When I was younger, I was always so jealous of twins. Another human that looks just like you? What a life hack! Who knows, maybe I do have a long-lost twin lying around somewhere (speak now or forever hold your peace).
One Reddit thread reignited my envy. Reddit user -amsha- asked people to share their best twin "switcheroo" stories, and boy did they deliver. Here are some highlights:
1. "I’m able to pull a switcheroo on my twin's iPhone and unlock it with Face ID almost every time."
2. "My grandmother is a twin, and when she was young, she dated this guy who wanted to take her hiking. She really didn’t feel like it, so she had her twin take her place. He didn’t notice."
3. "My brothers-in-law are twins, and one of them kept failing his driving test, so he got the other to take it for him."
4. "I almost got the shit kicked out of me by the same guy twice in school because my twin had pissed him off. Bloke was 2 feet taller than me and a foot wider. He would literally pick me up to eye level before I had to convince him I wasn't the one he was after."
5. "My identical twin brother has a beard and I don't. A lot of people on his floor in college didn't know he was a twin, so when I visited him, I hid in his bedroom. He pretended to go shave, we switched places, and I came out with no beard and said after a little while, 'Ya know, I kinda miss my beard. I think I'm gonna grow it back.' Then I went back into his room and he came out rebearded. People lost their freaking minds."
6. "My sister was friends with a pair of twins in high school. They shared a single season pass to the local amusement park. The pass has your photo on it. So the first twin would use the pass to get in, then they'd slip out of view and slide it through the gate to the twin outside and use the pass to get the other twin in."
7. "I dated a twin once, and early in the relationship when I was picking her up on a date, her sister came out and I was like, 'Hey,' and kept waiting. She got really weird and close but, like, hesitantly. Turns out they were 'testing' me to see if I could tell the difference."
8. "I briefly dated an identical twin. Her twin dressed up in her clothes and kissed me 'for a laugh.' This caused a huge fight because I should have been able to tell, and we broke up."
9. "I went to school with a pair of identical twins. They usually switched places during tests because they had the same classes, but different periods. One would take a test in the a.m. and know all the questions and go back at the end of the day after switching clothes and take the test again."
10. "My twin was always dating in high school and going through boyfriends hard and fast, while I was too shy to order food for myself, let alone date anyone. At one point I got targeted by a few bullies who seemed to enjoy how uncomfortable I got hearing the latest dirty rumor about my sister. Years later, I start getting naked on the internet, and guess which twin everyone assumes I am..."
11. "We switched classes one day during school. Classmates got suspicious and started asking questions only the other twin would know. Had to switch back later during recess."
12. "My roommate has a twin sister. She was on the train and this guy was flirting with her, but because she had a boyfriend, she gave him her sister's number instead of her own. The guy texted her sister and they started dating, not knowing that he first saw her sister. He didn't notice."
13. "My best friends are identical twins. When we were in elementary school, they always got out of trouble because if one of them did something and the teacher saw them, they would always blame the other, so they couldn’t punish both."
14. "My uncles were twins, and one would often pretend to be the other during legal entanglements. Sometimes it worked. And according to the old newspaper articles I have found, sometimes it didn't."
15. "My friend knows a pair of twins who would always go clothes shopping together. Twin 1 would find an item she liked, so Twin 2 would go into the changing room and come out and model it for her so she could see how it looked."
16. "One year at Christmas, we swapped clothes and glasses. Our extended family was in town. Everyone, including our parents, kept calling us the wrong names all night. After about three hours, we couldn’t hold it any longer and just burst out laughing. My parents were mortified that they couldn’t tell us apart."
17. "My sisters are twins. One time, one went to work for the other one. She ended up getting fired. This was just last year."
18. And finally, "I used to babysit identical twin boys who I could never tell apart and who were notoriously misbehaved. They were invited to my baby brother's birthday party one year where I did face painting for the kids. One kid got a black dot on his zombie face, and the other did not. All other parents there were silently grateful that we could now tell the difference between the two and they couldn’t blame their wrongdoings on the other."
Some responses have been edited for length, grammar, and/or clarity.