That number just gave me a dirty look!

In response to my post about anthropomorphizing food, I received one comment that caused me to recall another weird behavior of mine.

Nadia wrote:

I do the same thing with numbers. It was the only way I could learn to add in my head. Each of the numbers had a personality, and reaching 10 was their equivalent of having a perfect, happy, harmonious relationship. So when the different personalities complimented each other, as with 4 and 6, they reached blissful 10.

My twist on the whole anthropomorphizing of numbers leaves me slightly disturbed.

Nadia describes a "perfect, happy, harmonious relationship" between numbers — her numbers work together and live in a sunny, happy world.

My take is a bit different. For one thing, my numbers exchange derisive taunts.

You know where this is going.

I'm not sure why — perhaps because I was taunted in school — many of my number "friends" have quite unpleasant personalities.

Here's a breakdown of their personalities (a list that has been forming since I was six years-old). Oh, and they have gender, as well:

1 - male, The goody two shoes

2 - female, The tomboy

3 - female, The jolly girl

4 - male, The jock

5 - male, The stoic

6 - female, The matriarch

7 - male, The snob

8 - female, The temptress

9 - female, The egotist

Number nine was the worst. I think the egotist label came about since whenever you multiply nine by any number, its sum from adding the digits always equals nine. Oh, and nine and eight clashed royally.

While the actual attributes I gave to my numbers may cause some to worry, the act of anthro- pomorphizing numbers is more widespread than I imagined.

Once, in college, I met a friend for lunch between classes. I asked him if he ever gave numbers personalities. He told me yes, and I didn't quite believe him.

No sooner had I challenged his claim when he opened his binder to reveal to me a number list he had compiled earlier in the week.

Yeah, we're both dorks, but that list was sure reassuring.

While writing this entry, I asked Ben to quickly give me his first impressions of the numbers. And amazingly, although he hadn't seen my list, his 1, 3, 4, 7 and 9 had almost the exact same personalities.

Do your numbers have personalities?

Comments

[Mena]

So, do your numbers have personalities?

[kathryn]

1 - male, single and not loving it
2 - slightly pudgy, sweet, smart but a little unsure of herself
3 - male, the joker
4 - male, handsome but you're too good friends with him to date
5 - male, always agreeable
6- female, the matriarch !
7 - male, the intellectual
8 - female, always has freshly-baked chocolate-chip cookies
9 - male, the egoist !

[Jennie]

Oooh... no.

I didn't have as flexible an imagination, so my anthropomorphizations had to be something tactile. My windbreaker - a flighty girl if I ever met one - had some very interesting picnic tete-a-tetes at the lake with my Holly Hobbie lunch box over PBJ and Capri Sun.

Of course, my pink Huffy felt left out...

[Jennifer]

My numbers never had personalities, but I never knew that whenever you multiply nine by any number, its sum from adding the digits always equals nine! I was reading your post and literally GASPED!

[miss ellen]

i think i remember the 9 trick from watching "math net" - anyone remember that one? ;-)

[Matt D.]

Dunno about personalities for the others, 7 and 9 are devious little bastards that keep switching on me.

I can remember any number, date, or quantity as long as the don't end in a 7 or 9.

Which gets me into a shitload of trouble, because my Mum's birthday is on the 27th.

Or the 29th.

[judith]

there's a scene in "a tree grows in brooklyn" where frannie tells stories about the numbers and their personalities...

[megan]

I didn't anthropomorphize numbers but I do have a big obsessive compulsive pull towards making odd or even numbers good or bad, this applies to warm or cool colors, as well as left or right. As an uptight picked on kid even numbers were good, as a jaded angry teen odd numbers were good. Odd ones are still better. So is left, orange and tertiary color groups.

[Laura]

I kinda thought of numbers, but I always associated numbers with colors...ie 4 is red, 8 is purple, 2 is blue, 3 is yellow.

what I did anthropomorphize though were my spoon, fork and knife

knife: gentleman...prince
spoon: princess, flighty woman
fork: evil little weasle trying to take the spoon away from the knife

yes...isn't that strange?

[Zoe]

Odd numbers were always bad. Even numbers were good. Decimals are sly. And positive numbers were alway morally and intellectually superior to negative one.

And they always tried to make 10.

[TheBrad]

Not personalities, but gender certainly; I've sort of had this unconsciously in the back of mind since first grade or so. My list more or less lines up with yours:

1 male, 2 male, 3 female, 4 male, 5 male, 6 female, 7 male, 8 female, 9 male.

Odd numbers, evil. Even numbers, good.

Also, a googolplex is the wacky uncle.

[Mena]

Laura -- #3 is so yellow. I can totally see that. I would love to read a book about why we map these characteristics to objects. More importantly, how some of us can assign the same attributes!

I do think that the gender maps so well because we associated curves to female / angularity to male.

[Daniel Talsky]

1, 1, 1 cause you left me and 2, 2, 2 for my family and 3, 3, 3 for my heartache and 4, 4, 4 for my headaches and 5, 5, 5 for my lonely and 6, 6, 6 for my sorrow and 7, 7, for n-n-n-no tomorrow and 8, 8, I forgot what eight was for and 9, 9, 9 for a lost god and 10, 10, 10, 10 for EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING!

hehehe..surry, I couldn't resist. maybe that numerology stuff has some merit to it after all?

[vis10n]

Anthropromorphise? No... but numbers have always made sounds in my head. Not consistent sounds, necessarily... but were I to see an alpha-numeric list, I would remember a lot of the numbers as sounds in my head.

As for your list and Nadia's... let's play matchmaker:

1+9 = 10.

So 1 (the goody two shoes) is in a "relationship" with 9... a classic "yes dear, no dear" relationship demonized in many mid-century movies from the 1900s

2, 8... The tomboy and the temptress, sounds like a classic leather and lipstick grouping.

3, 7... Jolly and Snob: "Missy" and "Blaine": you've met them at the country club.

4, 6... Jock and Matriarch: "The Freshmen" all over again!

5... The stoic. All alone... how appropriate!

- v

[dooce]

i'm sorry, but 3 is male and 4 is female. that's just the way it is. god says so.

[Rhoda]

Yeah, I'm definitely in the "Evens Good/Female, Odds Evil/Male" camp. *alternately* good/female or evil/male, not to imply that men are inherently good etc, but you're all smart enough to figure that out already. And Mena, you're right--the curvy numbers always seem more feminine, too!

[Selena]

I will like numbers so much more now after reading all of these comments.
However I haven't had this experience with numbers so much as objects. Spoons, Brushes, Dolls as a girl, and art materials have always posed and amazing amount of guilt in me. I feel if I give one more attention than the other someones feeling will be hurt. So when I was a girl my Strawberry shortcake brush had to be used just as much as any one brush in the house. The funny thing is my girls and I just this weekend had a great convo on the subject. An then Monday someone forwards me your site. Which it may only be me but I find that kind of odd that a simular conversation is in progress.

[April]

I thought I was the only one who did this! When I was little my friend Hannah and I would sit around drawing the numbers, complete with hair and faces and everything, in their little number world, creating soap-opera-esque situations for them. However, as we were always drawing them with our large Mr. Sketch markers, they also had color associations.

1- the little boy, light blue
2- the nice, friendly boy, yellow
3 - the quirky boy, green
4 - everyone's favorite, the simple female heroine, pink
5 - the "hunk" of the place, red
6- the dorky girl, brown
7- the evil, scheming, seductive one, purple
8- the protective older brother of 4, orange
9- the matriarch-type, dark blue

I can't believe I can recall all of this, it brings back such memories!

[eldan]

this is from a song in my record collection, which I think in turn is a reference to somegthing much older (to do with what seeing different numbers of ravens predicts - folk superstitions are seriously WEIRD):

....1 for sorrow
2 for joy
3 for his old girl
and 4 the boys
5 for silver
6 for god
then we lose control....

[Nick]

I remember when I was very young I felt that my toys should be played with equally, because leaving one out of such an activity would make it sad and want to run away.

The next trouble I had was with green potato chips. It made me feel like a racist whenever I didn't eat one, because it was like making an unfair judgment of a person based on the color of their skin. So I had to eat every chip, or else I would risk the two or three I usually found in every bag feeling sad and ending up in the waste basket, then later sitting in the city dump wondering how I could be so cruel.

One of the worst I had as a child was when I stepped on an ant. About 3 minutes after I cruelly smashed it into the ground I would break down crying. I vividly imagined an ant family under the ground. The mother would reassure the crying child ant that his father would come home soon, though she had a worried expression fixed on her face. I imagined hours would pass by slowly and the family would be so saddened and hopeless all because I cruelly killed the husband and dad in this family of ants.

I never really spent much time on personalities of numbers, but more on tastes of letters. T was the sour one, but could be defeated by A, the wonderfully sweet one. Some of these oddities still follow me around, but I've gotten used to them.

[JessaJune]

Laura, I used to do exactly the same thing with my silverware, and they had the same personalities.

What an interesting exchange this is! It brings back all kinds of memories...