To be completely honest, it is nice having someone who innately understands me. There's enough truth to the soul-mate fantasy with twins that I'm sure our husbands have been unfairly judged at times. I think that our expectations of our husbands have probably been higher than a non-twin's expectation would be of their mate; we're used to being so well understood by one another. Compound the problem with male/female differences and you have a well-rounded recipe for frustration!
Yes, identical twins are often akin to "soul-mates." But please, never assume that twins are exactly alike! This may make sense intellectually but you may be surprised how many people just don't act on that (see the second article in this series, Questing for Individuality.)
Do my sister and I both like ice-skating because one of us liked it first and got the other interested? Or is there something within our genetic code that drew us to ice-skating? As Jessica, a 17-year-old identical twin, so aptly stated, "our interests might be the same but that doesn't mean we are the same person."
Beyond interests, what about personality? How much of our personalities are determined by the single zygote we both once were, and how much was shaped by the pairing of our lives? Moreover, how much was shaped by our separate experiences? After all, genetically we are predestined to be similar if not the same in many things. I say that with a block of salt added (rather than just a grain.) The old Nature vs. Nurture http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/97042... question is entirely applicable to twins.
On a scientific note: within every human there are minor mutations that occur before conception. The genes from the mother and the father may be altered slightly simply because the cell reproduction process isn't perfect. The same "changes" can also occur between the time the original zygote is conceived to the time the egg splits and creates two embryos. My sister's nose and eyes and mouth are not exactly the same as mine (or vice versa.) That doesn't mean we aren't identical though. On the other hand, if twins have noticeably different hair, eye, or skin color (aside from being tan from the sun more than their sibling) those differences are likely not mutations but entirely different genes.
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