Today it’s National Sibling Day Stateside, but we’re not going to let that get in the way of the same six arguments we’ve been having with our sister for the last 20 years. If you have a sister, you’ll understand…
**Vampire Friend Stealer **
If there’s anything worse than your sister announcing she’s coming out with you and your mates, it’s everyone telling you how cool your sister is, the guy you fancy asking if she’s is single, and your BFF announcing that she’s swapped numbers with her so they can go to cardio samba together. (You’ve already refused to go, because it sounds ridiculous and you’d rather be in the pub on a Tuesday night.)
Like a silent, lethal vampire, your sister has been faux-innocently stealing your friends from right under your nose since you were six. And although she insists it’s not on purpose, you know it is… because you do the exact same thing to her.
**That never-ending argument from 2002
**Remember that Christmas when your Nan got hammered on Pimms and accused your granddad of trying it on with the woman who does the teas at the Rotary club? No? That’s because it never happened. That won’t stop your sister insisting it did and telling the story three times a year, while you bellow, ‘THAT NEVER HAPPENED!’ over the top on a loop. You will still be fighting about this when you’re 60.
**All the clothes you’ve ever owned
**You know how you’re too polite to borrow your mate’s top when you know you’d stretch it? With your sister, all bets are off. Who cares that she’s a double-A cup while you inherited your Aunt Jean’s greatest assets? You certainly don’t.
From the moment you ‘accidentally’ wore her favourite dress to a birthday party, aged five, to last week when you woke up at three AM to find her in your room rifling through your stuff to find your only hole-free pair of tights, your relationship has been punctuated by the sort of tears, anger and recriminations that can only come from someone spilling red wine on your only white shirt the day before a massive work meeting.
**Pants theft **
Pant stealing is a sub category of eternal clothing argument, but deserves a special mention of its own. You’d never borrow a pair of your mate’s pants because just because they look comfier than yours, that would be massively overstepping the friendship boundary. But it’s entirely acceptable to borrow your sister’s lovely cotton big pants because all your knickers are of the polyester thong variety. Even if they are her last pair. Whoops.
**Gene envy
**You might admire your friend’s lovely thick hair, or your colleague’s tiny waist, but you’ll never feel the same deep sense of injustice as you do when you compare your sister’s tiny, dainty feet to your size sevens. You’ve both come from the same gene pool, so why is she possessed with clear skin, perfect teeth and silken hair and you’re… not? Gah!
**The parent trap
**But, of course, what you’re really fighting about – even when you’re not actually fighting about it – is which one of you your parents love the most. When you live at home it’s all about who gets the biggest bedroom, or first dibs in the Quality Street tin at Christmas. Because one of you has got to be the favourite, haven’t you?
When you get older, different things will tip you over the edge into all-out war. It’s finding out that your mum spent an hour on the phone conselling your sister over her latest boyfriend drama yesterday, but didn’t call you. Or the news that your parents are going to pay for your sister to have driving lessons ‘because she really needs them for work’, when you were told you weren’t allowed them. So do you sit them all down and explain that this makes you feel left out and resentful? Of course not, you call your sister fat and try and steal all her friends instead.
Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecca_hol
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.