Paul Taras STEFANIW

PETER: When you’re growing up, people think you have a telepathic connection to your twin, but it doesn’t always work out that way; we’re not mind readers.

Though once we went to the same (police) job and I managed to get to the house at the same time as Paul, just as the (criminal) disappeared towards the back of the house. It’s almost as if I sent Paul a mental fax: “Go round the back”. And Paul has high-tailed it and managed to get there in time and have the guy run straight into him.

We cuffed him and the guy couldn’t work out how I got from the front to the back so fast. He looked at us and said something like, “I think I got a bad batch (of drugs) today”. Another time, there was a colleague killed on duty and Paul was the first one there, and I could just feel the vibe from him; it was almost like a radiant heat wall, a wave of depression. You can read the body play and language.

People do have a sense of curiosity, especially when you walk into a room, two policemen. And my wife is a triplet; they’re not identical, but the line you get is, “If you have kids, are you going to have quintuplets?” To a certain degree you can take being an identical twin for granted, but we like it.

PAUL: People still perceive you to be half of another person, yet you are an individual. You ham it up, you make the most of what it is.

Growing up it’s like a novelty, then as you get older it starts wearing thin – year after year the same lines, jokes, catchphrases. It’s good fun at school – there were a few problems with girlfriends or perceived friends who mistook us. Once I went on a date with a girl who had brown hair and we went to this particular restaurant; after that Peter and his blonde girlfriend went there and this waitress threw the meal down on the table.

It was not until we went on a double-date there that the waitress realised there were two of us; she thought one of us was dating two and doing the dirty, and she’d taken the woman’s perspective – “Here’s your bloody spaghetti”. She was so apologetic.

I was in the water police at the time Peter was a police helicopter observer. One time he was out on a search for a young girl in Wangaratta, and I was getting ready to go to work. Out of the blue I just stopped and called out his name, loudly, “Peter”, and then just went to work. On a patrol later that afternoon I was pulled aside and told by my boss that the helicopter crashed and Peter was in it, and almost killed.

That moment (when I called out his name) was when it happened. That was weird. Twins will relate to that telepathy thing. Overall, being an identical twin is a plus. If you don’t know any different, it’s a bonus. It’s Mother Nature’s gift.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/twins-tell-our-special-relationship/story-e6frfhix-1226295487506