Anyone have problems with identical twins

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Asking out of a little curiosity, and a lot of boredom.

Anyone else have problems recognising identical twins, or identical siblings?

If there is a set of identical siblings standing together I can't see that they're identical - I know there is something unusual about them, but nine times out of ten it takes me asking someone if they're identical for me to know, sometimes I can grasp it myself but not often and it still leaves me feeling a little strange. If one identical twin is standing behind me, and one in front, allowing me to see them separately then I can see it more clearly. Yes, for the record I can often tell the difference between identical siblings.

I do wonder if this is something to do with being aspie (maybe along similar lines to facial blindness), or whether it's just because I'm extra special

As children, I couldn't really tell them apart, but I also had trouble telling not identical children apart, some of whom weren't even siblings. I've also had weird issues seeing particular actors separately (the ones that come to mind are George Clooney and Tom Sizemore during the 90s, Tim Curry and Eddie Izzard over the past few years) and actually having to stop and work out if who I am seeing is who I think I am seeing.

Looking at pictures of twins, they don't tend to look identical to me, but my only exposure to teen or adult twins lately has been movies and television, and the instances I remember most clearly were an episode of Buffy in which Nicholas Brendan's brother, Kelly Donavan was on camera next to Nicholas, both portraying Xander. In that instance I seem to recall they looked pretty similar but that was the intent, I think. Otherwise, the two do not really look all that similar outside of deliberate attempts at similarity.

So I guess I do not know if I have issues with recognizing twins as twins. I do have some oddities with regards to recognizing people, though.

I can't really tell when a couple of people are identical. I remember finding out a few years back while working at a bowling alley that one of my regulars had an identical twin. It may have been because I knew one and not the other, but it didn't even register that they were sisters, much less twins.

My mother has this problem but she doesn't have AS. If she happens upon a set of identical twins, 9 times out of 10 she'll ask with great uncertainty in their voice if they're identical twins.

A lot of sets of identical twins aren't completely identical for due to variations caused by environmental factors. One may be a little taller. One might have a mole and the other might not, and frequently, identical twins are "mirror twins" due to the way the egg splits so they will be mirror opposites with the exception of the arrangement of their internal abdominal and torso organs.

I'm actually pretty good act figuring twins out, but only males. I met some twins one time and I could figure who was who in a day; it was easy because the one of them was way more attractive than the other, but I was the only one who saw it. People who had known them for years still got them mixed up.

One the other hand, I can barely tell two females that aren't related to each other apart.

I don't know if I have the problem you describe, because I don't think I've been in a situation like that. I know a couple sets of identical twins who I knew from the start were twins, and one set I can tell apart but not the other. I feel really bad about it. But I also have trouble telling non-related people apart. In a workplace, there will always be at least 2 people who I can't tell apart, because they are similar in age, same type of hairstyle, same style of dress, etc. Also, any long-haired blonde celebrity I cannot tell apart. They seriously all look identical to me. And I'm often surprised when I find out the same actor played different characters, because I didn't recognize them. John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe come to mind.

I tend to have trouble remembering whether I have seen anyone before, or whether I know people. I'm moderately face-blind; I can remember people I have known for a long time, such as family and close friends, and can often recognize people by hairstyles, distinctive features, and sometimes clothing style or movement tendencies.

Recognizing whether two siblings were identical twins would be rather difficult if they did not also have identical hairstyles. If they did, I would probably notice they looked very similar; but there is not actually that much difference between similar-looking similar-age siblings and identical twins, and I don't really use faces for identification nearly as much as most people do. I am more likely to mistake similar-looking siblings for each other and not realize that there are two of them until I see them both in the same place. I will often assume that similar-looking people are the same person. At one point I didn't realize that our church had three secretaries--I thought there was only one, when really they were three different people with similar physical features, not even siblings but just similar styles of hair and dress, and all fortyish women.