- callum spencer wildwood was born in shaker heights, ohio in late 1984. his father, john (known as jack), is a surgeon and his mom, olivia, is a housewife. they’re a pretty wasp-y family. when callum and his sisters, charlotte and catherine, were kids they were made to attend sunday school by their parents and all three of them went to good, private high schools. callum’s sisters are both older than him and used to exert their authority over him as a child. he’s still pretty intimidated by them in some ways when they get together, even though he’s almost 31 now and more than capable of standing up for himself.
- in high school, cal wasn’t a popular kid. his parents made sure he worked hard at his classes - the punishments for getting a lower grade than a b+ were spelled out to him loudly and clearly by his mom, and while cal wasn’t necessarily afraid of being banned from watching television or going out in the evenings with the few friends he had, he hated the idea of disappointing his mom or getting screamed at by his father. to this day, cal and his dad have a tense relationship. jack wildwood has never really gotten over his son’s coming out, and while cal’s mom is much more understanding, his parents are the kind of couple where it’s difficult to see one without the other. cal talks to his mom on the phone fairly often, but he doesn’t go back to ohio so much these days, and he exchanges words on the phone with his father only if the man picks up the phone when cal’s calling his mother.
- cal went to college at the university of michigan, where he studied communications. he didn’t exactly know what he wanted to do with his degree, but it seemed like it could be useful in a broad range of careers. he had a lot of fun in college - a lot more than he’d had in high school, anyway. he was 19 years old when he came out to his parents, telling his sisters first (via phone, as they were both away at different colleges at the time) and then his parents in person. after graduating from u of m in 2006, cal returned to ohio to live with his parents for a while, but it ended up being pretty brief because his father obviously wasn’t happy with him being there. he moved back to ann arbor in september 2006 and landed a job as a production assistant at a local news station shortly after thanksgiving that year.
- with regards to his job, cal was thrown in at the deep end. to this day he’s not sure how he got it, other than he was better at the interview than he was at the actual job - at least to begin with. he picked it up quickly but at the beginning, he went home every day convinced that he was going to be fired the next morning. needless to say, it never happened. he’s been at the news station for 8 years now, and he’s one of the main show’s producers. he doesn’t love it - does anyone really love their job? - but he likes it well enough to have stuck around this long, at least.
- at the tender age of 27, cal started dating a 19-year-old college student. his friends immediately assumed he was having some kind of overdue quarter-life crisis and held interventions for him after it became apparent that the relationship was getting serious, rather than being just a fling. in fact, the relationship lasted for 4 years. cal and his boyfriend broke up over a misunderstanding that cal took extremely badly. they’ve been apart for about six months now, and even though he’s pretty sure his boyfriend has moved on, cal’s still pretty hung up on the guy.
- in order to fill the void that his boyfriend left, cal has been introducing dogs into his life. yes - dogs, plural. he adopted a rescue dog, clarence, in march and bought a spaniel puppy, geoffrey, in july. why they have names like oxbridge students from the 1920s, cal’s still not sure - but it seems fitting. cal’s in love with both of them and as a person with a lot of affection to give, he probably smothers them with adoration a little too much. they don’t seem to mind, though.
- he’s a big fan of comedy and goes to as many local stand up shows as he can fit into his schedule. he tries to support local performers as much as he can. some of his favorite comedians include richard pryor, stephen merchant, jack whitehall, ricky gervais, tig notaro and iliza shleshinger. he has a lot of time for british comedy, but he’s a sucker for snl as well, although he’ll deny to the death that he likes the modern iteration of the show. it’s just not cool.
- cal’s 31 now and a big fear of his is dying alone. it may seem incredibly early to freak out over something like that, but he considers himself a realist rather than a pessimist - after all, he could get hit by a bus tomorrow and he doesn’t want to be known in his final years as someone who couldn’t get a boyfriend. that said, he also doesn’t think of himself as desperate and he certainly isn’t out to hit on every guy he meets or weigh them up as marriage material. in fact, cal doesn’t even know if he wants to get married. just because he can doesn’t mean he should; that’s his logic, anyway.
- the two biggest dreams cal has yet to fulfill are to move to new york (and have a job and group of friends like robin’s from how i met your mother) and to travel to other continents. he’s been to london, but there are so many countries he has yet to set foot in and he’s absolutely dying to: australia, france, spain, italy, japan, iceland ... to name but a few. he plans to quit his job and go traveling at some point in the future, but he’s neither brave nor financially stable enough to do so just yet.
- cal is an extroverted, exuberant guy. he’ll chat to anyone and he’s very social. the one area he lacks in when it comes to socializing is his knowledge of television - he doesn’t watch any of the current popular shows at all. in fact, he barely switches his tv set on when he’s home. still, people persist in talking to him about game of thrones, for example, and they’re always disappointed. generally, he has a pretty decent handle on pop culture - music and films in particular - but when it comes to television, he has absolutely no idea what’s going on and he’s okay with that.
which apartment complex do you live in?
when did you move in?
where are you originally from? why did you move here?
who do you live with?
what kind of neighbor are you?
i live in windsor commons. it’s a pretty quiet place. no one throws wild parties all that much. ... well, except for me. whoops.
i moved into the building in 2013. before that, i lived in kellogg’s lofts but i feel like it’s got a more... youthful atmosphere and i didn’t fit in as well as i wanted to (and i tried, believe me. after a certain point it’s not cool to be almost 30 - as i was then - and hanging out with students).
i was born and raised in shaker heights, ohio. yes, my parents are the wasp-iest people alive. no, i do not consider myself remotely wasp-y. although i look damn good in stripes... get it? wasp, stripes... okay yeah, that was legitimately terrible, i’m sorry.
i had a friend who lived here at the time who spoke very highly of the place, and i wanted somewhere more grown up, i guess, for want of a better term. it hasn’t made me more mature and i probably annoy my neighbors to no end but i feel like it’s a little more me. or do you mean why did i move to ann arbor? because i went to college here and i couldn’t face going back to ohio to live that close to my parents on a long-term basis. what? you asked.
i live with my dogs, clarence and geoffrey. they’re not secretly victorian english chaps who were turned into dogs under a spell, but i’ll forgive you for thinking so with names like theirs.
i’m probably not as obnoxious as i’m painting myself to be, but occasionally i do throw parties and they can get a bit rowdy. i try to be mindful of my neighbors and not let them go on too far into the wee hours, at least not in the middle of the week. that’s a good thing, right? that makes me a good neighbor? i think so. a considerate one, at least.