In school I was never referred to as “The Math Man”.
Things that were never said about me included:
“That Jordan kid, he really loves numbers & math.”
“I’m having trouble with this equation, I think I’ll ask Jordan.”
“I had to tell Jordan to spend less time mathing it up.”
I had a good relationship with most subjects.
English was love/hate until I made it to high school where it was writing focused. I stated my struggle with reading the other day and this was part of English and I’s rocky start. High school & college is where English and I fell deeply in love and have remained ever since.
Geography and I have always been good pals. Partly because of my love for travel and partly because of my love for the elements of earth, land, and sea. Even to this day we stay close friends with my affinity for maps.
History and I started off family friends. My parents always had them around with their own love for the past in topics like the Civil War and American Revolution or pioneer days. As I’ve gotten older though I’ve learned the appreciation for our relationship and we’ve only gotten closer as we developed our own friendship.
But Math, Math bullied me as a child. It was bigger and stronger than I was and it beat the crap out of me. Because of this I hated math. Anything that reminded me of him got me upset and frightened.
Eventually as we got older Math realized he’d made a mistake. Math apologized. He knew that Algebra & Calculus made me feel stupid and that I’d never need them but he flogged me anyway. I apologized too. After the first blow I didn't give Math much of a chance.
Math wanted to make things right, so he showed me how geometry works great for drawing & drafting plans. He showed me finances is just arithmetic and makes things orderly and finite.
He showed me that some of the things I did like contained Math in other ways.
It’s natural to have strengths and one of my philosophies is to go all in on those strengths. To do what you’re best at and what you love. That’s how I am with writing but what I learned with math is not to fully right off everything about your weakness.
I’ll never be a math man, I'll never focus on it and I don’t want to because my passion lies in words not numbers, but I have learned I enjoy a few things about Math. So me and Math are on speaking terms, and if he phones me up I’ll answer, and maybe our friendship will continue to grow.
So there you have it, don’t judge a math book by its cover.