The second coming?

I remember the day I met her parents. I was nervous because, unlike in all previous relationships, this one actually mattered. I don’t mean the relationship – they all mattered, at least at the time and to one extent or another – but the meeting.

Because it was possible, just possible, I might end up going the distance with this one. And I have often wondered whether my view of our long term viability would have been affected if one or both of them had turned out to be an ogre, an obsessive, or just plain boring. Might I not reasonably wonder whether such tendencies might in time manifest themselves in my increasingly beloved? But I needn’t have worried as they turned out to be wonderful people and remain so to this day. And their daughter and I are still going strong 37 years and a couple of kids later so, on this admittedly slender evidence, I’d say characteristics are indeed handed down the generations. Or at least they can be.

Of course you can’t do that with cars, unless you’re carrying over lots of parts and essential dimensions: it’s no great surprise that a 992 Porsche 911 feels quite like a 991 Porsche 911, because a 992 is quite like a 991.