* * *
A dating service bio from Carlos would tell readers that he is “sociable, gentlemanly, attentive, a bit bad-tempered, serious, a good dancer, and a sports fan.” He joked that he is gentlemanly only when he wants to be. Carlos also fancies himself a romantic, describing the perfect evening as one in which he would light candles, prepare dinner, serve wine, and follow it all with a good movie and breakfast in bed the next morning.
An ideal partner would be twenty-four or twenty-five years old and a professional like him, with well-defined interests. But as he thought about a previous relationship with a thirty-three-year-old, he acknowledged that he finds that mature women are attractive and know what they want.
When a relationship ends, Carlos tells the woman he doesn’t care, but inside he is “dying,” he said. He hasn’t discussed this with his twin, but he knows that Wilber, who seemed to be going through a breakup at the time, also reacts this way. In early 2015 Carlos ended his relationship with his long-time girlfriend, a breakup that brought him significant heartache. He was hoping to date someone new, but insisted that candidates not know about the switch because after the TV story aired, Carlos met lots of women who seemed interested in him because of the show, and he shut down in response to their questions.
When I saw Carlos again, he had been in a new relationship with a woman for about a month and a half. She knew nothing about the switch when they met, but Carlos eventually played the Séptimo Día program for her and found that they could discuss his situation openly. He admires her independence, likes hearing about her work with atypical children, and enjoys her cooking. At the same time they are polar opposites—she is from Córdoba Montería, where people tend to be loud and colorful, and Carlos is serious and down to earth. He likes to make plans and she doesn’t, but a significant area of commonality and connection is that both have lost their mothers, which enables Carlos and his girlfriend to share and understand this sad experience.
Carlos plans to marry a woman he loves and have a family with her. “If assisted reproductive technology was available to men,” he said, “I would have had kids by now!” But his maturity then overtook his enthusiasm, and he declared that having kids is not of primary importance, while knowing with whom to have them is.
Independence and individuality lead his list of important ingredients for happiness, at least right now. The four brothers had discussed moving in together, but Carlos nixed the plan, mostly because he didn’t want to move anywhere far from the city’s center. When people visit the apartment he shares with Jorge, Carlos heads to his room if he doesn’t know them. In this respect, he says, Wilber is more sociable than he is, although people who know both twins say that Carlos is the friendlier one. Perhaps Wilber becomes more passive when Carlos is around, just as William grows more subdued when he is with his twin.
Self-confidence is Carlos’s best quality, but it masks a fear of failure. Carlos is certain he will achieve his goals but worries that he will fall short, even though he tries his best. A consequence of trying hard is his perfectionism, what he calls his “psychorigidity.” He also sees himself as egocentric, the center of it all; when he ends a relationship with a woman and she acquires a new beau, he regards his replacement as a cheap copy. I wondered what he would say if his twin brother were dating one of his former girlfriends.
If Carlos could change any aspect of his personality, it would be his lack of concern about things that seem ordinary to him, but might seem odd in other people’s eyes. Pride also figures into this. His boss was rather argumentative and on one occasion Carlos asked his boss to stop yelling at him, insisting that he was not like the other employees, and it worked. Later, when Carlos was leaving for vacation, his boss asked if he was coming back. Carlos replied, “God willing.” But he did not return to that job because he accepted a job offer from a friend. Carlos loves his new job because it provides him with not only more income, but also greater challenges and opportunities for advancement.
Life is generally good for this young man because he is doing well professionally and is coming to terms with having a biological family in La Paz. He has some sad moments, especially when memories of his beloved mother and former girlfriend surface, but he tries hard to stay level. His efforts to maintain equanimity may explain his cautious side—if he and Wilber, rather than Jorge and William, had been mistaken for one another, Carlos never would have arranged to meet as quickly as Jorge and William did. Carlos would have wanted to take more time to examine the events and consider their consequences.
Carlos values kindness, calling it Wilber’s best trait (although William might disagree), and Carlos can be generous and kind (although Jorge might disagree). Several significant actions show Carlos’s self-assessment is correct: he stayed at a job he disliked because Jorge had been laid off and needed financial support, and Carlos helped William apply to law school when he was ready to do so. Modesty is part of the twin culture that Carlos has created with Wilber: they are reluctant to sing their own praises, but are willing to name their best qualities when asked.
Identical twins sometimes see their own worst traits in their twin brothers and sisters, although they like to think otherwise. The reared-apart twin Jack, who was raised in Trinidad, asked his wife if he was aggressive, critical, and demanding like his brother, Oskar, who had been raised in Nazi Germany. “Yes,” she replied, “but you are less extreme.”3
According to Carlos, Wilber’s worst trait may be loving women too much; Carlos complains that his brother “loves them all” and often overlooks the serious side of a relationship. But a flirty nature characterizes all the La Paz males, including Carlos. This was captured in a classic moment. Carlos and Wilber were talking quietly together at a party we held at a trendy Bogotá restaurant, but what was passing between them? They were then six or seven months into their relationship and did not seem as closely bound to one another as William and Jorge. But Carlos and Wilber’s less demonstrative manner may have masked a deeper bond. Regardless, they were talking about women, one in particular, the attractive daughter of one of our interpreters—and both Wilber and Carlos were watching their other brothers to see what they would do.
* * *
“A slim man, about five feet, seven-and-a-half inches in height, with darkish skin and thick lips” would be Wilber’s self-description in an ad to attract prospective dating partners. It would go on to describe the young man as “simple, humble, direct, and hot-tempered,” and would encourage contacts from women who would be understanding and accepting of who he is. He would enjoy dating a professional woman, but considered her having a career less important than her ability to provide love and support, especially if she is from Santander, where women are less outspoken than in Bogotá.
At the first mention of his love life, Wilber just laughed somewhat nervously because at the time he was not doing as well in his relationships as he would have liked. Partners tend to love him too much or too little, a conclusion he reached because “when they love you too much, you don’t love them, and vice versa.” One of his recent love interests was quite attentive to him until he began investing more time and effort in their relationship. At that point she returned to her former boyfriend. Another woman took their relationship more seriously, but to Wilber she was just someone to hang out with.
Humbleness is the trait he values most in himself, explaining that he does not hide who he is or make himself out to be someone who he is not. He does not conceal or deny his bad temper but tries to control it, although when he explodes, he really explodes. His “what you see is what you get” approach is at odds with his twin’s pride, which gets in Wilber’s way. In this respect Wilber feels he is different from Carlos, who he says “changes female relationships every twenty days,” rather than acknowledge a misstep and face the consequences. Wilber and Carlos see some of their less favorable traits in each other but not in themselves.
Among Wilber’s least favorite traits is his tendency to become easily stre
ssed. Things like glitches at work, being yelled at, and William’s disorderliness set him off, whereas having to wait for a taxi or getting a stain on his shirt are not problems. Given Wilber’s attention to his appearance, it seems out of character that a spot on his shirt was not at least a minor stressor. When Wilber was a teenager in La Paz, he carefully scrubbed the dirt off his hands before heading to the local bars on weekends, and if soap failed to do the job, he used a knife to scrape off the dirt.
Wilber manages stress by pushing away unpleasant thoughts or falling asleep. He is aware that he sometimes speaks harshly and hurtfully in a style that is too loud and too fast for Bogotá, although more in line with the conversational styles of La Paz, and when this happens, it is stressful for him. But like the brother with whom he was raised, Wilber is a willing learner, accepting of his twin’s corrections of what he says and how he says it. He once called brown shoes “browns,” but in the interest of protecting and not embarrassing Wilber, Carlos gently explained that they are simply called brown.
The lesser-known side of Wilber is his sentimentality and emotionality. When Colombia lost the 2014 FIFA World Cup to Brazil, Wilber broke down as he watched James Rodriguez, winner of the Golden Boot award as a top goal scorer, cry on live TV. Wilber also wept while watching the televised true story of a vocally talented young boy whose envious classmates killed him. Wilber himself is puzzled by his odd combination of a bad temper and strong sentimentality.
Trust is a trait that he values highly, and it has evolved quickly between Wilber and his twin, evidenced by their confidence in each other and deep respect. Like Carlos, Wilber values his independence and uniqueness, but he is less upset than Carlos is when people confuse the two of them, perhaps because Wilber was not the twin whose identity was severely challenged. But if Wilber had been the switched twin, what would his life have been like? Would he have entered the financial world like his identical twin brother? Wilber concedes that this could have happened because like his identical twin he always enjoyed math and is good at it, but he finds it hard to imagine such a different existence. His twin and others have encouraged Wilber to return to school. That seems unlikely, but he has not completely abandoned that idea. Still, unlike his accidental brother, William, Wilber harbors no regrets about what he never knew and never had. If he had been the switched twin, Wilber, like Carlos, would have approached the situation with care and caution.
One incident in particular led me to fully grasp Wilber’s regard for and loyalty to his friends. I needed a taxi to go from his apartment to my hotel, so he arranged for a friend from La Paz, who is a cabbie, to drive me. I knew that the standard fare for the trip is about 25,000 Colombian pesos, or US$7.60, so it was stunning when the fare climbed to 40,000, or US$12.60, nearly twice as much. Wilber just laughed about it because his good friend rips him off too.
HEXACO, Not TEXACO
A kiosk at Colombia’s El Dorado Airport sells T-shirts and souvenirs that read COLOMBIA, NOT COLUMBIA. Similarly, whenever I type HEXACO, an acronym for a group of personality traits, into a search engine, the spell checker insists that I search for TEXACO.
Researchers have organized human personality traits into what are now known as the Big Five, which are easily recalled with the acronym OCEAN: openness (to experience), conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. In 2001 Canadian researchers added honesty-humility to the mix and replaced neuroticism with emotionality, yielding the acronym HEXACO; now the E stands for emotionality and the X for extroversion.4
Genetic influence on the six HEXACO personality factors ranges from 41 percent for openness to 68 percent for conscientiousness.5 Sharing an environment with someone doesn’t make you alike in these traits, but sharing genes does. Still, environment matters—the environmental events affecting personality are the unique experiences we have that make us different from our family members.
The reared-apart twins William and Jorge match closely in their level and patterning of the HEXACO personality factors, except Jorge’s test results showed an unexpected dip in agreeableness, or cooperation and compromise with others, his hallmark tendencies except when it comes to football. The other reared-apart pair is closely matched across all six factors, with Wilber showing a slight lead on some, but Carlos leads on honesty-humility and openness to experience. This makes sense because, as a financial analyst, Carlos is bound more tightly by rules and regulations than Wilber, who works in the butcher shop. Carlos is also somewhat more interested in travel than Wilber, who prefers to save his earnings, but Wilber plans to invest money in a pyramid scheme. Carlos suggested that they do this, and Wilber trusts his brother’s plans.
* * *
The accidental brothers Jorge and Carlos, who grew up together in Bogotá, show similar levels of each trait, but they differ in extroversion and openness to experience, which is consistent with Jorge’s greater enthusiasm for solving social challenges and his following his favorite football team around the world. The accidental brothers raised together in La Paz show less resemblance in the various HEXACO traits—William’s higher scores on extroversion, agreeableness, and openness match his social and political aspirations, his confidence and drive, and his desire for occupational and personal growth. Both pairs of replicas show the least resemblance, as expected, probably because they shared neither their genes nor their environment.
The Birthday Party
William and Wilber hosted a birthday celebration for Diana, the older sister of Jorge and Carlos, and now William. It was July 17, 2016, and she had just turned thirty-two. The party in the apartment over the butcher shop began with a beautiful cake and was followed by fried chicken, crackers spread with a potato and ham mixture, and soda. In attendance were the four twins, Diana and her boyfriend, Jorge’s young son, Carlos’s current girlfriend, Aunt Blanca Cecilia (the Bogotá twins’ second mother), two La Paz cousins, and a new butcher shop employee. Diana opened her presents, and everyone took pictures amid a lot of laughing, teasing, and hugging. People sat or stood around the small living room, which doubles as Wilber’s bedroom, or drifted in and out of William’s adjoining bedroom.
Few would guess that the history of the reunited identical twin pairs was less than two years old because their familiarity and ease of relations suggested that they had been together all their lives. Jorge and William hugged and kissed as was their custom, and they often put their arms around each other. Carlos and Wilber kidded around, playfully calling each other names, and mostly reclining on a bed with their drinks. Wilber continued to kid his twin that he resembled a Jehovah’s Witness selling Bibles, dressed as he often was in a suit and tie. These different postures and exchanges reflect the unique twin culture of each pair—early on Carlos and Wilber branded Jorge and William “the lovers,” and Jorge and William faulted Carlos and Wilber for their reserve. Jorge and William tease each other occasionally, but it is not the jeering, mocking tone so characteristic of the other two. William and Jorge are closely attuned to each other’s feelings. For example, one night as we left a restaurant, Jorge mentioned William’s gullibility about a poorly produced television segment about their lives, and William seemed embarrassed. His behavior triggered an immediate apology from Jorge, who conceded that agreeing to participate was a mistake anyone could have made, and then Jorge bumped his head against William’s in their special “twin way.”
Twenty-two months after the switch was discovered, the four twins understood and accepted that family relations grow and flourish according to the temperament and timetable of each individual and pair. They had all grown in their own ways, both separately and as two and four.
Chapter 11
Twins, Pairs, and Pedigrees
Given past tensions between the switched twins, it was surprising when Carlos pulled out his cell phone during lunch to call William just to say hi. Even more surprises were waiting.
The upheaval in their lives changed all the twins, but the two who were switched at birth, Carlos and Wil
liam, were changed more significantly than their accidental brothers who stayed in place. But once they got past the shock, a new maturity and refreshing optimism were evident in all four brothers during my second visit. Time had to pass before they could know how they might fare individually and together, at least in the immediate future.
Carlos
The extraordinary journey made by this young man allowed me to ask him a question I could not ask the year before. At that time he faced a constant struggle between the life that was and the life that should have been, and he reacted by distancing himself from his Santander relatives, who had tried to welcome him.
“Were you relieved that you were raised in Bogotá and not La Paz?” I asked. Carlos didn’t answer directly, saying only that when the switch was uncovered, the thought of being raised on a farm made him uncomfortable. It helped when a friend consoled him by saying that Carlos is what God wanted him to be, but Carlos acknowledged that my question put him on edge, making him think more about his feelings and how he judges himself. But he also said that sitting in the hotel room with Alexandra, our trusted interpreter, and me, a familiar figure, made him want to open up. His mood was a dramatic departure from the reserve he had displayed in the past, and we just let him talk. At first he skirted some issues as unanswerable, but returned to them later with some well-conceived thoughts.
When the discovery was new, Carlos was uneasy, thinking about what his life would have been like if he had been returned to La Paz as intended. He asked himself, “Would I have been the same person?” but it is a question he cannot ever answer. Initially he made a lot of assumptions about growing up in La Paz, but making assumptions is something he doesn’t like to do, because he believes it’s not good for him. He then explained that the only obstacles in life are the limits you place on yourself, words from his beloved mother. When Carlos and Jorge entered high school at the Colegio Restrepo Millan, people expected them to fail like their cousins before them, but Luz told them that whether they passed or failed was in their hands, and with her support they succeeded. Pressed again to say whether he would have been the same person had he been raised in La Paz, he uttered a cryptic, “Not impossible,” but he didn’t sound confident.
Accidental Brothers Page 25