How alike are you and your siblings?

[Eamar]

I've just returned from a weekend visiting my family, during which we all got to talking about how utterly different my sister and I are despite having had the same upbringing. This has got me wondering about how common this is.

I only have the one sister, and we're close in age (she's 18 months younger than me). We both went through all the same "phases" and had a lot of similar interests growing up, but we couldn't be more different now. Everyone who's met both of us comments on this, and often has a strong preference for one or the other.

Discussion stuff after the break if you don't feel like reading about us

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A few examples of what I mean (and I don't mean to imply that one outlook is better than the other, but bear in mind I'm obviously biased!):

- I have a very "masculine" personality, while my sister is very stereotypically "feminine." This comes across in outward things like ways we dress and even our body language as well as internal things like our thought processes, priorities and interests.

- I'm a vocal feminist and LGBT rights activist; I've been described as a "rabble rouser" - I'm the sort of person who'll organise a protest if I encounter some injustice. My sister on the other hand very much doesn't like to "make a fuss." She acknowledges injustices exist but would rather talk about something else and let other people deal with them.

- I completely rejected religion at quite a young age, while my sister (admittedly after some doubt and questioning) has kept to our parents' Christian faith.

- She wants the whole fairytale wedding and a bunch of kids thing, whereas I don't really see the appeal of marriage and I definitely don't want children.

- I'm a huge nerd, she looks down on all things nerdy.

- I've always had small, long-standing groups of very close friends (and a best friend), while she has larger, less intimate circles of friends.

- She looks for stability and respectability above all else, while I'm more of a risk taker and have no problem with being "unconventional."

And many more.

We get along ok, but we're so different that we often actually struggle to understand each other at all.

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So Escapists, how similar or dissimilar are you and your siblings? Are you like me and my sister, or are you like peas in a pod? Somewhere in between? Got any funny stories about how alike/different you are? What do you think makes some siblings radically different even when they have the same upbringing and experiences?

 

[MysticSlayer]

I'll only consider my full brother. I have four brothers in all, but one is a half brother and two are step brothers. Long story short, I am very different from all three of those.

As for my full brother, we're reasonably similar.

We both are very quiet people. He's a little better at interacting with people on an emotional level, though, but I do tend to find it easier to find a lot of friends. That might have something to do with me having more opportunities right now, though.

We both hold to the same general religion (Christianity). However, our specific doctrine is very different. Our political views are almost nothing alike as far as I know, but neither of us are ready to campaign for our particular side.

Our taste in music is reasonable similar. We both love symphonic metal (Nightwish and Visions of Atlantis especially), and we also share similarities in other sub-genres of rock and metal. However, I'm able to handle extreme metal better than him, and he is more into hip-hop than I am.

We both have similar geek interests. However, he spends more time with Magic: The Gathering and TV shows, and I spend more time with video games. Still, our interests in these areas cross most of them and we can enjoy what the other does, except he doesn't understand my love of horror and very niche stuff.

Both of us are very easy going and rather complacent. We're both very willing to help and don't often need to be told what to do in order to do it.

Our strengths academically are identical. However, I think we learn things differently than the other.

Now, when it comes to our dress, we are very different. Casually speaking, we tend to wear similar clothes. However, my brother likes going to classes in a little more semi-formal wear (nothing too formal, but nicer than my T-shirt and jeans). Oddly, though, it is switched when we go to church. Still, on the whole, he has always tended to prefer a slightly more formal style than me. Also our tastes in T-shirts are very different. I like shirts with pictures displaying death, the grim reaper, and Native American religious influences. He prefers comedic T-shirts.

So yeah, for the most part, we have a lot of similarities. There are some differences, sure, but most would probably say we are alike. However, I will say he is sort of bridging the gap between me and my other three brothers, since he is more similar to them than I am.

 

[Aris Khandr]

My brother is also 18 months younger, and we're basically like night and day.

He's very extroverted, while I am almost terminally shy until I get comfortable in a situation.

I was pegged as possibly becoming a nun when I was younger, due to the strength of my faith and my level of activity in my church. He was a hellraiser who got thrown out of the Sunday school. Fast forward, I'm strongly atheist and he's trying to convince his fiancee to do a proper church wedding.

I'm very liberal, he's strongly conservative. Less so on LGBT issues, since it is really hard to be anti-gay marriage when your sister is gay, but in most other aspects he is very conservative. But not as conservative as the rest of my family, because they're freaking insane. My mother, it would seem, doesn't believe in evolution. Hello?! You're fraking CATHOLIC. Even the church signed off on evolution.

He's very sporty. Baseball, American football, and basketball all throughout childhood. The only sport I care about is proper football. On that note, he's a Barcelona fan...

People seriously don't believe that we're actually related.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yup I am like you OP, honestly me and my older brother are polar oppersite to each other-

Spoiler: List of our differences

He gel and stylize his hair alot while I rarely gel my and I only do it to get that stick out bit of hair back down than for fashion reason. Also he abit more fashion forward as he care about some people opinion on his apperance while I don't give a toss what other people think.

He's a social butterfly while I'm anti social.

I had a close circle of friends while he has alot of friends (althought to me, my friends are quality not quantity).

When it come to gaming, he prefer Sci Fi over Fantasy (he refuse to play games like Dragon Age and Skyrim) while I'm the oppersite (I couldn't get into Mass Effect but I loved Guild Wars 1 and 2).

He's fit and healthy well at least exercise while I don't (I'm not over weight per say but I know I need to exercise).

He prefer the anime Naruto over One Piece while I'm the oppersite (I'm more invested in One Piece while I don't care for Naruto as much while he's a fan of Naruto and can't be arse keeping track of One Piece).

He is also into sport (Football) and drinking while I have no interest in sport and can't stand drinking.

His humour is somewhat mature while I can laugh at almost anything (except for Family Guy). E.g. He doesn't find Anchor Man to be funny while I do and he didn't enjoyed This Is The End while I did (humour wise).

He value graphic over gameplay while I am the oppersite. He couldn't into KOTOR cos of the graphic while I loved the game (in fact he was the one who asked me to lend the game) and only bought FF13 for the graphic alone.

His career outlook is that he has a target/ end goal in sight (he has something to aim for career wise) while I don't. I take whatever in front of me/ living in the moment as I don't see the point in planning some that far ahead which you cannot control. I mean did anyone forseen the recession? (Well ok a few did.)

He loved our parent while I don't per say. I don't outright hate/ loathe them but they do frustrate me alot (typical annoying parent) while he can put up with their antic like a loving son (he had forggoten what it's like living with them).

He can fluently speak Chinese while I can't (I can only speak phrases or short sentences but nowhere near speaking fluently).

He doesn't share an interest toward Mecha (Gundam) like I do. This clearly shown when it come to picking out random gundam models for me and he look puzzled when I mention why I find that Gundam aesthetics to be appealing (I like its design).

Funny thing is that I was aware that I'm the oppersite to my brother for a long time while he only notice it when my uncle mention our oppersite apperances (the gel hair thing) when we had a get together dinner with my families (uncles and my aunt) a couple of years ago.

Sure it sound like we have nothing in common which is somewhat true but we both share an interest toward films, gaming and abit of music (we both like House music and Jpop). Another thing we got in common is that we have youthful faces (we are older than we look) as people still mistaken our ages, appearing younger so it come to a shock when we tell them our actual ages.

These days (we did get along better during our teen era) I kind of have a love/ hate relationship since he always get on my nerve whenever he mention my job career (mention in the oppersite list) but whenever he come over, my outlook toward him changed to a positive one. I guess that family to ya.

Honestly I just rather have him to be more accepting toward me (just accept the fact that I don't have a career goal but it's ok and I'm competely fine for being antisocial).

 

[Greg White]

Physically, I'm almost nothing like my siblings.

I'm 6'2" with straight, very coarse black hair with a fairly heavy build.

My 3 younger sisters(including my twin sister) are all about 5'6" to 5'8", all but one has straight hair, and they range from brown to dirty blonde.

My younger brother is 6'4", but skinny as a fence post.

Personality wise, I was always more of an introvert with the rest being the opposite. My interests usually went towards sci-fi and fantasy, my sister's more towards James Patterson and Steven King.

Honestly, around the time everyone moved out, we were about ready to strangle one another, but now that we only see each other once a year or so(my excuse is I'm in Germany and one of my sisters lives in Indiana with everyone else down in Georgia)we get along just fine.

 

[hazabaza1]

I'll spare mentioning my younger siblings because I don't spend much time living with them and they have some time to develop. I do however, have my older brother, who has about a year and a half on me.

I like to think I'm generally polite if a bit boisterous when around my friends, not the most booksmart but when I start something I try to finish it and after my first job ended about 6 months ago I've spent the time going onto a course to become employable and am now volunteering to later go on and get an apprenticeship and hopefully job with these people. I can be very antisocial while my brother works better with people.

Speaking of my brother he was kicked out of sixth form for coming in high, stole hundreds of pounds of money and belongings from my family, left his first job in which he wasn't even working a full day after a few months and has been unemployed for about... 3 or 4 years now, with little to no effort to get a job (including getting sanctioned from jobseekers multiple times) and two days ago spent his night tripping on shrooms in a forest ruining his ridiculously expensive shoes rather than looking to get a job or earn some money another way to pay back his dealer after he got arrested for copious amounts of possession and intent to supply.

So yeah I think I'm the good one.

 

[Padwolf]

Me and my older brother aren't alike. We are both quite quiet people. We sometimes think the same way but we will act very differently on it. I have a lot more patience than he does. Also he looks down on nerdy stuff and I'm a nerd. He'll look at a nintendo game and think it's for kids, the only games he really plays are rockstar games, CoD and Fifa. He's a hell of a lot more fashion forward than I am, however he will ask my opinion on what looks good every now and then. He is a lot more fit and healthy. I am a little bit overweight, and he always goes to the gym and eats and drinks healthily, in my defense I do not have a job and I can't afford to go to the gym. We do have a similar sense of humour though and we do have good fun on car journeys.

We had a bit of a fight not too long ago. He doesn't like change and he reacts badly to it. So I moved out and chose to spend christmas with my boyfriend for the first year ever. It's the very first time I've spent christmas away from home, I wanted to experience something different. My parents didn't mind at all, they were not fussed about it and thought it would be good for me. They always said I should get out more and socialise. So now he has it into his head that I don't love my family and I only go to visit them to collect money and disappear. He was quite petty about it. We don't talk very often, or much at all, over the phone. I tried to spend time with him while I was last visiting, as he complained I don't spend time with the family. Which I do, when I visit I make a point to go out on every dog walk because I love my dogs but also I love the talks with my mother. I also spend every evening sitting with my family while he sits up in his bedroom. I did try but he wasn't having any of it. While he doesn't take change very well I adapt to it rather quickly.

Oh gods I'm sorry this has turned into a bit of a rant/a venting post.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I'm in the same boat.

I'm completely different to my brother (8 years older) and my sister (4 years older) but they are very much alike.

They both like football (and support opposing teams, it's funny watching them argue) and other sports.
They both drink quite a lot, smoke and get high regularly.
All 3 of us have been taught to cook well from our mum.
They're both loud mouths, will start fights, will stand up for themselves and others, very outgoing with lots of friends.
They're both, very thankfully, good parents. They have the maternal instinct I seem to lack and my nieces and nephews are growing up to be awesome.
They're both stupidly protective of me and while I try return the favour, I don't think their short arse 21 year old baby sister is very threatening.
[sub]Although I did threaten my sisters ex and his wife with "you set foot in this city and I will wrap a crowbar around your face. Do you want to fucking test me?" He refuses to come into this city to pick his daughter up now, for some reason.[/sub]
They never got picked on at school and were probably bullies themselves. They were in trouble a lot too.
I had a... nicer upbringing than them though so I suppose I can understand why they acted like they did.

I couldn't give a damn about sports, I'm very quiet and it takes a lot for me to fight someone. I'll fight someone else's corner and protest on their behalf. I'm into humanitarianism and I really care about equal rights for all genders, sexes, races etc. Their opinion on that is basically "eh, I'm straight and white, I don't really care" (while still maintaining to tell their children how racism and homophobia is bad) but I will happily go the extra mile for people.
I stayed in school, got picked on, received further education than them and as a result come across as the smartest sibling.
I do drink but don't smoke or do drugs so we never do that together.
I have some pretty nerdy habits/hobbies which confuse the fuck out of them, and they probably used to pick on geeks at school.

My sister is quite masculine, whereas I love dressing up and making a real effort. She does look nice but I look better but is usually found in old jeans and a top.

 

[JoJo]

Varies between them, I have two teenage brothers and a ten year old sister. The elder of my two brothers is very different from me: he's gregarious, into emo fashion and physically a different build, eye colour and skin tone to myself to the extent people have thought we must be half or step-brothers in the past. The younger of my two brothers is a bit more, eh, average-looking and somewhat geeky, so he's in between us two.

My sister on the other hand, she's fairly similar to me, well as much as you could expect considering she's half my age and the opposite gender. We have a number of shared interests such as Minecraft and science, we have the same sense of humour (though that may be partly to down to us sharing an approximate mental age too ) and she even has a similar face shape and colouring to me, to the extent that people who have never seen me before or with her have guessed correctly that I am her brother. Funny thing, genes.

All four of us are fairly liberal and atheistic belief-wise, but both our parents and surrounding cultures are too so that isn't much of a surprise.

 

[PFCboom]

My (older) brother and I are more alike than I'd ever care to admit. He joined the military, I joined the military, though he went Marine reserve while I went active Army, and now he's gone reserve Army. He likes metal, I like metal. He likes cartoons, I like cartoons. He's a PC gamer, I'm a PC gamer. We both look better with facial hair. We sound alike, to the point where I used to fool his friends when they would call, though it has been over a year since we talked and I think my voice has changed some since then.
We're built a bit different, I'm naturally skinny while he has a bit more mass, but in some ways we look alike. Hell, now that I think about it, my brother, father and myself are all pretty expressive in body language/facial expression.

So yeah, like I said, we're similar in a lot of ways, probably more than I realize.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

My sister is also 18 months younger than me. Coincidence, or is there a manual for having two kids?

We share pretty much the same outlook in everything. We laugh at the same things, enjoy the same humor, are equally un-religious and politically mild-mannered. So we don't really clash on any subject. Even our tastes in film and literature intersect frequently. Music, not so much.

We only part paths personality-wise, which also means we have different habits. She's more outgoing and socially adept than me, likes clubbin', parties, drugs. Surprisingly she's a straight A student, whereas I'm on the B-to-B+ boat. I'm introverted (I'm the one with an account here, right?) and my version of nightlife consists of going out to bars with my BFF once every week. No fights here either.

The only real conflict is co-habitation. She's a messy individual, leaves her clothes all over the places, doesn't pay her half of the bills, doesn't do the dishes, never cooks and wouldn't know what a broom looks like. I'm the Jack Lemmon of our apartment. Luckily (?) she moved some weeks ago to her BF's, so no more filth and disarray.


(I miss her a little though)

 

[DugMachine]

I only have a half brother and we're basically polar opposites when it comes to looks/interests/likes etc. Me being very into videogames/technology/literature/anime and the like and him being into sports/law enforcement (like my father)/partying etc. I'm also very stocky and he's tall and skinny as a twig.

We get along well enough though but us growing up separate most of our lives probably has to do with us being so different.

 

[Zontar]

My younger brother is my only sibling. He's 16 months younger then me and has some but not that many interests as me.

Things we have in common:

We both like science fiction, all-ages movies, videogames, superheroes, Big Bang Theory (don't judge me!), and other things pertaining to entertainment.

Things we don't have in common:

I like anime, he doesn't. He likes hockey, I like curling. He's more of an Xbox type guy, I'm prefer the PlayStation (though I'm a PC gamer above both). He hates the Escapist, I enjoy it. I like space sims, he doesn't. Really I could go on but I think you get the jist of it.

Really apart from a few things, we really are more like different teens living in the same house who just happened to not really look alike (I inherited my mother's family body build and father's hair while my brother got my father's family body and mother's hair (their hairs are very different colours))

 

[geK0]

My older sister is ginger, My younger sister is blond hair blue eyes, And I'm dark hair, sort of Italian looking (so says quite a few people I've met... I'm only about 1/4 Italian). You wouldn't be able to tell we're related without being told so. Although we are all short and look young for our ages.

But I typed this before actually reading the OP and apparently this thread isn't about physical appearance.

All three of us are avid video game players, we're all shy and a bit withdrawn around people we don't know (My younger sister most of all, however myself and my older sister have somewhat grown out of our shyness), we watch a lot of the same shows and listen to a lot of the same music and we have very similar senses of humor. So as far as interests and social behavior go we're very similar.

The main differences between us are our life styles, our goals, our levels of maturity, our skills and hobbies (apart from video games) and our appearances; all those things are quite different between us(not going to go into detail because lazy).

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

We don't have a great deal in common, we're not all that close and we don't talk all that much but we get along well enough. He's a bit over 2 and a half years (also 3 school years) younger than me and we're pretty different people:

- We both like sports, or specifically we're both into football, support Man U and give each other the odd game at Fifa, though he isn't really that into gaming outside of playing Fifa and COD.
- We're both atheists, weirdly in spite of us both attending a Christian primary school.
- We're both fond of lager and cider.
- We both like to quote Anchorman at each other.
- He's very much an outgoing extrovert and I'm a friendless shut-in who'd sooner eat a bowl of mercury flavoured ice cream than initiate conversation with a stranger.
- We make completely different types of friends though I'm not really sure how to describe it beyond that, it doesn't really fit into a neat dichotomy.
- He likes to be the centre of attention, I prefer to keep things compact/intimate or blend into a crowd.
- I'd prefer to pursue a creative career path if possible, or at least something that involves minimal human contact and he wants to teach kids. Also I don't like kids whereas he seems to handle them pretty well.
- He likes modern pop music, I like pretty much anything that isn't modern pop music.
- I like watching HBO drama's and foreign language films, he mostly sticks to comedies, slashers and action.
- He's confident and has a pretty big ego, I'm self-loathing and insecure.
- Going by the last three things I've said he's totally unpretentious whereas I totally am. XD

 

[FPLOON]

I am NOTHING like my siblings... because I was an only child...

Anyway, I technically call my two cousins (only two years apart from each other with the oldest only being 6 years younger than me) my brothers because we basically act like we've been brothers since birth... We both like gaming and anime, in general, with only the fact that I have a more darker complexion than them, despite the fact that they look white and I just look black in comparison...

However, I'm more of a console gamer and they're both more of a PC gamer... and, despite watching similar anime series, while I'm more into character-driven anime series, one's more into action-driven anime series while the other's more into overall plot-driven anime series...

Granted, I do have a step-brother since my mom got re-married not too long ago, but the last time I legitimately spoke with him was over 10 years ago when he was giving me his Dreamcast... (I do know he's 8 years older than me, is married, and has two daughters age 4 and 3, I think...)

 

[Zhukov]

I have two brothers and a sister and I'm not much like them at all.

However, that's not really surprising.

For a start, they are all much younger than me with gaps of 9, 14 and 15 years.

Secondly, they're all half siblings. Same mother, different fathers.

Of the three, I guess I have the most in common with my sister. We're both quiet, shy to the point of being a bit prickly and love reading,

 

[Nosferatu2]

My sister is also 18 months younger than me. Coincidence, or is there a manual for having two kids?

Well maybe my brother is 18 months older then me.

OT. Physicality we look not that much a like. I take after my dad. And I guess he takes more after my mom. (they are both kind of short, and stocky). I guess our vernacular is similar enough that you can tell we're brothers. I tend to be a bit more loud and open to share my opinions of things. He tends to try and be nicer to people. We're both pretty introvert but I'm a little more "fuck you" about it.

Oh, and I have brown eyes where as everyone else in my nuclear family has green.

 

[Elfgore]

Night and Day. My sister is four years older than me and we could not be anymore different.

She used to be the ebodyment of counter-culture and change with whatever was hot at the moment. I haven't chnaged since late middle school.

She likes to party, I rather stay home and play video games.

This goes on for many things. Kinda ironic that she married a guy who plays video games, magic, etc.

In high school, when she was in her rebellious stage, we fought a lot. Since she grew up and got married we get along a lot better now. We talk usually once a month, since she and her husband are stationed in Germany at the moment.

 

[DasDestroyer]

All of my parents' children are completely identical.
In other words, I'm an only child.