Have you ever wondered what it’s like to have a person by your side 24/7, since before even birth? This is what it is like to have a twin. From the time a twin is born, the two people have an inseparable bond that no one can replicate. Recently, the Patriot Press was able to talk to identical sophomore twins Kasey and Riley Finnigan and fraternal sophomore twins Matt and Sarah Hughes about their experience as twins.

Q: Who is the older twin? By how long?

Kasey: Riley is the older twin by a couple minutes.

Matt: Sarah is about two minutes older than I am!

Q: Are you identical or fraternal? 

Kasey: We are identical.

Sarah: We are fraternal twins.

Q: Do people ever confuse you two in public? How often does it happen?

Kasey: People confuse us in public and it happens very often.

Riley: Anyone who has not known us for long gets us confused.

Matt: No, being that we are the opposite sex we never get confused! Haha!

Q: What is it like to have a twin? Describe some of your best and worst experiences.

Kasey: It is pretty much like having any other aged sibling, except that you look like them. One of the best experiences as a twin is entering each grade and graduating it together. The worst experience is constantly being called the wrong person, even though we know that people do not confuse us on purpose.

Riley: Having a twin can be good, but also annoying. For us it is good because we have the same friends. Also I like knowing that I will always have someone there for me because we are going through the same things at the same time. Having a twin can be hard and annoying because we are constantly compared to each other.

Matt: It is a very helpful and exciting thing to have a twin in my life. I always have someone to guide me through certain situations; Sarah is usually going through the same ones. I have that person who I can relate to at all times. I often base my decisions off of what Sarah does, especially in terms of school or social events. Help with schoolwork is a nice advantage when it comes to being in the same grade and having most of the same classes. The best experiences come on vacation or even on normal days; I never get bored. Sarah and I will always have one another to hang out with or socialize with. Sometimes, with older or younger siblings, relationships aren’t as strong because of the age difference. That isn’t really the case with our older sister, Emma, but when she goes off to college, Sarah and I will continue to have experiences together. There aren’t really any bad experiences that have occurred in our life when it comes to being a twin.

Sarah: I love having a twin! We are so close and it’s really fun, we have even shared some classes. I’ll always have someone in the house with me when my sister leaves for college and I love that. It’s been a great experience having a built in best friend my whole life. There are not many bad experiences I can think of to be honest!

Q: Do you guys get along well or do you often fight? 

Kasey: We get along sometimes but we often fight. Our fights are never really serious, just about little everyday things.

Riley: We fight often but it is never about anything serious. In general, she is the sibling I get along with the most.

Matt: We get along extremely well, the only times we fight are for reasons that are completely unnecessary and illogical.

Sarah: We get a long really well, and when we fight it is over stupid things. I think that Matt being a guy and me being a girl definitely has something to do with what we fight about and how little we actually do fight.

Q: Do you guys have a lot of the same friends? If so, is it weird to always have to hang out with your twin?

Kasey: We have pretty much all of the same friends, but it is not that weird to hang out with her because it has been this way our entire life.

Riley: We have the same friends but it is not weird because when we are hanging out with our friends, I see her as just another friend.

Matt: We share a good amount of friends with each other. Often times, We actually enjoy hanging out together with all our friends. It makes it a little less awkward to have a twin with me because I am more comfortable meeting people who may be closer to Sarah then to me.

Sarah: We do share many friends, but it’s never weird!

Q: What is the best part about having a twin? What is the worst? 

Kasey: The best part about being a twin is that Riley goes through the same things as I do since we are the same age and in the same grade, so we can always talk to each other. The worst part about being a twin is constantly being compared to her with issues like grades, athletics, etc.

Matt: The best part about having a twin is being able to relate to someone throughout all of life. The worst part isn’t even that horrible but it would have to be being compared to Sarah. I was shorter than her for most of my life so it was awkward when I was compared to her, but I didn’t mind it too much.

Sarah: There are so many benefits to having a twin. I think my favorite part is just going through similar experiences at the same time and growing up together everyday. Like I said, there are not many bad things to having a twin, especially since we are different genders. I think my experiences would be very different if Matt were a girl.

Q: Are there any other twins in your family or are you the only ones?

Kasey: We have younger sisters who are also identical twins.

Riley: Also, we have twins on both my mother and father’s side of the family.

Sarah: My Nana (mom’s mom) was actually a twin as well!

Q: What is your favorite thing about your twin?

Kasey: Always having someone to talk to.

Riley: Someone there for me. Ex. when walking into school on the first day I had her by my side.

Matt: Sarah is a great person to be around. She is very bubbly and funny. Her craziness makes me laugh a lot of the time. We feed off of each others personalities. She is awesome to have around throughout my whole life, even though I can despise her sometimes!

Sarah: My favorite thing is his personality. He is so mature compared to many other guys our age; Matt is so kind and caring of others and he definitely makes me a better person. Some days if I’m upset or having an irrational fit Matt can cheer me up or tell me how silly I’m acting. I am constantly hearing others say how nice and funny he is, and I love that about my brother.

Q: What do you guys like to do together as twins?

Kasey: Hanging out together and competing in track and cross country.

Riley: Hang out with other friends.

Matt: We just like hanging out all the time. We play sports with each other, we go out to eat together, we just overall have a good time with each other.

Sarah: We love just hanging out together. We constantly go on bike rides to meet friends or just go around the neighborhood. We play soccer in our yard a lot when the weather gets warm, too.

Q: Have you ever switched places on purpose?

Riley: Yes, in third grade, and it was very fun. I was scared we were going to get in trouble but my friends, who knew how to tell us apart, found it very funny. However, the teachers did not notice we switched places.

Matt: Nope, it would pretty much be impossible to do, unless I got facial reconstruction.

Sarah: No, it’s impossible to mistake us, haha. Most of the time people don’t even know we are twins and don’t believe us when we tell them.

Q: What is the most annoying thing to be asked about as twins?

Kasey: “Can you read each other’s mind, or do you have twin telepathy?” No, we cannot read each other’s mind. I do not like being asked this question because as far as I know, that is not even possible.

Riley: “If one of you is in pain can you both feel it?” I usually laugh at that question because how is that even possible, we are two separate people.

Matt: I guess being asked who is older, but that isn’t even annoying to me, it is just a general question.

Sarah: I personally don’t get a lot of questions, and when I do it’s never annoying.