Life as a Twin- By Peter

Being a twin is not as easy and awkward free as these girls' carefree smiles would suggest

The following is from none other than one of my top guest contributors, Peter. Now, I'll turn it over to the man himself:

Every week or so, I’m asked what it’s like to be a twin.  While that question is complicated to answer, and there are few people in the world who have experienced life both with a twin and without a twin and are truly qualified to answer this inquiry, the following story encapsulates why being a twin is awkward on a daily basis.

I’d like to begin with background information.  My name is Peter, and my identical twin brother is named Philip.  We attend the same university, and, at school, we eat at houses that are next to each other.  His eating house is closer to campus, so I pass it both walking towards and coming from my own house before and after every meal.

A week ago, I was walking back from dinner alone.  As I passed my brother’s eating house, two members were exiting the front door.  One was a tall, athletic-looking African American dude with a flat-brimmed hat forwards at an obtuse angle.  The second was a medium-sized, fit white guy with buzzed brown hair.  I had never seen either of them in my life.  Upon seeing me, the African American one yelled, “Yo Phil!”  Goddamit, I thought.  I decided to speed up my walk and pretend I hadn’t heard him.  Safe, right? Wrong.  They then sped up their walks, and the African American dude bellowed even louder, “YO PHIL!”

I had to turn around.  I had no other choice.  Continuing my act would have reflected poorly on my brother.  It would have been an obvious snub.  As I nodded to them in recognition, I contemplated my options in order to distill the one that would minimize awkwardness.  If I were a computer given this objective, there would have been an error in the system.  There and then I learned that it’s impossible to divide by zero. 

“Yo Phil, did you turn deaf over night? What’s good, man?” Oh God.  If I had pretended to be Philip, I would have had to walk back to campus with them.  That walk is five minutes.  They would have realized something was wrong, and I subsequently would have had to explain not only that I was Philip’s twin but also that I had been pretending to be my brother for two minutes.  Any identical twin knows that pretending to be your twin only minimizes awkwardness in the briefest of encounters (see Addendum).  I swallowed hard.  I had to tell them the truth.  “Sorry guys, I’m actually Philip’s twin, Peter.  Umm… How are you all?”  They looked at each other.  They were clearly enjoying broing out, and didn’t want to meet somebody new.  They didn’t want formalities.  They wanted chill.  The African American responded, “Oh, uh, tell Phil we say ‘what’s up.’”  They slowed their walks.  I hastened mine.  For the entire five minute walk back to campus, they were ten paces behind me.

(Note from Clay: for help with a related issue (or simply an awareness that such an issue exists, see this post)

ADDENDUM:

On a related note, saying ‘hi’ to people on a college campus is awkward as an identical twin because you never know who knows your twin.   At least once a day I will be walking somewhere, and somebody I do not recognize will casually nod and say ‘hi’.   The regularity of this situation forces you to stay on your toes because you have to say ‘hi’ back.  If you don’t, that person thinks your brother is a douchebag.  You don’t how that impacts his life.  If it’s a girl, maybe he likes her and such a snub would turn her off.  Less selflessly, you know that anything that reflects poorly on your twin reflects poorly on you because your reputations are inherently linked.   As a result, when I walk through a relatively well-populated area of campus, I am constantly alert, never pouncing but always ready to react.

Bill Clinton

Try to watch the whole thing without looking away. Even Clinton needs to sip his soda (interesting beverage choice- I would have expected coffee or water) at 1:47 to avoid eye contact/"play it cool".

Great Short Article on FOMO

Check it out (by clicking on any blue text, including this text right here)

Texting the Wrong Person

The Breaking of the Fourth Wall

Few things are more awkward than this (however rarely it may occur)... and no one illustrates that better than The Office:

More Awkward Interviews (if you could call them that)

Middle School Dances

I really like this (click here!).

Eating Alone- A User Submission from Peter!

            It’s lunchtime, your stomach is growling, and you’re alone.  You slip on your flip-flops and hasten to the cafeteria, transforming a five-minute walk into three minutes.  Here is where the awkwardness begins for some people.  I’m the loser without friends.  What if the girl I have a crush on sees me eating alone?  The people who think like that suck.  Eating alone isn’t inherently awkward.  Everyone has done it before, and anyone who would judge you for it is not worth impressing.

            The cafeteria lady swipes my entry card, and my stomach fist-pumps as I gain entry into the pearly gates.  I put down my coat to claim my seat before I enter the servery.  Pasta with a basil cream sauce or beef and potatoes with gravy?  I select the beef after shamelessly tasting the pasta.  Why? Because it’s one of those things you can get away with when you’re alone.

            I return to my seat, put my tray down, and I proceed to lustfully quench my stomach’s cravings.  With each potato cigarette I swill, my stomach answers with moans of pleasure.  Then it lurches, and a little water upchucks through my nose. The nightmare has happened!

            I had semi-noticed some clothing on the table directly across from my seat before, but I had chosen to ignore them in favor of satisfying my primal needs.  Now the person belonging to those clothes has returned, and I am subject to fifteen minutes of a level 8.7 quake on the Rector Scale of awkwardness.  Why? Because she has sat down at the seat facing me, and directly across from me.  If her back were towards me, we could mutually ignore each other.  If she were seated one seat over in either direction, we could coordinate our blank gazes in such a way that they never collide.  But because she was directly across from me, the meal became a monotonous cycle of looking down at my food and hoping to God that my commarade in awkwardness does not look up when I look up.

            In this particular episode, a fairly unattractive girl sat across from me.  I looked down as much as possible, and I felt terrible about myself.  I knew that I was being unfair to her, and I hated the fact that I was such a slave of lust.  I hated myself for being cocky, and assuming that she might automatically be interested in me just because I found her unattractive.  I hated myself for hoping to catch her staring at me when I looked up, so that I could add a log to my ego’s fire.  When all you know about someone is there physical appearance, you’re almost forced to think in Darwinistic terms.  After lunch, I immediately returned to my room and took the rare mid-day shower.

The beauty of this situation, though, is that it is awkward no matter who it is who sits down across from you, as long as it is a stranger.  I am a male.  If another dude takes that seat at the table across from mine, not only is there the eye contact issue, but, also, there is that elephant in the room: If the two tables were fused together, we would be on a date!  Few feelings are more awkward than homoerotic moments thrust upon a straight male.  I’m sure it’s the same for homosexuals who are forced into erotic, heterosexual scenarios.  I squirm in my seat, minimize the amount of times I look up, and eat with as poor manners as possible.  In this situation, all you can do is eat quickly and send every possible nonverbal anti-erotic vibe you can.

            Now, say an attractive woman assumes that cursed seat. Awesome! Right? Wrong.  This scenario is the polar opposite of the previous one.  You want so badly to impress this girl.  You refine your manners an uncomfortable amount.  You try to look down, but, instead, you look up at her way too much.  She catches you, and you immediately look down again.  You want to go over and eat with her, but there are too many unknown, possibly confounding variables.  What if she thinks you’re weird?  What if she would rather eat in solitude?  What if she is really bad at conversation, and you are forced to drive a ten-minute small-talk conversation that never scratches the surface?  More disturbingly, what if she’s just a cold-hearted bitch?  What if she goes back to her friends after the meal and tells them about the creepster who approached her?  With all of those thoughts running through your head, the bold move becomes increasingly difficult, and you are subject to a long meal of feeling inadequate while this beautiful girl repeatedly catches you staring at her.

-Peter

***

Addendum (by me, not Peter):

Something that Peter's post gets me thinking about is round tables in dinning halls. Imagine one walks into the cafeteria (alone, to eat alone) and it is almost entirely full. However, there is a very long rectangular table with one person sitting at the way end of it. Most of us would put our stuff down at the opposite end of the table and not think much of it. Sure we may run into a few of the problems mentioned above, but that's about the end of it. However, now imagine that same situation, someone else sitting alone at the only "available" table, except it's a round table. 

People like me would simply not consider that table an option because of the awkwardness that ensues. The awkwardness is one of the following: 

You are either 

1. Sitting very close to him/her (only one or two seats away), in which case etiquette dictates you probably should talk (or at least it's awkward and rather tense if you do not). 

Or

2. You are at opposite ends of the round table, in which case you are essentially starring at each other (practically on a date!), as Peter describes. However, the case of the round table is worse than the case of rectangular table; in addition to making constant accidental eye contact with each other person, you're also sitting at the same table as him/her, thus increasing the presence of the elephant in the room that you're both sitting "alone" (or rather, came alone) and yet don't think the person across from you is interesting enough to talk to.

N.B. Round tables can also induce awkwardness when you're with a group of people. If you come into the cafeteria with a group of 4 of your friends, and there are no tables available except a round table with one kid sitting alone, that's awkward. If you sit there, do you introduce him out of politeness and have him join in on your conversation? This dilemma would not happen (or be nearly as severe) if, instead of a round table with only one person sitting at it, it were a rectangular one. 

Isn't it amazing how the restraints of physical spaces can induce and facilitate awkwardness out of thin air?

Mouthwashing in Public

I like to mouthwash. In fact, I mouthwash multiple times daily (when you include floride and pre-brush rinse along with the generic antiseptic). The tricky part is, I do not live alone in a studio apartment with a private bathroom. I live in a college dorm room with a shared public bathroom.

This bathroom is connected to my room by a very long and very public hallway. I keep the mouthwash in my room (it would get stolen or thrown out if I left it in the bathroom.) Thus the sequence of events is typically this: In my room I pour the mouthwash into my mouth and begin swishing. Then I walk, down the long hallway, to the bathroom, swishing in the meantime. There is about 20 seconds of swishing left (of the 60 seconds I do) when I arrive in the bathroom. Thus I stand in the bathroom, sometimes pacing back and forth, swishing the mouthwash until the total 60 seconds is up and I can finally spit it into the sink (usually my eyes are awkwardly red and teary at that point).

The awkward thing is passing someone I know (a loose acquaintance or "hall-mate") in the hallway. Although the swishing is loud to me, they certainly cannot hear it. It is also not that visually obvious to them what I am doing ("does he have a tick??"). So they pass me and say, "hey Clay" and all I can muster is "mmmhhmmmm!" (which means, "Hey Bill!) with a closed-mouth grin or thumbs up or something of the sort. These people are often incredibly confused as to why I suddenly lost my ability to speak and am now resorting to baby talk. Sometimes, panicing and realizing they think I'm a crazy person, i desperately try to explain to them that I'm in the middle of my Listerine routine and cannot properly great them but that only comes out as, "mmmhmmm mmmmm mmmhhmm mmmm mhm mmhm mhm mm mm mhm mmhmh."

The hallway is almost less awkward than seeing someone in the bathroom however, because one is not expected to have a conversation; a simple "hello" or "mmmmhmmmm!" suffices.

Sometimes I'll arrive in the bathroom with my 20 seconds left of swishing and see that person I know from class and whom I'm normally chatty with in the bathroom. He'll say, as he finishes washing his hands, "Yo what's up? What'd you think of that problem set?" At this point I am faced with a dilemma: do I spit out the mouth wash, clearly interfering with my routine and cutting my hygiene time short, or do I say, "mmmhmmmmm!" (which means "hang on one second") hold up a finger, requesting a moment, and then spend another 15 seconds silently swishing to myself. (I'm preemptively eliminating the option of trying to explain that "I thought #8d was hard but other than that it was fine" in gibberish). If I choose the former, it will be quite obvious to them as soon as I spit out that I was mouth-washing and cut my routine short just for them. They will then feel bad for having cut my precious 60 seconds short, and also think I am a bit pathetic for not having the gumption to bear the 20 seconds of ambiguous and odd silence to finish my clearly regimented oral hygiene routine.

The issue further deepens when the said bathroom mate greets me just as above (with a non yes or no question) and yet is drying his hands. He is almost done with his routine and practically on his way out the door. Do I make him stay an extra 15 seconds, standing there like a jackass, holding the door open, halfway between staying and leaving, just to hear the answer to a question he probably doesn't even care about and was just asking in the interest of making small talk? Or do I cut my routine short and spit it out early? OR do I, in an attempt to neither cut my routine short nor keep him waiting, somehow indicate to him, via a combination of hand signals and gibberish, that I am mouth-washing (and will be for the next 15 seconds or so) and to not bother waiting for me and that we will resume this conversation in the future?

I'm overwhelmed.

Pooping in Public Restrooms

"Hey, can we talk?"

Pooping is meant to be a relaxing activity. Yet oftentimes it can be stressful.

It is often most stressful when you are in a stall and someone is in the other stall right next to you. As you're sitting there, there is this tension in the air, where you are both waiting for the first person to make that *tinkle tinkle* or *plop*! noise. Once that initial tension is broken, it is still awkward because you are both sitting there in this silence (or sometimes the punching of blackberry keys can be heard or the not-so-subtle grunts of struggling men) as the stinky smell of defecation slowly begins to cross over along the floor into the other's stall.

I usually try to time my poops (or at least sit on the toilet for 20 seconds after I'm done) so that I don't have to actually see the person when we're both washing our hands. Otherwise, if we leave the stall at the same time (or if there's any overlap at the sink), we will both stare into the mirror and pretend not to notice each other and there will be that "yeah I'm the guy who just produced that nasty smell and made all those pooping noises" awkwardness.

Sometimes in smaller environments, like floors of small offices or in high schools, you can recognize the person next to you by his shoes and/or pants. Needless to say, initiating any sort of conversation across stalls while performing private acts would be quite imprudent. But there's still the awkwardness in the air that you're both 5 feet away from each other, doing nothing much other than sitting there, but not speaking to one another because it's too uncomfortable.

I often get anxious because if I can recognize them (by their bottom-ware) perhaps they can recognize me. And if they can recognize me, that means they will be judging my poop. And I should be the only person who judges my own poop. So often, in smaller environments where there's a chance the person next to me will know it's me (even if I myself don't recognize them), I will hold in my poop until they are done, so they don't judge the smell and the sound of the plopping (aka old faithful).

I worked in a small office once where practically everyone knew each other and there was only one men's room in the entire company's floor. One bathroom. Two stalls. One time I ended up saddled up beside someone and desperately wanted to avoid exiting the stall at the same time as him and possibly having to make eye contact and/or friendly small talk at the sink. We both sat in silence for about a minute, listening to the sounds of our urine tinkling and our poops plopping (and sometimes even farts flatulating). And of course smelling the wonderful scents that often accompany such events.

Of course, despite my best efforts, we ended up exiting the stalls at the same time. It was my boss. We ended up making conversation as we washed the filth off our hands vigorously with soap, but to be honest, I wasn't listening to a word he said. All I could think about, as I nodded at his story and laughed at the parts that sounded like they were supposed to be funny, was how much his shit smelled.

I never looked at him the same again.

At this point, we might as well poop with the door open.

Awkward Interviews- The Tamer/More Awkward Ali G?

The Awkward Free-throw Handshake

Dap me up bro!

Meeting People You Won't Say Hi to Again

"Hey I'm Jim"

"Hey Jim- I'm Steve"

Jim and Steve will never say hi to each other again. But they shook hands at least!

The other day, I was with my friend John in a café. As we were in the checkout line, John ran into Andrew, someone he doesn't know well at all but says hi to regularly. I paid for my food as they exchanged greetings and clichés such as "what are you doing for break?" I, not being in a very social mood, and also knowing the futility of the phenomenon I will hereby describe, avoided eye contact with this new guy who was invading my one-on-one time with John, not particularly caring to meet him. As it turns out, Andrew was walking the same direction as us out of the café so the three of us began walking together. John, doing the polite thing of course, introduced me, and me, not being a complete sociopath, extended my hand for a solid shake and gave him my name with a polite smile.

For most of this walk I kept silent, in a quieter mood and not being able to (or caring enough to) relate to most of their conversation (since they knew each other through a campus organization I wasn't a part of and that's mostly what they ended up talking about). As John and I took a right while Andrew was going straight, we said our goodbyes and I finished off with a "nice to meet you."

I saw Andrew the next day and didn't say hi. It's not that I was a complete dick or that he was either- it's just that I'm not particularly good with faces so by the time I realized it was him, it was too late to say hi. For a few days after that, we saw each other around campus and didn't really say hi (maybe a head nod or awkward and ambiguous smile for a few days but that faded out). Because of these awkward passing bys, I grew to fully recognize Andrew every time I saw him and yet as time went on, showed recognition of his presence less and less.

What was the point of meeting Andrew? Social norms dictate that John would have been rude unless he had introduced Andrew to me. Yet it seems every time I meet someone in one of these we're-both-stuck-in-a-brief-situation-with-a-mutual-acquaintance it turns into nothing but the awkwardness of having met and never saying hi again. Why is it that there's this understood code that after meeting someone in a very brief situation you don't say hi to them? I think it's some sort of fear of being "creepy" by remembering the person after so little time spent meeting them- after all caring is creepy and casual is cool. These days, it's not cool to remember people's names that you just met.

Don't get me wrong, obviously there are situations where you meet someone and say hi to them the next time you see them and perhaps even foster a great relationship with them afterwards. I think these are the exception to the rule. Think hard- I'd say in most of those cases you've heard about the person and think they're worth knowing/getting to know, they are good friends with your friend, or they actually make a very exceptional impression on you after a 30 second meeting (rare).

I know we all like to think of ourselves as super friendly and people who say hi to people after we meet them- but think to yourself honestly: how many people have you met, randomly in circumstances like i described, or maybe at a party (and don't blame it on being blackout) and then completely ignored the fact that you met them the next day when you walk past them. All it takes is not saying hi that first walk past each other the next day and then it's pretty much impossible to recover from (i.e. you will not say hi again unless you are reintroduced- in which case you will both probably act like you don't remember having met).

I'm not sure which to blame: this social norm that has developed of not saying hi after a brief meeting, or the person who introduces me to the person out of "politeness" (is it really "polite" when the person knows you two will likely have no future together?).

*As a solution (really a BandAid for a bullet wound), when I'm with a friend and they run into that acquaintance in front of me, and I don't feel like meeting them or don't think meeting them will foster any future relationship (or worse, we won't say hi the next time we see each other), I simply prolong the introduction as long as possible. Usually about a minute is the longest you can go. If you're in a group of 3 people and two of them haven't met, it is pretty much rude to not introduce the two who don't know each other after a minute has gone by. If it's a quick 20 second run-in though, and if the second person (me, in this case) is antisocial enough, he can avoid the forced, perfunctory (and of course pointless) introduction.

Awesome Hyperbole And A Half Post

This is similar to but, if I am to be honest and humble, much more creative and funny than my post about seeing someone you know at grocery stores.

This girl rules. Much cooler than I am. Perhaps I will marry her one day. If you take one thing away from Awkwardize, it's that you should read her blog instead of mine.

Here's her post.

And here's a picture she drew that rules:

Friend Requesting People You Don't Know And Then Running Into Them- Annonymous User Submission

"The following ended up being one of the most awkward moments of my life and so, I felt compelled to share it with you.

This event occurred prior to arriving at Brown University but post being accepted. I had decided to add “Class of 20-- Brown University” as one of my groups on facebook in order to stay updated with assignments and steps that could be crucial to getting a good start in college. Naturally, other people were part of the same group. I began receiving friend requests from people I had never met in my life—which in itself, I think, is something very awkward and sleazy to do.

Side note: I rejected all of the requests. Later when I arrived at Brown I realized just how awkward it would have been to have accepted any one of those requests. What if I saw one of those people walking down the street or in the dining hall? Should I say hi? Nevertheless, my story pertains to something much more awkward than accepting someone unknown, but still related.

I received a friend request from a girl with a very strange and exotic name—one that would be hard to forget if mentioned to me again. This friend request, however, was different than all the others I had received. Attached to it was a message that said something along these lines,

“Hi! My name is ----.

I am going to be a student at Brown University also! I am so excited to go to college. It’s so soon and the summer seems so long. I was looking through some of the facebooks of people in our year and a lot of them seem really nice. You seemed nice and I think I would get along with you so I decided to message you! What is your major? What are your interests?...”

She proceeded to ask many more questions, all of the same general kind. When I received this I was perplexed as to what course of action I should take. I had a few options. 

Either completely ignore the message and the friend request, accept the friend request and reply to her message, or any other combination of the above. I decided that if I rejected her friend request and did not reply to her message, she would think I was a bitch if we saw each other for some reason or other. Finally, I decided that best thing to do would be to ignore her friend request but reply to her message. I replied with a very brief message which included absolutely no questions so as not to encourage any more messages. Nevertheless, after only a few hours I received another message from this person. This time I decided not to reply and soon forgot this ever happened.

***

New scene: It was the second day of orientation and I was in the dining hall, waiting in line to get dinner. It had been a hectic night the night before and I was a little out of it. All the sudden, a short girl with an accent comes up to me, hugs me, and yells my name in an exclamation that implied, “I’m so happy to see you finally!” She asks me how I’ve been and how the rest of my summer was.  My response was delayed by a few seconds. I was shocked and took those few seconds to think of any possible scenarios where I could have met this completely unfamiliar girl. The first thing that came to mind was the night before. I had met many people and so it would have been normal to forget someone’s name. 

I asked her if I had met her yesterday and apologized that I did not recognize her. However, she laughed and soon corrected me and informed me that she had not met me the night before. She told me her name and then said, “Remember me now?” The moment kept getting more awkward as the conversation evolved. I responded in the negative. Then she said, “From facebook?” That is when it hit me. Her name sounded familiar now and I realized she was the one who had messaged me long ago and whose message I decided to ignore. I thereupon apologized again for not knowing who she was, made a brief comment stating that I was busy and had to meet up with some friends, although it was obvious I was just trying to leave since I was standing in line with an empty tray. I walked away, completely thrown back by what had just happened.

It upsets me to say that I have seen this person several times since then. After a few more encounters like this, although not quite as awkward, I think she understands just how awkward the situation was. At least I hope she understands. Now we just say hi casually but never engage in a conversation. I’m glad we finally reached a mutual understanding of the extent of our relationship.

Moral of the story: Friending people on facebook without actually knowing them is awkward, especially if there is a possibility of actually meeting this person in the future. And pretending to know them when you finally see them, makes the whole situation worse."

-Anonymous