Real Life Parent-Trap
March 24, 2013 § 1 Comment
As a kid, I used to dream about finding out I was adopted. No, my family wasn’t that bad, (I actually rather like them), but the idea of having more family somewhere out there, waiting for me to discover them, always excited me. But despite my best efforts at willing this truth into existence, (which included instigating a sit-down talk in which I let my parents know, “It’s ok. You can tell me”), it seems that there are no mystery siblings for me.
But… not so for youtuber Samantha Futerman.
Sam knew from the beginning that she was adopted from Korea, but she had no idea that she might actually have a twin until this message showed up in her spam folder:
The girls have skyped since and found so many crazy similarities. Just a quick look tells you that they have stumbled across their other selves.
Samantha and Anais
How awesome is that? They are now trying to get funds together to meet up in London, where Anais is studying.
Here’s Sam’s video about the whole thing
Samantha
On February 21, 2013, I received a message via twitter that would erratically change my life. It was a mention from a stranger, letting me know that a girl named Anais had friended me on Facebook. At first glance, I saw only my own face staring back from “her” profile picture. Yet, after just a few clicks & a personal message from Anais, I knew I was about to embark on a journey that no one else had ventured before. Through just a few brief-yet-super-effing-loaded, Facebook induced, interactions, I was positive that this girl was in fact my biological twin sister.
Crazy? I know. Yet, after extended communication through what seems like every popular social media platform in existence, there is little doubt in my mind that we are twins. It would seem only possible for us to be unrelated in a wacky, alien, zombie existing, clone-producing, twilight universe—Day 10: It has been little over a week since first contact…I write to you from my Iphone5, for it is my main source of communication.
But in all seriousness, the similarities are endless. We both share a twisted sense of humor, a love of cheese despite any & all lactose intolerance, flatulence as a result of said lactose intolerance, & an apparent napoleon complex to name a few. We are a shining example of nature vs. nurture & are eager to explore the extenuating circumstances that have & will come to pass.
The ever expanding, social media obsessed world we live in has given me the chance to reconnect with a person whom I knew only from a nine-month extravaganza inside my biological mother’s womb—or so I think. Although I have been granted many opportunities to write, comment on, speak to and see my so-called twin sister, I have yet to make physical contact with her, let alone a scientific, DNA-verified, sibling confirmation. Our relationship is a virtual reality, but a reality nonetheless.
How is it possible to feel so strongly about some one that I have never properly met? Why I am able to lose all inhibition & speak to her more frankly than with any other person? It has been said that, “they eyes are the windows to the soul,” but does that count if the eyes are connected through an electronic device that I am able to hold in the palm of my hand? Is it possible to say that the front facing 720p HD camera is the device that harbors the windows to the soul? That can’t be right…can it?
Whether it is the arguably beautiful level of protection given by electronic communication, the slightly eerie—and slightly French—mirror image that comforts & calms my nerves, or the feeling of glee that I have somehow managed to recreate The Parent Trap, I have an innate unconditional love towards this stranger.
Amidst the mayhem of my Los Angeles actor/waitress routine, lies nothing more than the will to fully experience life as is. & what better opportunity than this? What I once thought was a world being slowly depleted of all human interaction & a profession inundated with results and “success,” is actually a world ripe with opportunity. I have been given the chance to start a new journey in life, one that includes my first connection with a living, blood relative & a potential identical match. Here lies my chance to document every occurrence from Skype sessions to DNA testing. How the story unfolds I cannot say…but I am eager to find out.
Anaïs
Pardon my French…
In December 2012, a friend posted a screenshot of a youtube video by Kevjumba on my facebook wall. The girl on the picture was looking at me & I was looking back at myself. If I have had a twin sister, it would have been mentioned on my adoption records. I researched a bit more on the doppelganger, but could not find any information on her & dropped the research. I was just keeping the idea in the back of my head & on facebook with a photo-collage of both our faces.
In February 2013, two months later, my dear friend told me that the girl was in a new film: 21 & Over. Unsheathing my smartphone from my pocket, scrutinizing the trailer, scanning the cast crew’s names, I could finally type in “Samantha Futerman” on google. My blood pressure dropped & my eyes opened as wide as they physically could on her date and place of birth: South Korea. I turned to my friend on the bus and excitedly shouted: ‘she is born the 11/19/1987!!!!’ ‘so what?’ he casually asked, ‘I am born the 11/19/1987!!!!’. Her name & surname sounded like she would have been adopted too & I had to confirm it.
Social media & I have had this weird relationship where I think I was better at hiding my personal information rather than sharing them with others. But at this particular moment, I could follow Sam through her life of the last & lost past years. I was already getting to know her without her knowing I was even here. I saw her trip to Korea, her baby pictures, got confirmation that we came from the same birth town, watched “How it feels to be adopted” and I knew for sure. I was about to contact her on Twitter: ‘@samfuterman: I am your #twin sister’… but sent her a private Facebook message instead… which went straight into her spam box as Facebook is not 3.0 yet & thus could not see we were connected not through friends or our respective families… but in a very singular & extraordinary way.
Growing up as an only-child and discovering you have a twin sister is thrilling. Well…’possibly’ twin sister as the final DNA test still has to confirm it. However I don’t imagine how chance could bother itself with producing two short girls with a napoleon-complex who still need to artistically sleep 10h a day & eat the rest of it, born the same day, in the same country, in the same city from different DNA patterns. I guess it would be the worst creator’s nightmare but it would be my best sci-fi dream coming true: ’I am your clone…’
In the last months at college, in the middle of the final collection for my diploma, wondering what is going to happen next & trying to get in control of everything, chance hit me when I least expected it to show up. Skype, Facebook Messenger, the Internet allow us to both be in two different places at the same time & at different times of the day in the same place, chatting, catching up about the 25 past years since we were poking each other in our mother’s womb. I am saving everything that has happened so far, from mentally pressing ctrl+S in my head to recording our Skype sessions. What I am looking forward now the most is to be in one same place at the exact same time as soon as possible so as to build our future memories. And it has already started.
Via Korea 
Too great! Definitely brought a smile to my face – thanks for sharing :D