2 December - lookalikes & genes

I cross town for a photographic exhibition and am wondering why as I get there and I don’t know anyone, may as well talk to the photographer. It’s an interesting enough project originating in Canada. He photographs sets of people who look alike but are not related. He finds them by word of mouth or media coverage. Most are Canadians and you could argue it’s a small enough gene pool but then there’s the odd Canadian who looks exactly like his Romanian lookalike. There are two girls born on the same day/month/year. Some women who look like their male lookalike etc. More interesting is the conversation with this stunning young man, a psychologist who is interested in interviewing these sets of random ‘twins’ to submit a questionnaire and find out if being similar in facial outlines/expressions may also mean that they have similar personalities. I like this idea for research. He says you can now test for dna and find out which line of ancestors you come from. This is interesting. I want to do it. I tell him that despite being very much a northern Caucasian, I sometime have had afro-carribbean friends declaring ‘you is black’ which tickles me. I cannot see it, but maybe if we go back a couple of hundred years who knows. It’s funny how this all works now. If we had it 70 years ago it would have been great to give the kit to a variety of top nazis. What would they have done upon finding they were not as pure as they thought but a mix of eastern European, romany or jewish? Would they just have blown themselves off? Orderly form a queue to throw themselves into the incinerators? Like Ripley in Aliens who knows she now harbours the devil spawn and the only way to eliminate is by self sacrificing?
Psychologist tells me that, of course, we are all so much more related than we think and that Palestinians and jews are pretty much brothers for example. I’d like to talk to him more but he has a wedding band and I’m aware of a woman who seems to be thinking am hogging her husband. He’s the most attractive 30 year old I’ve met in ages, perfectly balanced features. I like him so much I deliberately avoid asking his name so I cannot google him and I cannot even take the interminable tube journey back fantasising about him. Tough I do of course. I imagine how he would undress and bend down to kiss me – he was tall. He didn’t ask for my name. That’s a crucial proof of his lack of interest, but I keep having to remember sadly he probably thought he was talking to a nice much much older woman than himself and, unless he’s one of those with a penchant for them, it was just a conversation.