An overlooked group on the RHS campus all have similar feelings, yet different experiences being a twin. Going to school with a sibling the same age impacts one’s friendships, individuality, and relationship with one’s twin.
To begin, relationships on campus very much differ and change when having a twin. Brayden Vu, a Sophomore on the RHS campus, explains how friend groups have changed for him from elementary school to high school when he said, “We like to have our own friend groups now but we were closer in elementary school because we always got put in the same class.” Unlike Brayden, Mr.Depue, a teacher at Rocklin, had a different experience when his teachers separated him and his twin, which changed his friendships. He said, “in school it was definitely a priority that we had different teachers which kind of allowed us to have a little bit of a different friend group but I still hung out with all of his friends and he hung out with my friends. So everybody was friends, so it was still a good relationship.”
Another RHS twin, Sydney Vu said, “All throughout elementary school we [her and Brayden] were in the same class every single year. And it’s only one class, so we were in the same classroom all the time. And in middle school, we were we went to Granite Oak, so we were in the same Academy.” She also said, “some of the times we had the same birthday parties but as we got older our friends were different so then we had different birthday parties but it was never really an issue to share the same stuff.”
Being a twin also changes teammates in high school and non high school sports. Mr. Depue said, “as far as sports teams and stuff, we were always on the same team. It didn’t matter if I was better or he was better because it was convenient for my parents to get us to and from practices. So, there wasn’t a lot of differentiation there.” Not only do friendships change but so do enemies. Mr. Depue said, “I distinctly remember a high school situation where some guy wanted to fight me and I didn’t know why the guy wanted to fight me and then he started and I was like ‘okay I got to defend myself’ and then here comes my brother as the savior running down the hill. I’m like ‘hey buddy you better look out behind you.’ And then it turned into a two-on-one fight. Thank you for having a twin brother.”
Another huge impact having a twin on campus is the influence on individuality. After his experience of going into high school Brayden said, “We had most but not all of our classes together, but that’s when we started to become a little more separate, like having more independence because we had a few classes with each other.” Sydney has a similar view. She said, “No, I feel like since we’re different genders, that obviously plays a huge role. So, no, I don’t really think that [I struggle with individuality].” Mr. Depue however shared a separate perspective, he said, “We were called the boys, we didn’t really have a first name to most other people including our coaches. They would say hey boys or the Depues so there was definitely some frustration.” He also said, “there were definitely some of those moments where you really think of yourself as yourself, but you don’t realize how everybody else in the world sees you.”
The double life of twins might not be as obvious as it seems. On the RHS campus twins experience struggles of individuality, friend groups changing, and their own relationship with their sibling.
