Green 3s and Masculine 9s

Even before I had read Daniel Tammet's "Born on a Blue Day", I had contemplated the concept of my perception of the 'color' and 'gender' of numbers and letters, and possibility of each number and letter being perceived differently by other people. It seemed odd to me that certain numbers and letters seemed to be, inately, a certain color or gender, although it seemed very natural and felt as though no thought was required to deduce these things for me. After several drunk (and some sober) conversations with some friends about this topic, I found that there are others (possibly even the bulk of society) who also link colors and genders to letters and numbers. A few weeks ago, I had asked my parents about the same thing, but they had no conception of this at all. When asked, they really couldn't choose whether 2 'felt' [more] masculine or feminine, and this boggled my mind, seeing as how, for me, it is very clear-cut. It was never a conscious process when I picked out such things, but this is how it goes:

• 0 - f - white
• 1 - m - black
• 2 - f - yellow
• 3 - m - green
• 4 - f - purple
• 5 - m
• 6 - m - orange
• 7 - f - purple
• 8 - m - blue
• 9 - m

You see, though, that I don't really have a color associated with 5 or 9. In doing that list, I seriously attempted to discover the colors that I feel for them, although the gender comes extremely naturally and unwaveringly. Colors are more ambiguous but still fairly innate. Also, I only identify numbers from 0-9 because, after that, I find that the number's gender is determined by the last number (103 being masculine because I consider '3' to be masculine, etc.). It is impossible for me to look at a number with more than one digit and determine a color for it. Although SOME letters evoke feelings of a color, it is only for a rare few and not significant enough to include, especially as the colors seem to correlate with the first letter of that color (b - blue, y - yellow, et.), although the genders are concrete for letters for me as they are for numbers.

• a - f
• b - m
• c - m
• d - m
• e - m
• f - m
• g - m
• h- f
• i - m
• j - f
• k - f
• l - f
• m - m
• n - m
• o - f
• p - f
• q - f
• r - f
• s - f
• t - m
• u - m
• v - f
• w - ?
• x - m
• y - m
• z - m

I actually never noticed until now, but 'w' seems to not have a gender for me. I even attempted to think about it consciously, although I could not say whether it feels more masculine or more feminine, for as I try to fit it into one of those two slots, it doesn't 'feel' right, although it never feels right assigned the other gender; Strange. When I randomly picked up "Born on a Blue Day" in the Penn State Bookstore in Spring '08, I opened up a world similar to mine in this respect. However, as a highly-functioning autistic man living with asperger's and savant syndrome, his perception runs much deeper than that; For Daniel (who is a real British man, featured on the David Letterman show because of his abilities), numbers have not only colors, but also shapes, textures, and even emotions. Unlike me, Daniel's savant syndrome allows him the incredible mental capacity to do amazing mathematical equations in his head, instantaneously, by fitting together the unique shapes of each number, numbers having shapes, colors, textures, and emotions up to 10,000. I may not be this unique, but I'm comfortable in the fact that my 3s are always green, and my 9s always have the traditional male appendage.