My sister was watching a special twins episode of Fear Factor and I sat down and watched it with her. The contestants were all identical twins dressed in matching outfits. I guess the corniness of the matching outfits got to me. I started complaining about how "twins" does not necessarily mean "identical twins." There's a whole other type of twins that people forget about: fraternal twins. We're twins too! Why do identical twins get all the attention?
Well, actually, being a fraternal twin isn't too special. We're just different people who have the same birthday. Sometimes it's nice to have someone your age to relate to, other times we just don't get along. Every now and then we wear matching outfits, but my sister likes that a lot more than I do.
So I guess identical twins are a lot neater than fraternal twins. But it still bothers me a little that when people talk about "twins" they usually mean "identical twins." Consider this: when people talk about "septuplets" they're usually going to mean "fraternal septuplets." (Is it even possible to have identical septuplets?) So, just keep us fraternals in mind the next time you're discussing twins.