The smartest man in the world is gay and autistic

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The smartest man in the world is gay: Tammet, a 28-year-old

autistic savant from the U.K., is teaching researchers worldwide

about the complexity of our brain. But this gay man also has a thing

or two to teach us about love.

For months the New York Times best-seller list pegged

Tammet's Born on a Blue Day this way: " a memoir by autistic savant

who can perform extraordinary mathematical calculations. " It's a

correct description, though it misses much of what makes Tammet so

interesting, including the fact that the writer is gay.

Tammet ignited our imagination, first with the 2005 U.K. Brainman

and more recently through his appearance on 60 Minutes, each

chronicling his talents for numbers and language. He once recited

the irrational number pi to more than 22,000 decimal places from

memory, a feat that took five hours, set a European record, and

raised thousands of dollars for charity. He learned Icelandic--one

of the world's trickiest languages--in just one week. While his

nickname at school was " Rain Man, " Tammet is mentally more agile

than Hoffman's character. (Though equally cinematic--Warner

Bros. Pictures has optioned Born on a Blue Day for adaptation into a

feature film.) Furthermore, Tammet, who was diagnosed at age 25 with

Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism, has a remarkable ability to

explain how his brain functions.

Tammet, now 28, grew up in a poor family in London, where his

parents managed to cope with his autism and childhood epilepsy while

raising eight younger children. Tammet first became aware of his

homosexuality at age 11. He endured a spell of unrequited love at 16

(he consoled himself by listening to his favorite singer,

Carpenter). At 20 he met Neil , a computer programmer. Six

months later they moved in together in a house an hour outside of

London. Tammet doesn't believe there's a neurological link between

his homosexuality and his extraordinary mental abilities. There is a

connection in his life, however: Both have helped him understand and

appreciate the wide range of human experience. What once made him

a " freak " on the playground, he says, now makes him friends around

the world.

Your book is a best seller. You've been on 60 Minutes. What has the

reaction been?

I get letters and e-mails, sometimes hundreds a day, from people

who feel for all sorts of reasons that they are outside the

mainstream of society. Maybe they see me as someone they can relate

to. My Asperger's means I've found it difficult my whole life to

relate well to people and make myself available emotionally. What

was once a barrier is now a bridge.

Scientists are studying your brain. What are they trying to learn?

My brain seems to be what I would describe as hyperassociative. It

makes connections between information very rapidly and connections

and relationships between very different things. It may sound

prosaic, but scientists have no idea how people add 9 and 7 and get

16, much less how they do multiplication, and my case may shed some

light on that. Some scientists believe there may be a little Rain

Man in everyone, if only there were some way to unlock it.

On 60 Minutes, Morley Safer was so enthralled with your

mathematical abilities, he never even talked about your being gay.

Is that typical?

I wonder if I've been talking about so much other stuff that it's

almost snuck past. It is mentioned in many articles but often just

in passing. It's treated as just one part of my story, which is as

it should be.

You seem to have had a remarkably easy time with your sexuality.

I never, ever felt growing up that the feelings that I had were

unusual or anything that I should be self-conscious about. That may

be one of the blessings of my autism.

Meaning, you don't know what society expects?

Yes. I approach things very intellectually. So I understood that

most people will be attracted to the opposite sex but that some

people will be different.

When did you first realize that you were different?

I realized that I was attracted to boys when I was about 11, and I

remember very clearly that process of suddenly wanting to be closer

to the other boys. Having a much more rigidly autistic way of

thinking than I have today, I understood closeness as being a

physical thing, a tangible thing, rather than emotional. I would

literally stand close to the other boys to have that sense of being

close to them, and of course that made them uncomfortable.

And did you feel at all uncomfortable in those situations?

I do know that I never had any self-consciousness about [being

gay]. I considered it spontaneous, and just another part of becoming

a man. It [was] entirely morally neutral.

Your parents said all the right things when you came out to them.

Could it be that, because of your autism, all that mattered to them

was that you were happy?

I hadn't thought about it in that way before, but that's a very

fair comment. My parents were aware that I was different from an

early age. And they wanted to support my difference.

Were they worried when you came out to them?

I think they wanted to know what I was saying. Did it mean I was

going to be celibate? Or was I capable of a relationship with

another man? People with autism can be vulnerable to the advances of

other people. They can misinterpret signals. So my parents were

anxious for me. And they wondered, Does this make us obsolete?

Obsolete?

when parents who aren't gay hear that their son or daughter is gay,

they wonder, Are we capable of giving advice, of explaining how

things work? Of course, there are all kinds of general rules that

they could give me that you can extrapolate from any relationship.

They weren't worried about whether you'd give them grandchildren?

With nine kids in the family, the Tammet line is safe.

You have Asperger's, but you don't seem at all awkward to me. When

I was 8 or 9, I started that process that begins immediately for

most people--observing, learning how to read people's body language,

knowing when to laugh at a joke, knowing how to make eye contact.

People say to me nowadays that I'm good at conversation. And it's

because I've practiced very hard. It's been a conscious, focused,

deliberate enterprise to make myself a social person. It's great to

know that you can teach yourself those things.

How did you begin dating?

When I came back from [teaching in] Lithuania, I was 20, and for

the first time there was a computer in our house.

Which you shared with eight brothers and sisters?

Yes. The fact that I had to share it, like everything else in the

home, was a positive for me, because the computer can take over your

life.

Some autistic people say that the Internet has liberated them.

It's true. There is something exciting and reassuring about

communicating over the Internet. There is no eye contact, and you

aren't thrown off by the intricacies of body language because

everything is written down.

But you were in and out of the Internet dating world quite quickly.

One of the first people I began exchanging e-mails with was Nell.

Pretty soon we decided to swap photos. Neil was beautiful-tall, with

thick dark hair and shining blue eyes. We advanced to telephone

calls. And then we decided to meet.

What was your first date like?

I can't drive, so Neil came to collect me. He was very quiet in the

car, so I thought he didn't like me. But then he reached behind the

seat and pulled out a bouquet of flowers. A few hours later at his

house we kissed. We decided there and then that we were meant to be

together. It sounds amazing, but the decision to move in together

was actually a quick and easy one to make for both of us. I'm happy

enough to say it was my first and last relationship. We're in our

seventh year.

You sound like an old-fashioned romantic.

When you love someone anything is possible, including a

relationship that stands the test of time. Love is giving yourself

away. And you can only do that once. Otherwise you're giving away

fragments of yourself.

How do you explain your luck in finding true love so quickly?

There had been years of preparation for when someone would come

into my life. A lot of things are like that. Three quarters of my

adult life has been spent together with Neil. The reason for that is

not luck, really, but a lot of hard work.

Hard work?

People find it very easy to fall in love, but they find it much

more difficult to actually live it out. They think, It's difficult,

so it mustn't be right. They'll go on to another relationship, and

they'll have the easy bit again, the unconscious bit, and then

they'll move on.

Was your mother concerned about letting you go and live with Neil?

Obviously, at the beginning she didn't know Neil. Had I been

straight, had I met a girl, of course there would have been concerns

as to who this girl is. Because of my autism there was a higher

concern as to whether the relationship would be successful, and if

it wasn't, would it impact my ability to form other relationships in

the future.

Is it as easy for you as it sounds?

I am able to handle myself fairly well. I'd accomplished a lot even

before I'd met Neil. But relationships require heroism on the part

of both people.

What do you mean by heroism?

You're opening yourself up completely to another person, and you

can't know who this human being is, other than what they choose to

reveal to you. Entering a relationship is very much an act of faith.

But it has to be a little bit harder for someone with your

challenges.

Obviously, when a person is on the autistic spectrum, there are

going to be elements that will affect the relationship.

Such as?

Sometimes I need Neil to show a lot of patience, and repeat things

quite a lot to make sure they've sunk in. Of course, routine is very

important to me. He has to tell me about the things he planned to do

in the day, and he tries to give me as much notice as possible. When

I make food or tea he'll try to involve himself in those routines.

We argue occasionally but never at length. They haven't been

insurmountable obstacles. No part of me has made it impossible to

live with me and to love me.

How do you reconcile being gay and being Christian?

There are many gay Christians. Some choose to be celibate. That

would be a very hard choice for me. My own understanding is that the

Bible is God-breathed. And I'm not a modernist, so I don't think you

can chop and change the words. Still, the Bible is like a mirror.

You end up reading it not as a reflection of how it is but of how

you are. If you're a bigoted, narrow person, you will find bigotry

in the Bible.

Have you read the entire Bible?

I haven't read the entire Bible--Ill be honest--and most Christians

I know haven't. I do try to make time to sit and read it.

Do you have a social life?

I do have several very close friends. But I don't go out every

Friday for drinks or anything like that. I like to spend a lot of

time at home. In today's world, where you have huge billboards and

advertising everywhere, cues--conscious and unconscious--are

constantly being put into your head. For autistic people it can be

overwhelming.

So you'd rather stay home?

Some people think the home is restrictive; when you go out into the

street or to a big bar or club, this is what freedom looks like. For

me it's the reverse. When you go into a public place there are codes

about what you can eat, what you can drink, what you can say; you're

restricting yourself the moment you enter the public sphere. At home

those codes don't exist. You can wear anything or nothing. You can

talk about whatever you want. You can go whichever way you want to

go.

What kind of things do you and Neil do together?

We go for walks together, discuss ideas to an extent. There was a

local charity quiz show we played in recently. We didn't win. We

came in 14th out of 76, which is a pretty fair result. One of the

questions was " Name Britney Spears's children. " I could name the

moons of Mars, [but] I wouldn't know anything about Britney Spears.

Is it hard for you to do interviews like this one?

I am by nature reserved. Certainly more so than Americans are, I've

heard.

And Neil?

He is probably shyer than I am. He has chosen not to be available

to the press. His feeling, which I think is entirely justified, is

that I'm the one who has made a claim on the public space. He

hasn't.

Do you think much about the causes of homosexuality?

I don't think we'll ever truly understand what makes someone gay or

not gay. It's a flavor of being human. But certainly it's fixed

prenatally. I think autism is the same way. I didn't get it from

anything I was exposed to as a child.

Will you ever have children of your own?

I don't expect to, but I will be an uncle many times over, so,

happily, there will be children in my life.

Why won't you have children?

I do personally feel that the ideal is for a child to have a mother

and a father. Of course, there are situations where that can't

happen. And I see no reason why gay people shouldn't be able to

adopt. But gay people shouldn't feel they have to have children to

be considered a normal part of society. You can contribute in all

sorts of ways beyond procreation. We are different in some

fundamental respect. One thing I want to get across is that we

shouldn't be afraid of being different.

Would you like to be able to marry Neil?

We should have the same rights to visit in hospitals, to

inherit--all the rights and responsibilities that come with

marriage. But we're not male and female. Why should we have to be

shoehorned into something that wasn't made for us? Marriage can be

retained for men and women and a separate but equal institution be

available to same-sex couples. We are different; let's not only ask

other people to respect our difference but also respect it

ourselves.

Is there a downside to your mental gift?

You feel you're obliged to do something with it. Not to waste it.

That necessarily takes up a lot of time and energy. Time that other

people would spend doing casual stuff. Sometimes people ask me if I

am a genius. I always say it's not for me to say. You can't go up to

a lunatic and say " Are you mad? "

RELATED ARTICLE: His beautiful mind: inside the brain of an

autistic savant lies a parallel universe.

By Dowd

In the mind of Tammet, Wednesdays are blue. So is the number

9 which also happens to be tall and to evoke feelings of enormity.

He prefers multiplication to any other mathematical calculation,

though he can divide a sum to nearly a hundred decimal places almost

instantly. His favorite number is 4 because it's both shy and quiet,

89 reminds him of falling snow, and 5 is loud like a thunderclap.

The word thunder is orange--as is any word beginning with the letter

t--but orange is actually clear and shiny like ice.

Suffice it to say that Tammet's brain doesn't work like

yours.

For one, he's a savant, which by definition means he possesses an

extraordinary brilliance or talent coupled with a developmental

disorder. Darold Treffert, clinical professor of psychiatry at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School and author of

Extraordinary People, explains that there are three levels of savant

syndrome: Splinter skills include obsessive preoccupation and

memorization of facts and trivia--which suddenly explains that guy

we've all met who can list every Beatles song ever written,

including track length and album of origin. The talented savant is

someone who has an expertise in music, art, or math that's

particularly remarkable given his disability. But a prodigious

savant, of whom Tammet is one of perhaps 50 in the world, has skills

so outstanding that they would be amazing even without the contrast

to his handicap.

" Absent the disability, we'd call a prodigious savant a genius, "

says Treffert, who served as a consultant on the movie Rain

Man. " It's a rare condition within an already rare condition. "

Tammet's particular developmental disorder is Asperger's syndrome,

a mild. high-functioning form of autism. Statistics on how many

autistic people live specifically with Asperger's are inexact, but

if you consider that more than half a million people in the United

Kingdom (where Tammet lives) have some form of autism, his disorder

is the one thing about Tammet that isn't so unique. One out of 10

people with an autistic disorder shows some type of heightened

talent. People with Asperger's often have normal to high IQs and

good language and learning ability. However like those with other

types of autism, they have difficulty with social interactions,

insist on routine, and exhibit a tendency for obsessive behavior.

For Tammet, that means he weighs his morning cereal to exactly 45

grams and counts every item of clothing he's wearing before leaving

the house, Friends popping by without warning can cause a meltdown,

as can a trip to a large, crowded supermarket. Actually, if the last

two serve as criteria, we might all be a little autistic.

As for his prodigious talents, Tammet can calculate numbers in a

blink of an eye. He's recited the number pi to more than 22,500

decimal places from memory. He speaks 10 languages, one of which he

learned in a week. It's all remarkable, of course. But it's how he

does it that makes Tammet so rare. even amid the extraordinary

circle he runs in.

Tammet sees numbers (and to a certain extent, words) as shapes,

colors, textures, movements, even emotions--a condition known as

synesthesia. He has a unique visual response to every number up to

10,000. When doing multiplication he sees two distinct shapes

spontaneously create a third between them. which he understands as a

new number. Multiplying any number by 11 is accompanied by the

sensation of numbers tumbling downward in his head. " It's like doing

math without having to think, " he writes in his memoir, Born on a

Blue Day.

Bor of the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit of the Medical

Research Council in Cambridge, England, along with colleague Jac

Billington of Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre, studied

Tammet's ability to process sequential numbers and remember them in

correct order. Tammet can recall a series of 12 digits, compared to

about six for most people. " 's ability to remember numbers and

possibly also his ability for calculations, though that's far more

of a mystery, are due to a combination of two factors, " says

Bor. " First. his Asperger's syndrome allows him to concentrate more

deeply on one thing and so excel in an area he chooses to obsess

over. Second, we think 's very unusual form of synesthesia

causes him to convert those numbers into something even more

structured and ordered, making it easier to remember. "

It's quite beautiful--and oddly enviable--when you think about it.

Tammet's autism could have left him detached and isolated, but his

unique relationship with numbers provides him with a dynamic

community of personalities and intrigues that may actually exceed

the experiences of the average person, " Many savants retreat into

their rituals and expertise when they're anxious and upset, and to

that extent their abilities become a comfort, " explains

Treffert. " 's experience is richer. It's a place for him to

wander and explore; it colors the mind. It's more than just a

comfort. it's enrichment. "

So, the question remains: Does your brain have the same. albeit

dormant, capacity as Tammet's? Yes and no, says Treffert. " We're

finding that some hidden potential exists in us all, but we're not

all hidden Picassos. "