In search of an inner Neanderthal
There had to be some kind of genetic explanation for her husband’s atrocious table manners, said Jen Gilman Porat. It would just take a DNA test kit and some saliva to find it.
A
COUPLE OF years ago I purchased a pair of 23andMe kits for myself and my husband, Tomer. I intended to scientifically prove that Tomer’s most irritating behaviors were genetic destiny and therefore unchangeable. I’d grown tired of nagging him— oftentimes, I’d hear my own voice rattling inside my brain in the same way a popular song might get stuck in my head. I needed an out, something to push me toward unconditional acceptance of my husband.
My constant complaining yielded zero behavior modification on his part; on the other hand, it was changing me into a nasty micromanager. I briefly considered marital therapy, but that’s an expensive undertaking, costing much more than the $398 one-time fee for both DNA kits. Plus, couples’ therapy could take a long time, requiring detours through our shared history.
In much appealing contrast, 23andMe promised to launch us straight back to our prehistoric roots, and might provide Tomer with something akin to a formal pardon note, thereby permitting me to stop fighting against him, once and for all. I imagined we could help others by way of example too, for what long-married woman has not suffered her husband’s most banal tendencies—the socks and underwear on the floor, the snoring? Not me, because my husband puts his used clothes in the hamper and I’m the snorer. Really, I’m probably blessed as far as masculine disgustingness goes. But my husband is flawed in one repulsive way: his barbaric table manners. I have no doubt this is a genetic situation, for even back when we were first dating I’d shuddered upon seeing my future father-inlaw poke through the serving bowls of a family-style meal with his bare hairy hands. My husband’s father has also been caught eating ice cream directly from the carton (the thought of which I now appreciate for its built-in binge deterrent). Moreover, my father-in-law eats like a cavemanconqueror, reaching across dinner plates to pluck a taste of this or that from his mortified tablemates.
A family dinner looks like a scene straight out of Game of Thrones, minus any crowns. And so, when my husband first began to exhibit similar behaviors, I had to wonder: Had I suffered some rare form to appear, well, wild and hungry, as if he’d tamed his digestive system but in doing so had activated a primitive gene and sacrificed his own civility.
Shortly thereafter, I came across an article pertaining to Neanderthal
DNA. According to modern science, the Neanderthals and our prehistoric ancestors mated, leaving many of us with a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA. I did more Googling and learned that 23andMe can tell you how much Neanderthal DNA you carry. Although they do mean different things, in my mind’s eye, the words “Neanderthal” and “caveman” summoned identical images: that of savage meat-eating maniacs ripping raw meat from bone with fat fingers and jagged teeth.
And this was it—the thing that sold me on 23andMe: the chance to determine one’s degree of Neanderthal-ness. Without any consideration of all the possible consequences of submitting one’s DNA to a global database, I ordered two kits, grinning and convinced that my husband’s result would show a statistically significant and above-average number of Neanderthal of blindness previously? Did some barrier
variants in his genome. Since Father’s Day of unconscious denial gently shield my
was only a month away, I decided I’d gift eyes each day, year after year, but only at
wrap the kits upon arrival too. I’d kill two mealtimes? It was as if a blindfold sud
birds with one stone. denly fell from my face, or as if Tomer had
O finally removed a mask from his own. My N FATHER’S DAY, Tomer unwrapped gentleman turned into a beast, seemingly the kits with feigned enthusiasm, overnight. poor guy. I’m sure he would have I watched with horror, one Sunday evening, preferred a drone or a new barbecue, but as my husband served himself a plate of my selfish interests had interfered with those meat and vegetables with his hands. His wishes. The kits ended up on the bottom fingers ripped skirt steak in lieu of cutting shelf of a bedroom nightstand, collecting it with a knife. He abandoned his fork altodust for a month until Tomer and I finally gether, and I lost my appetite. got around to collecting our spit.
Around the same time Tomer stopped liking We watched a YouTube video on the proper forks, he’d adopted the Paleo diet, (vercollection technique, and I started to spit sions of which are known as the caveman first, and then one of our children screamed diet). He’d cut all processed foods from his from the other room, something about intake, eating nothing but meat, nuts, vegspilled lemonade, pulling Tomer away from etables, and fruit. our mutual undertaking. By the time he
returned to our bedroom, he’d “acciden“My stomach is no longer a quivering tally” eaten something and drunk a glass of idiot,” Tomer said, and he said it more than water—the directions specifically state not once, to countless friends and family memto do this. bers, until he’d worked up a complete narrative on how he’d triumphed over his very “Forget it,” Tomer said. “I’m too tired. I’ll own stomach. And each time he told this do mine tomorrow.” story, he lifted his shirt, pounding his fists I ended up packaging my DNA sample upon his midsection. His proud smile began all by its lonely self for the outgoing mail.