“Hey, have you started studying for the test yet?” A stranger asked Travis Smith, a sophomore in finance, as he sits eating his lunch in the Atrium.

“What test?” Travis said. He cocks one eyebrow up in confusion.

“You know, the test in communications,” the stranger said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Travis said as he turned away from the stranger.

Then it hits him. Something he sometimes forgets that causes strangers to start conversations with him like they’re his best friends — his identical twin Kyle.

Kyle Smith, a sophomore in accounting, said the Atrium is the worst place for being mistaken. It happens “about every other day,” Travis said.

Nancy Bennett, a senior in business management and identical twin, has had similar occurrences happen to her.

Nancy said guys would get confused when hitting on her or her twin, Becky. One night the guy would hit on one of them and the next night, the other.

Travis and Kyle said they don’t have this problem. According to the twins, girls don’t tend to get them confused.

There are tricks to tell the twins apart, according to Nancy.

Nancy has a little scar on the side of her right eyebrow.

Mike Thompson, a sophomore in biology and the Smith twins’ roommate, said Travis and Kyle have different personalities.

“I have my own way of telling them apart,” Thompson said. “They sound different.”

According to Thompson, they phrase things differently.

“I’m left-handed and he’s right-handed,” Kyle said.

“Some stuff is mirrored,” Travis said. “It’s kind of opposite.”

Not only do they share their looks. These two sets of twins shared material things as well.

When they were in elementary school, Kyle and Travis shared a room until one of them was allowed to move into the guest bedroom.

“We used to have bunk beds,” Travis said.

Kyle was the one who moved out of their original room. Travis said Kyle just took the guest room, which was bigger.

“We shared most everything,” Travis said.

He said sharing wasn’t a “big deal” because they had the same friends and did the same things, so they were always together.

Nancy also said she didn’t think it was a big deal to share everything with Becky. But she would get annoyed when her parents would give the two of them one present for their birthday. There were times she wanted to shout “We’re two people!”

“Sometimes I don’t feel like an individual,” Nancy said.

Kyle and Travis said they lose individuality at times.

“It feels like I have two names,” Travis said.

The Smith twins said if someone were to call out their twin’s name, they would turn around to answer.

These twins said they take advantage of the fact that people can’t always distinguish between them.

One time in ninth grade, the Smith twins switched seats in a class. They said the teacher never noticed.

“She called me Kyle the whole class, and she called him Travis,” Travis said.

This teacher had assigned them seats across the room from each other because she could not tell them apart, according to Travis.

Nancy would play a similar game, but with Becky’s “serious” boyfriend in high school.

“I would pretend I was her to try to get information,” Nancy said.

She said they would refer to themselves as “partners in crime” when they were kids.

Nancy also would go to Becky’s classes in high school.

The Smith twins often do things at the same time, even when they’re not together.

One morning last year, after helping their parents move the day before, they both wake up to a wet bed. According to Travis, neither of them had wet the bed since they were eight.

“I think I really wet the bed,” Travis said he thought to himself that morning. At first, he tried to convince himself it was sweat, but realized it was urine.

Travis left his room to learn the same thing had happened to Kyle.

“It was pretty embarrassing,” Kyle said.

A connection exists between twins that doesn’t exist between other people, according to Nancy.

Nancy said her connection with her twin is different from the ones with her other siblings.

Their connection makes time apart more difficult for Nancy. According to Nancy, Becky got married in February, then moved to Russia for six months before coming back to the U.S. and transferring to Arizona State University.

“One day she was here with me and the next day she was eight hours away,” Nancy said. “It was extremely hard.”

Even though Becky is back in the country, Nancy said it is still difficult because they’re in different time zones.

“I can’t call her between classes,” she said.

They had always lived together, so the separation is tough.

Nancy said she does appreciate the time they have apart because it makes her treasure the time she does get to spend with Becky.

Nancy admitted she was selfish when she visited Becky in Russia.

“I wanted Becky all to myself,” Nancy said.

She and Becky’s husband had to sit down and talk about sharing Becky during Nancy’s 10-day visit.

The Smith twins have not been separated much.

According to Travis, the longest they’ve been apart was when Kyle went to summer school this past summer and Travis stayed home.

They aren’t too worried about the day they leave each other, though.

“We have to be separated someday,” Travis said.

Both sets of twins said they would like to live near each other once they settle down.

They enjoy being twins and having someone around.

“We don’t know what it’s like to not be a twin,” Travis said. “Always have someone around who’s your age.”

“It can be good sometimes and bad sometimes,” Kyle said.

However, the good outweighs the bad. According to Travis, it’s good 90 percent of the time.

Although they said they enjoy being twins, Kyle said he sometimes wishes he didn’t have a twin, but “it’s not that big of a deal.”

Nancy said she loves being a twin; Becky is her best friend and always has been.

“I couldn’t imagine it any other way,” Nancy said.