Clone shark
I’m a gay man. I was in a relationship with my ex for about three years. We’re on good terms and hang out as friends. He recently started dating a guy who looks like my long-lost twin (except he’s got about 40 pounds on me). Our mutual friends find this creepy and weird, and I have to say, I do, too. — Disturbed
When two people break up, there’s often the inevitable, “It’s not you…” but you don’t expect, “It’s not you; it’s you … with more of a thing for beer, fried foods, and cake.”
This sort of thing seem seriously creepy, until you drop in on a behavioral genetics researcher like Nancy Segal. Research by Segal and others on identical twins separated at birth (sometimes by a hospital mix-up) and raised apart suggests that many of our behaviors and preferences are genetically driven. For example, Segal told me “most behaviors have a 50% genetic effect.” There’s an interplay between genes and environment that can shake things up a bit, but if Mommy likes hot food and darkhaired men, there’s a good chance her daughter (who shares approximately 50% of her DNA) will also be thumbs up for Sergio and Sriracha.
The power of genes in driving behavior and preferences is reflected in Oskar and Jack, separated-at-birth identical twins Segal studied. When they met as adults, they discovered they both wrapped tape around pens and pencils to get a better grip, read books from back to front, and flushed toilets before using them as well as afterward. Sure, these could be wild coincidences, but they’re most likely expressions of personality traits, which are substantially driven by genetics. For example, Segal explains in “Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins” that “both Jack and Oskar were sensitive to germs,” so their shared “penchant” for the double flush “is understandable.”
We might not see situations like yours often simply because there’s a gap between the features and traits we’re most attracted to and those available to us in people around us. Accordingly, it is possible that neither you nor the new guy entirely reflects your ex’s mate preferences, but your ex missed you and came as close as he could to replacing you when choosing his next boyfriend. Apparently, he picked him up not at the bar but at Costco, where the products we know and love come in more generous packages: “Dumpster-sized,” “Grand Canyon-sized,” and “black hole-sized extra value pack.”
can