At some point everyone thinks of what life would be like if they had an identical twin. Would they be able to communicate telepathically? Could they switch places at any time? Would they drive each other crazy?
Below are a collection of stories about twins from around the world. Some mix-ups are well executed pranks, while others leave everyone feeling a bit awkward. There are many lessons to learn, but the key lesson is if you are friends with, or even more importantly dating, a twin, make sure you can tell them apart!
50. "Hey bro!"
I was going down an escalator at a casino. I look across and see my brother!
I got excited and yell, "HEY BRO!" and start waving for his attention!
I was waving to myself in a mirror.
49. Dead man walking
I went to a funeral of a friend's father, I had no idea that the deceased had an identical twin.
It felt really strange to see the guy in the coffin sitting in the front row of the Church.
48. Wrong husband
My husband has an identical twin. When my husband and I got engagement photos done, Facebook automatically tagged my husband's brother in a bunch of our photos, and I posted them without realizing.
47. He's a mole
My sisters are twins. Their favorite story is when one of their boyfriends tried to show the wrong twin this weird mole on his butt cheek. Both sisters are extremely squeamish. So boyfriend thought it was just her being grossed out.
Unfortunately, my dad walked in on him chasing the wrong twin around the kitchen with half of his butt hanging out. My dad just turned around and walked out.
That boyfriend also had a thing for eating raw vegetables like onions, garlic, and potatoes.
46. Seeing the future
My identical twin and I were in a professional competition and were wearing navy blue suits. We had the same hair cut, and same glasses just red/black. I was leaving a building to meet up with her and went to open this glass door. She stares at me from the other side mortified as she saw herself opening the door before her.
We had a good laugh after we found out she thought I was her reflection.
Real twilight hours.
45. Like magic
My girlfriend told me about a production of Twelfth Night that was able cast identical twins for the main role.
At one point, one of them walked off one side of the stage and the other walked on from the opposite side in a different costume seconds later. Most of the audience just thought they were doing really fast quick changes.
In the version they used for the DVD, a guy in the audience near the camera very loudly said “what the [bleep]?!” when this happened.
44. Same careers
My identical twin brother, my wife, and myself all went to school together and got jobs at the same place after passing boards. Since there are some rules regarding family working together, I was not hired to the same unit as my wife. But my twin was.
It was a lot of fun, taking lunches together, etc. But there was one social worker who just couldn't grasp that my brother and wife were not the married ones.
She'd compliment me on how cute they were together, comment on social media how great a couple they were, even talk about how much my kids 'take after their dad' (referring to him).
It's all benign and we laugh about it, but she really laid it on thick.
43. Twin mischief
My Dad and Uncle are twins. A few times a year they’ll show up to dinner or they’ll be at each other's houses wearing the exact same outfit, only different brands. At first it was funny but now we know it just happens.
People mix them up all the time, multiple times a month they’re telling people they’re not the other.
Acquaintances and work associates have thought they’re having an affair. My dad was confronted once and had to explain to the guy (who was a couple drinks in apparently) that he’s not his brother.
When they were kids, they shared a room with 2 wooden frame twin beds. That Christmas they got a plastic tool chest toy set thing. My grandma says it wasn’t more then 3 weeks after Christmas when she goes into their room and the beds are completely taken apart the head and foot board bolts were removed the slats were removed and separated. They had no idea how it happened. My grandpa called up the company handyman who put it back together. Couple days later, same exact thing only my grandparents are angry now.
They got rid of the wood bed frames and got 2 metal cots with the springs which lasted about a week, my grandma walks into their room and found one of the beds completely taken apart each spring removed. The twins though they were working together on the second cot, one of the them was grabbing the fabric and pulling it to ease the tension and the other was using the back of the plastic hammer to pry out the spring.
They ended up losing tool chest privileges.
42. Old pictures
My ex was once scrolling through Facebook and said, 'You look really hot in this photo'.
It wasn't me.
It was my twin.
41. Approach with caution
I worked with a friend who’s twin sister looks like her down to the freckle, Fred and George Weasley style. I made the mistake of mixing them up and got super embarrassed but she had a worse story for me.
She was out with her boyfriend and a guy her sister just starting dating was at the same restaurant with his family. He thought she was her sister and LOUDLY confronted her in the restaurant only to find out he messed up big time!
40. Reflection
My twin was walking to his car from work and looked in the window and saw "me" walking parallel to him and got excited and waved.
He first was confused how I was waving at him at the same time, then realized it was just a reflection.
39. Ghost story
I grew up in a small town where if you were walking down the road and your neighbors were outside, you smiled and waved. For years, I would take walks as a kid, smiled and waved all the time to a dear old gentlemen, Mr. Clark.
I was sad when I learned he passed away, he was well liked in the community.
A couple of weeks after he passed, I went for a walk as I approached his house, I saw a familiar face.
It was Mr. Clark.
Mr. Clark was dead.
A chill went through me, I felt frozen but yet able to walk. I felt sheer terror. In that second, it was confirmed.
GHOSTS ARE REAL.
But no one would believe me, so I kept it to myself. For a couple of weeks, I saw Mr. Clark in his yard a couple of times and I hurried on by his house as fast as I could. That feeling of sheer terror always at the surface, Mr. Ghost Clark was a little off. He didn’t smile, he didn’t wave.
I couldn’t take it any more so I mentioned Mr. Clark to my friend's mom who lived 3 houses down from Mr. Clark.
Mr. Clark was a twin. The happy twin passed, and the curmudgeon Clark was still alive and kicking.
I will never forget the feeling of nearly losing my bowels the first time I saw Ghost Clark after he passed.
I will also never forget the laughter my friend's mom couldn’t hold back when I told her my ghost story.
Pixabay
38. Two of them!
My Grandpa has a twin brother, and they look nearly identical even now in their late 70s.
My mom told me that when I was a toddler, we were at a family reunion. Apparently my grandpa was holding me and talking to my parents and then his twin brother walked up to us and my reaction was to say, stunned and wide-eyed, "Two Grandpas!"
I must have been really happy to have not one, but two amazing Grandpas to interact with.
37. Not identical
I'm a fraternal twin. Me and my bro, when we were around 5 went outside and swapped shirts and wondered why people could still tell us apart.
He had dark brown hair, at the time my hair was blonde. We didn't even look alike, but at least we tried.
36. Even dad?
When I was a baby, my dad was supposed to take my brother to a doctor's office because he was sick. He took me instead.
My dad then realized that it was me and got my brother to the doctors. Turns out he just had a cough.
35. It finally happened
So, I am an identical twin (female). One day my twin, her husband, and I went over to our mom's house. Our older sister was there visiting with our two nieces and nephew. This was the day my brother-in-law finally mixed us up.
A little extra back story, my brother-in-law had just gotten done working a 32-hour shift. So he was very tired and "slap happy" at this point. Also, without planning it my twin and I are both wearing red T-shirts and jeans, with our hair up.
So, my twin and I are standing in the living room chatting with our mom and my twin is holding our youngest niece. My brother-in-law steps out to go use the restroom. Well in that time, our niece decided she wanted me to hold her, so I take her from my twin. My brother-in-law comes back from the bathroom and walks right up behind me and puts his hands on my waist.
I lean to the side and ask, "What are you doing?" He says, "Nothing, you ok?" And I respond, "Yeah I'm fine," with a very puzzled look on my face. Mind you my twin is standing 4 feet away from me watching all of this happen. He then proceeds to kiss my cheek and smack my rear!
My twin then looks at him and goes, "Babe?" He walks over next to her and says, "Yeah?" And she replies, "Babe!" And he then proceeds to look at both of us. All of a sudden a look of horror spreads across his face, he smacks his hands to the sides of his cheeks (like the cover of home alone) and screams, "NOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
He runs outside freaking out, while my twin and I fall to the floor laughing like hyenas at his mistake! He comes running back in eventually and starts rambling saying he needs to call my husband and apologize for kissing me and smacking my butt. While he is frantically calling my husband we are still rolling on the floor trying to catch our breath.
Moral of the story double check which twin you are approaching to, or else you will make a very funny mistake.
Pixabay
34. No grades
My geography teacher has a twin brother and when he left a few people without a grade, meaning they had to take summer exams, a few of the kids gathered and broke his twin brother's nose and gave him a black eye.
They were pretty surprised to see him the next day without a scratch.
33. Two for one
I have a twin brother. My mother sent us to the same swimming course when we were toddlers but could only afford to pay for one of us, so she pretended we were the same kid. She sent me one day and my brother the other day of the week. The course was two days a week.
Our swimming coach got so confused because one day a week I needed a swimming ring, and the other day, my brother didn't need one as he was a strong swimmer.
32. Day in the park
I married a twin. My wife loves to crochet and always wears stuff she's made. One day, I was supposed to meet with my wife at a local park. I saw her on a park bench crocheting and wearing a scarf she made.
Like I always do, I went in to greet her with a kiss on the lips. It wasn’t until I was about 2 inches from her face that I realized this was her sister. The problem is my mind melted in my confusion, so instead of pulling away, I kept my face 2 inches from hers for about 30 seconds before snapping out of it.
It was super weird and really confusing.
31. TV ad
My girlfriend is one half of a set of identical twins, and her sister and her do a lot of international ad campaigns and modelling shoots. Well after a few weeks of dating, she shows me a TV ad she did with her sister where they play on the whole beautiful twins thing and I point to her sister and say "That's you, right?" - she thought it was hilarious but I was pretty horrified!
To be fair they are very similar looking (both blonde with green eyes) and even though I can tell them apart now...in the beginning it was rough.
30. Reunion
My mom and dad are both (separate) identical twins. I thought it would be funny to get a picture of the twins holding me like I was their son instead. I lost the picture on an old camera. Then my parents got divorced.
Choreographing everyone back in one place for that picture was top 3 most difficult things I've ever done.
Pixabay
29. Too far
In high school, I got in trouble for fighting another student in the hallway. A teacher wrote us up for detention and I gave her my twin brother's info. He was called into detention with no idea what he had done... later we got baked together and I told him and I laughed my rear off. He didn't find it all that funny.
Fast forward to being 22 yrs old. Two police officers knocked on my door to take me to jail for peeing in a park at night while intoxicated. I was like, there is no way that you have the right guy. I begged them to let me turn myself in so thy left. They were pretty chill about it, but they were pretty clear that I better not make them come back for me.
I immediately called my brother and he was laughing... I didn't find it very funny.
I went to his house and made him call in and tell the truth. He had been booked and released with the promise that he would return for his court date. The fact that he didn't show up was what triggered them to come looking for him under my name. Instead of staying to face the music, he ran to another state until the statute of limitations ran up... 7 years. Then he moved back.
I admit it... he wins.
28. The last slap
In elementary school, there was this girl who I had been irritating a lot. One time she went to my twin brother and slapped him hard in the face (or so I'm told) just to realize it was the wrong twin.
She got so ashamed she never tried to slap me again.
Win-win
27. Truman Show
I have two elderly neighbors who are twins.
When my brother and I would play outside, we would see the lady walk down the street and wave to us. She would turn the corner down the street and about 3 minutes later the other one would come walking in the same direction. We waved of course and were extremely confused as to how fast an older lady could walk around a block. She would wave as well and then go on with her walk.
My brother and I were dumbfounded, and this happened almost every day for about a month or two until we saw them drive down the street in the same car.
They wore the same sunglasses, clothes, and always had the same visor on their heads. It was extremely confusing. But they still have the same exact routine 7 or 8 years later.
26. Embarrassed Aunt
I'm the only married one between me and my identical twin brother. One time, some extended family were going with my intimidate family to look at some Christmas lights, but I had to work.
So my aunt is taking lots of pictures, and she keeps having my wife and my brother stand together and put an arm on the other and what not. My wife and brother just went with it because that's what we always do, it makes the confused person more embarrassed.
After 2 hours, she realized my brother did not have my mustache, and lost it.
She was thinking our marriage was on the rocks or something, and felt really dumb.
25. Mirror Maze
My twin brother and I were visiting a mirror maze. We're both trying to find to find our ways out until I see him standing just next to me. I run towards him and smash into a mirror realizing it was my own reflection.
24. Catch 22
I dated a beautiful identical twin for a few months when I was around 18. She once asked me if I thought her sister had a nice rear- while her sister was in the same room.
They both stared at me with straight faces waiting for me to answer, then burst out laughing.
23. Forgetful
My first time teaching, I had identical twin girls in the class I subbed. It's just that I didn't know until like two weeks in, when they suddenly sat next to each other.
I honestly thought I spoke to the one person, who constantly just forgot what I had said to her.
22. Breaking the rules
Little league baseball, second grade. I was on first base and my identical twin brother was on second base. The batter hit a pop fly and it was caught, but my dumb self didn’t know to run back to first base.
So, I was standing on second and so was my brother. Everyone was screaming at me to run back to first but I didn’t understand what they were saying so my twin just decided to screw it and run back to first himself.
We looked completely alike back then and somehow nobody realized a different kid ran back to first so I guess it worked out in the end :)
Photo by Tim Eiden from Pexels
21. First day of school
My cousins were on their first day at a 4 year college (Their first 2 years were at a JUCO playing lacrosse), and they thought they had the same schedule because they always have.
Sitting in class, the teacher was doing roll call and one of their names wasn't called.
The one whose name wasn't called was like "uhhh bro what the heck do I do?" The one who was supposed to be there, looked at him and dead in the eyes and said, "Be an individual." So he got up and walked out dumbfounded at the lack of help.
We say it to him all the time now.
20. Busted
My brother and I got caught taking each others tests. I’ve always been more of a math and science person, and my brother has always been better at history and English so we specialized.
I would go take the tests and we would switch clothes in the bathroom between periods. He wore glasses, so we would switch so that I was wearing glasses Everyone, in order to tell who was who, relied on who wore glasses so no one found out for a while.
That was until I accidentally wrote my student number on one of my brothers tests...
The teachers found out about it and they were NOT happy.
Photo by Craig Adderley from Pexels
19. Not even twins
My Brother and I have been confused for each other our whole life. Our Mom constantly would call us by the wrong name.
We quickly got used to it but in Junior high people nicknamed us "twin" to avoid anymore confusion, and we were both called that all the way through college.
On my brothers wedding I was congratulated probably just as much as he was. Overall a pretty funny situation.
18. Impostor
I am a twin, and my sister doesn't have a partner. But her dog and child routinely get confused when I am around.
Her son will come cuddle with me and call me mom, then when he looks closely he will back away and just stare.
Her dog growls at me and states as if he doesn't trust me.
It is hilarious.
17. Unplanned
I have a twin who lives in another state.
He came into town a couple months ago and we were wearing the exact same outfit!
16. Gut punch
So I’m in the Marines for about 6 years at this point: I’m coming out of dental one day, and see my boy from my first duty station walking right towards me, headed inside. Now, we were boys for years in the same unit, so any time we see each other we’d catch up some.
So I’m looking right at him, and he’s looking right at me and almost walks past me to go inside.
So, I sucker punch him right in the gut for trying to walk by. He drops to the sidewalk, has the wind knocked out of him, the whole 9 yards. As he can start talking again, I say something like “What the [bleep] bro, you were just going to walk by and not say anything??”
He’s all gasping “I don’t know you...” So then I’m all, “That's messed up bro." Then he says, “I think you think I’m my brother...”
Forgot he had an identical twin, hadn’t felt like like that much of an jerk in ages.
15. Still can't tell
My babysitters were twins. Often my mom would come home and be very uncertain which twin was the one looking after me!
They would swap to go to work, and since my mom approved of both of them it worked out well.
I ended up being a flower girl in one's of their weddings.
Still not sure which though.
14. "I am not your wife!"
I am a twin and my wife is also a twin. My brother and I are fraternal and she and her sister are identical (yes, she points out identical superiority anytime it comes up). Anyways, her sister lives across the state and she travels with her family to my in-laws' for holidays pretty regularly. While I can easily tell them apart, many people can't and it has been a huge, horrifying fear to mix them up.
Well, this recent 4th of July, my fear came true and it was really embarrassing. The only close call I've had was one Thanksgiving, my wife was bending over getting a cutting-board out of a cabinet in the kitchen and I almost patted her on the butt (we do this a lot to each other while the other is cooking) but I thought better of it for a split second and hesitated just enough to see it was in fact her sister.
No one noticed no big deal.
Well this Fourth, my wife was walking around in pajama pants one morning with her hair down and was brushing her teeth as she walked across a hallway into a large dining room, and I put my hand at the very small of her back/butt and pulled her close to me and was beginning to say something sweet as she turned to look at me.
I saw her face and immediately knew. Oh no, it happened. My sister-in-law shocked as much as I was, yells, "AGH! I'm not your wife! I'm not your wife!" With garbled toothpaste foam mouth.
I just backed away saying "um... oh god... sorry... oh my god." And then the laughter started. It was absolutely the worst. My wife and sister-in-law thought that it was the funniest thing ever, but I will probably always cringe remembering the awkwardness and will probably never live it down.
13. Innocent mix up
My dad has a twin brother. I'm very close with my dad, so I can find the subtle differences instantly. Growing up, my mom was never around, and I ended up raising my baby sister with my dad and brother.
I'd go to school, come back, and take my sister from my brother, my dad would come home from work hours later and he would take her from me.
Each time any of us left and came home, she would scream with excitement and giggle the way that toddlers do, running up to us and hugging us. My uncle (dad's twin) came to visit one day. He coincidentally visited our home just a couple of minutes before my dad returned from work. My sister screamed, giggled, ran and hugged him, and my uncle just enjoyed every moment of it.
My dad opened the door as my uncle was carrying and playing with my sister. The look on her face! She was so confused and for a few seconds just looked back and forth between them, then she started crying and reaching for my father. Not sure what in her toddler mind made her distinguish my dad from my uncle. Maybe she just picked up on the subtle differences too.
12. Don't grab
Walking down the hallway in high school, I passed by my sister's boyfriend and he reaches out and grabs my chest.
I turned to him with a shocked face, and he realized I was the wrong twin. He was super embarrassed and I had a good laugh.
Flickr
11. Disbelief
Back in high school my twin sister dated this red haired guy, who later on in life, ran into me one day at the store.
He awkwardly brought up how we used to date back in high school and I was like “What? No. That was Twin B.”
He wouldn’t have it and kept insisting that we dated. I kept saying “I’m Twin A, you must be thinking of Twin B” but he wouldn’t drop it and it got weird so I just left, since he wouldn’t drop how we dated.
He probably still thinks we dated to this day.
Now that I think about it, he may not know she was a twin.
10. "Stop joking around!"
My identical twin went to a different college than me. The colleges were about 90 miles apart (UCSB and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo).
The first time I visited my brother in SB, we were at a party. One of his (girl) friends came running up to me yelling his name and went in for a hug. I just stood there with a blank do I know you stare and said “I’m not NAME”. She slapped me pretty hard on the face thinking I was being a jerk and pretending not to know her.
I got slapped again by someone else a few years after that too, same scenario!
It’s funny to look back and tell the story to our friends. The first girl, her sister, her sister’s fiancé, my brother and I are all really close friends 12+ years later!
9. Still skeptical
I used to work as a manager for McDonald's. During one of the weekend shifts, one of the kitchen staff didn't show up and I had to run a person down.
About two hours into the shift, we're getting pumped and I see "him" out of the corner of my eye in the Drive Thru window. I go over and start grilling him about how it was such a crummy thing for him to not show up, and that he could have at least called blah blah blah.
He just smirks at me, takes his food and drives away.
During my shift the next day both the kid that didn't show up and his twin brother show up at the store. Turns out I grilled his brother in the drive thru and not the kid that actually worked at the store. They were cool though and actually came in to explain what happened with the shift. I apologized and left it at that.
To this day though, I'm skeptical whether it actually was the brother in the drive-thru...
8. Top of their class
I went to high school with a set of identical triplets (female). They would take a lot of the same classes but at different times. They'd swap places with each other, so the smartest one would take tests first and pass the answers on to the other two.
Pretty clever, I thought. One of them, I don't remember which, wound up being valedictorian, and the other two were close.
7. Measuring up
My twin sister and I have really similar names that are only different by one letter. At the time my sister's (now ex) boyfriend was one of my closest friends and we used to message each other very often, because we knew each other before he met my sister.
One day, my sister's ex sent me a message with a chart about junk sizes and jokingly said "well I guess that means I'm from x country" and according to the chart the average junk size for people from that country is 6 inches.
So now I know his size... The things you wish you could unlearn...
6. Snitch
While I was in high school I asked some kid about getting some green. Didn't have the money at the time. So instead of approaching me, he approached my twin, asking if I still wanted it. My brother was confused because he's never asked for anything like that before and ended up ratting me out to our mom. Fun times
5. Breaking the news
My dads is an identical twin, and when my uncle started dating my aunt, a friend of mine saw “my dad” out with another woman.
She broke it to me so easy that my dad was cheating on my mom. My dad never gets mistaken for my uncle but my uncle always has to show people his ID to prove he’s Shawn not Shane
4. Art class
My friend has an identical sister.
She went to see a play at a university with her identical twin. Her sister said that there was a shortcut to the theater by cutting through some class building. My friend didn't think that made sense, but her sister seemed confident about it, so she followed along. Then suddenly her sister opens a classroom door and says, "Let's go in here."
My friend goes inside, and freaks out when she sees a bunch of paintings of what looks like herself, completely nude.
It turns out her sister had posed nude for an art class, and thought that would be a fun surprise.
3. Faking it
My twin brother and I (identical) went to Disneyland California, and at the time had had severe Planter Phaschitis and Sesamoiditis so he was in a wheelchair. A fun fact about being in a wheelchair in Disneyland is you get to skip lines with your group, so we went on Pirates of the Caribbean first due to it having the largest line.
After we got off, I went to find a washroom. At that moment, the operator must have taken a break because he saw me walking around. They assumed that I was faking my issue because they thought I was my brother.
I had to take them to him to show that I was serious!
2. Pay attention
I was dating a twin a few years ago. We were together for like 2 weeks at the time, when we were sitting on her bed making out.
Suddenly her twin sister walked in, saw us and started screaming "How could you?A" and "Myname you pig, why are you making out with my sister?"
I was seriously shocked and almost had a heart attack, then both started laughing.
They thought it would be funny to pretend I got the wrong one and scare me.
1. "Wrong one!"
I have a friend who's a twin. He's also very, very gay while his brother isn't. His brother's girlfriend came up behind him once and hugged him and went for a kiss.
My friend just started screaming 'wrong one! wrong one!'
I think she's still embarrassed about it.
