Thatâs at least one reading of what early childhood development entails. Itâs a powerful experience that, in some ways, twins, because of the nature of their closeness, aspire to and sometimes feel:
We understand each other better than anyone else does. We are closer than other brothers and sisters are
. Itâs a kind of magical intimacy. And itâs what we all look for in partners.â In his book, he writes about the common âwish to return to a symbiotic relationshipâthat is, a relationship characterized by a lack of self-other differentiation in which oneâs needs are magically understood and met.â
Twins researcher Nancy Segal, a fraternal twin who has studied twins for three decades, affirms the mythos of twins: âFor singletons especially,â she tells me, âI think you look into that world, and especially for people who are missing something vital in their relationshipâyou see a certain closeness and camaraderie. And youâre envious of it. Some people might be put off by it because they see it as a claustrophobic closeness, almost too much, a lack of independence.But I think thatâs basically what we all crave: We all want to have somebody who knows us as well as our identical twin
would
have if weâd had an identical twin.â
Twins in love. It actually flashed through my mind more than once during my interviewsâwith the Barbers, the Ganzes, and with others:
These two have a romance
. Not in a queasy, freaky way, but in the sense of uncomplicated devotion and delight in each other. They werenât careful. They flaunted their identicalness like a trophy. They prioritized each other without reserve.
Liza and Jamie Persky, friends of my oldest friend, Jane, live in different statesâwhen we meet, Jamie runs a bakery with her husband in Stowe, Vermont, and Liza is single and a television producer in Manhattanâbut they are in touch in a way that makes the miles irrelevant. We talk in one of Manhattanâs ubiquitous Pain Quotidien cafés one summer afternoon.
âWeâve never had a fight,â Liza confesses sheepishly. âWeâve never screamed at each other.â
Jamie says the only thing that maddens her about Liza is her lack of confidence. âIt annoys me when she doubts herself. That gets so frustrating for me. Because for me to be happy, she needs to be happy. If I feel that sheâs in a bad place, itâs hard for me to be in a good place. It never feels better to be doing better than she.â
The only thing they donât tell each other is when theyâve been complimented.
âLike if someone says Iâm pretty,â Jamie says.
âShe
is
prettier,â Liza insists. (I stay neutral.)
Dr. Ainslie describes how twins recoil when people point out disparities: âThere seems to be a feeling that the recognition of differences is experienced as a loss to oneself when oneâs twin is being acknowledged,â he writes. âThis sense of unequally distributed characteristics only exacerbates the feeling that one has lost something important. Recognition or demarcation of certain abilities or talents feels like a taking away.â
âIf someone compliments me in a way that will make her feel worse, I wonât tell her,â Jamie says.
Similarly, when seventy-three-year-old Larry Gordon, a childhood friend of my mother-in-law, tells me that he and his identical twin, Gerry, both applied to University of Michigan, he wonât tell me which one didnât get in. âWhat youâre asking is who didnât make it,â he says without smiling, âand I donât want to answer that.â
The Persky girls are often holding hands in childhood photographs. They shared one room, one best friendââIt was always awkward because this friend knew she could never be closer than we were to each otherââand they didnât reach out to other people.