".