PHOTO BY JANELLE ROUTHIER.

I don’t especially like hearing people say that they are bad at math. Or rather, I don’t like that it’s become acceptable to announce such a thing, and often to complete strangers. If a random grown adult just blurted out, “Ugh! I am just terrible at science!" then regardless of the person saying it, my thoughts, in order, would be:

1. That seems about right.

2. Hold on, was someone asking you to do some science or something? And why would they do that?

3. Did you not tell them what you just told me? That you're bad at it? Tell them before this goes any further and things get out of hand!

4. Wait— What does being bad at science even mean?

5. Oh god! Are you a Flat Earther? Or worse, an Anti Vaxer?!

6. Why are you naked? And why do you look like the hottest man in the world, Richard Madden?

7. I should probably get naked too…

8. Are you hitting on me?!

9. Oh god is that my alarm?

10. F*ck! I’ve overslept! What time is it!?

So…. where were we? What was I talking about?

Oh right, I was about to tell you that even though I think as a society we shouldn’t go around constantly telling everyone how bad at math we are….

I’m really bad at math.

And I’m talking, really bad. I think the only reason I got accepted into Ivy League schools is because, based on my scores, they probably thought I was some kind of idiot savant or autistic wunderkind or something.

Before taking the GRE, I remember asking if it would be considered cheating if I counted on my fingers during the exam, and my tutor told me outright that it wouldn’t matter, because no one would care.

“Any person counting on their fingers probably wouldn’t have scores high enough for anyone to care or suspect cheating anyways, so no it probably wouldn’t matter.”

I shut up after that.

“Besides, Mr. 3.98 GPA, it’s not like you have anything to worry about!”

She loved to mention that, even though the logic was completely false. It was true, 3.98 was my graduating GPA from college, but I had explained to her several times that obviously I did have something to worry about or I wouldn’t have signed up for this remedial GRE math course and that, again, I achieved that GPA perhaps specifically because I was only made to take one singular math class in college! One, see my finger?

If a romantic relationship progresses and turns into a lifelong partnership, well, just like with any business or artistic partnership, wouldn’t it make sense to pair up with someone who is good at that which you are not, someone who is strong where you are weak? I certainly think so.

Enter Seth.

The fact that Seth was a mathematics professor when I met him was no small bonus. I love the idea of two people of separate but equal abilities pairing up to be a whole greater than the sum of their parts. A sort of…. relationship SUPERHERO, if you will!

Anyways, back to the math— one thing about Seth and I that is not equal is our age. Yes, yes… Seth and I share a significant age difference, and I’m sure it’s all quite scandalous, if you care about such things.

I maintain that he is more mature than most men twice his age, and that I am almost infantile in my humor and behavior, so the age difference rarely comes up as an issue. It’s actually not that big of a gap by today’s standards, and by 1940s Hollywood’s standards, it wouldn’t have even raised an eyebrow. In fact, the age difference probably wouldn’t have been substantial enough, I dare say.

Of course, in the 40s, since we’re both men, we would have had to live out our romance in a psych ward, in between rounds of shock therapy treatment, so we’d have that to worry about, but the age difference wouldn’t have been a problem.

And I wouldn’t even say it’s a “problem” now. I am completely transparent about the fact that I rarely think about it, which is why when it does occasionally rear up its silly little head, I am often caught completely off guard.

Bridging a gap of any kind— age, race, culture— is always so much easier when both parties are geekily smart, as intelligence is always a great leveler. For most things that Seth and I discuss I find that what he lacks in experience he makes up for in pure intelligence.

For example, all the necessary information with which to critique a film is often provided within the film itself. We can critique it on its own merits. It’s when we start wanting to compare and contrast it with other films, especially past films, that our points of reference don’t always line up. Admittedly, because I’m older, I simply have more references from which to draw from. Also, I went to film school. Combine that with the fact that Seth was raised in a kooky Christian household, where secular films were thought to be from the devil (and therefore forbidden), and… yeah. Wow. We’ve found we don’t get too far with external references. Best to avoid those if at all possible. It invariably starts a chain reaction, we get all twisted up, and before you know it, we’ve went down a rabbit hole and I’m trying to explain Mr. Peppermint to him by way of two Coppola films and a Kubrick.

However, this usually makes for great conversation, because we both learn from each other.

This is all a polite and flattering build-up so that I can get to what I really want to talk about, which is 9-11. I have a REALLLLLL hard time placing Seth’s life in a timeline, my brain just doesn’t work that way. Not quickly, anyways.

In order to even figure out a date in my own life (or just even vaguely when something happened), I have to go through a very convoluted process that involves trying to recall what song or songs are playing in the background of a memory in my mind, or that I know I was listening to around the same time as that memory, and then look up the release date of that song online.

I know, it’s a lot.

I did a lot of drugs, okay, but I also always paid very close attention to what was going on in the music world, so this is how I figure out dates. Always have, probably always will. Let’s move on.

Well, 9-11 was a major turning point in my life.

(Case in point -- even though 9-11, and seeing that footage live on the television screen is one of my most powerful memories, the only way I can be certain I get the year right is to look up the release date of Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” It was released just days before September 11th, and I know this to be a fact. Then, based on what the internet says, I can figure out the correct year.)

I once made an offhanded comment to Seth about 9-11, using colorful language, that I “almost shit myself when I saw the planes crash into the towers on television.” I didn’t, let’s be clear, but almost. And in my mind, Seth would have been a just tad younger than me, sure, but I just assumed he’d had a somewhat similar experience.

But then he retorted with something about how, luckily, he didn’t shit himself either, because he was no longer in diapers at that point.

It was meant to be a joke, but it stopped me dead in my tracks, the realization that, “Hold on, Seth— how old were you on 9-11?”

I already knew I wouldn’t like the answer.

“I mean…. I would have been about 4? Maybe 5 years old?” Seth said.

Wow. See what I mean? How it can catch you off guard like that?

Yikes. That really put it in perspective for me, just how different our life experiences had been. Our age difference might not seem like a big deal now, but it kind of turns my stomach to imagine a world with smoldering twin towers on the television set, and where I’m 22 and Seth is 4.

At 22, I would have been… I don’t wanna say a “strapping young man,” because I was super goofy at that age, but I was a young man, nonetheless. In fact, here’s a photo of me packed and ready to board a plane to Italy just weeks after September 11, 2001. Now imagine if someone then pointed to a 4 year old boy, barely out of diapers (certainly not flying to Italy to study photography, but maybe covered in SpaghettiO’s), and told me, “See that toddler there? That’s your future husband.”

Whhhhhhaaaaaaaaat?!?!

I would have thought I was on Candid Camera or in The Twilight Zone! (Or sorry, Seth, replace those references with Punk’d and Black Mirror).

I’m sure my backpack and that case in my hand are full of CDs (which are like cumbersome shiny discs, Seth, that contain Shazam), and I’m sure one of them was Kylie Minogue. The idea of that Abercrombie-wearing man-boy dating a SpaghettiO-covered boy-baby… now there’s something I just can’t get out of my head.

We both probably still counted on our fingers, though, at least we’d have that in common.

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Read a f*cked up story about me in Italy HERE or HERE.