Double the trouble, twice as nice
By Lauren Tsugawa
"He thinks he can do them, and it's pathetic," said junior Graham Dougherty of his brother Ian's impersonations. "He overexaggerates."
"Graham is more slouchy, and his eyes are a little bit closed all the time, much more quiet," interjected Ian, waving Graham off, unphased. Sinking down into his chair, and drooping his eyes a little, Ian nodded, "Kind of like this!"
More than ready to impersonate Ian in an equally unfavorable light, Graham interrupted, "I got him perfectly, it's fine: he just sticks his head out and looks around shiftily; kinda a little nervous and awkward and uncomfortable."
Meet Graham and Ian Dougherty, two of the many twins on Santa Clara's campus.
Twins are a unique phenomenon. The pair can be either fraternal twins, if two of the mother's eggs ovulate at the same time and subsequently, are separately fertilized; or identical twins, if a single fertilized egg splits and develops into two genetically identical embryos.
Though they look identical, Graham and Ian are fraternal twins.
Born about 32 times in every 1000 births, dizygotic siblings, twins, compose only about 1.9% of the world's population. Even less likely, however, are the births of polyzygotic siblings—triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, etc. Triplets are born only once in every 8,000 births, quadruplets are born fewer than once in every 700,000 births, and quintuplets are born fewer than once in every 60,000,000 births.
A phenomenon broadly categorized as "multiple births," the resulting relationships between these siblings, understandably, stirs a multitude of mysterious and often times outlandish rumors.
"One of the first questions we get is, ‘can you guys communicate telepathically?'" laughed sophomore Julia Peterson.
"We really can't," said her twin sister, Sam, shaking her head.
"It's fun to trick people though," she added with a smile. "We have a little game that we play."
Unlike Graham and Ian, Julia and Sam are identical twins, and until college, they hadn't been apart from each other for more than five days. Their freshman year, Sam chose to attend Santa Clara, and Julia chose to attend Occidental College in Los Angeles. However, after a year apart, Julia transferred to Santa Clara to be reunited with Sam.
"We wanted to separate and do our own thing," said Sam, "but the day that we separated was one of the saddest days of my life."
More than just identical twins, Julia and Sam are also each other's best friends, and biggest rivals.
"Everything you do is a competition, even eating dinner," said Julia of their childhood years.
"We have the same DNA, so if you're better than me at something," she continued, gesturing towards Sam, "then it's my fault, because I should be able to be just as good as you."
Freshman Kayla Germany, also an identical twin, agrees. She and her sister, Lauren, known by their friends as the "Germany Twins," are both biology majors, and also both run for Santa Clara's cross-country team.
"Since we were so close, we always wanted to be better than one another, but I think that works to our benefit," said Kayla. "I always run faster when we race together."
Competition appears to be one aspect that draws all multiples together. Freshman Natalie Portwood, a triplet, agrees.
"It's really competitive," she said. "Because we're all the same year, it's really easy to compare grades and stuff."
"I think for me it's easier because I'm the only girl," she continued. "So people can't be like, that's the pretty one, or, that's the smart one."
"Yeah, Natalie's ‘the girl,'" agreed Charles, one of Natalie's brothers. "I'm the shorter, white one and James is the taller, Asian one. No one ever believes James and I are related.
"I think James was probably adopted," joked Charles.
Like the three sets of twins mentioned before them, Charles, James, and Natalie Portwood all attend Santa Clara.
"Going to the same school is pretty good because you always have a safety net," said Charles. "We can see each other every day, but we don't have to."
However, as Santa Clara is a relatively small campus, mix-up's are inevitable.
"After being apart for a year, I forgot how often people would mix us up," said Sam. "It happens at least five times a day."
Even Graham and Ian, only fraternal twins, are mistaken for each other all the time—so much so that they decided to take their almost identical status to the next level.
"We actually pulled a pretty good April Fool's prank in high school," Ian began.
"Junior year," continued Graham, "there was this one math teacher that we both had in different periods. The day before April Fools's she bragged to the whole class that she hoped we would switch just so she could prove that she could tell us apart. So the next day we did switch. Actually, the kids in our class picked it up after a while, but the teacher didn't notice.
"I got up, pretending to go to the bathroom so I could switch back with Ian, and she announced to everyone, ‘Oh Ian, I'm glad you and Graham didn't switch today.' Everyone laughed, and I just went to the bathroom. She eventually found out a few days later."
"She set herself up for it," laughed Ian.
Mix-up's, assumed telepathy and intense competition is all in a day's work of being a multiple.
However, at the end of the day, the one burning question outsiders to the multiples community seem to have is: what is it like?
Unexpectedly, though all of these multiples share very close relationships, all of them agree that their closeness has much more to do with how they were raised than the mere fact that they share the same birthday.
"We try to tell people what it's like but at the same time we don't even really know," said Graham.
"It's like we're both kind of halves in this whole. I know that sounds so cheesy," said Julia, rolling her eyes. "It's like having a version of yourself that has the qualities that you wish you had."
After a long pause, Sam concluded, "It's having a best friend who is going to be your best friend for your entire life. I love being a twin."
Contact Lauren at ltsugawa@scu.edu or at (408) 554- 1918.