Unrequited Love Blog

Over the course of one semester, I fell in love with one of my students.  It was absolutely involuntary, unexpected, and ultimately very painful.  The student (a woman) was in her early 30s, I in my late 30s (also a woman).  She was engaged at the time, I was married (same-sex marriage).

I want to give you a sense of what it was like for me in the classroom, how I felt, but I’m a little hesitant to get too specific for fear of being recognized and the need to protect everyone’s privacy.

So, I’ll call the student “Jessica.” I hate having to change her name, but I feel it’s necessary.

What can I say that will capture the story without revealing identifiable details? It was a long, slow fall on my part. I really didn’t realize what was going on with me until at least the end of the semester, maybe even after that. All semester, Jessica kept staring at me quietly, much more so than the average student.  I felt a pull from her, but was unclear what she wanted.  I tried to ignore her.  But I just couldn’t.  She’s very bright, attentive, supportive, attractive, in short, the kind of student it’s easy for professors to fall for.  All that eye contact and blushing and smiling she did absolutely pulled a reaction from me.  But she wasn’t interested.  She doesn’t identify as lesbian or bisexual, and had been living with the same man for several years.  Nothing happened, I continued to ignore her as much as possible and it was never clear why she was staring at me.  All of this became much more above board the last day of class, when an astute student pointed out to her that I was interested in her, and this student had thought Jessica had been interested in me.  (All this happened in front of me, but covertly so I was not supposed to notice).  Jessica seemed shocked, surprised, somewhat flattered.  I find it hard to believe this is the first time she became aware of my attraction, but who knows, I’ve been wrong before.  Anyway, a whole pantomime ensued during the class, basically involving me being overly nervous and her being amused.  I don’t even want to know what an idiot I must have looked like during that last lecture (staring, walking toward her and away, getting confused, having weird comments fly out of my mouth as if possessed).

It was only after the semester ended that I allowed myself to become aware of the intensity of my feelings.  We exchanged a couple of emails (she had graduated at this point, just to clarify), at her initiation, of the type where my unwritten metamessage was “are you interested?” and her unwritten metamessage was “no thanks, but I wanted you to know I’m flattered….you’re a really good teacher!”  That was the end of it for her but only the beginning for me (sorry for the horrible yet true cliche).

I was just rocked with intense, intrusive thoughts about her.  I wanted to know all about her.  I wanted to know how she grew up, what her parents are like, does she have siblings, what was school like for her, why did she want to be an education major at first, etc, etc.  I know I can’t have her, I won’t have her.  After the semester ended, I had to really fight with myself not to contact her again.  I would have to tell myself “now {my name}, there was nothing in her last email that invited further communication” and “now {my name}, she doesn’t belong to you, she belongs to someone else…and he’s probably with her right now!”  I missed her and wanted to be close to her physically, I felt it as an ache in my chest, a weight I carried around all the time.  For a long time, I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, and I can’t even describe to you how incredibly sexual it all was.  I felt emotionally possessive and incredibly sexual, but surprisingly, not sexually possessive.  My fantasies did not focus on her having sex with her fiancé or other men, and if I fantasized about her with men (a minority of the time, maybe 20%) I tended to be excited not jealous.  My sexual fantasies were intensely vivid, dynamic, dominant, and emotional.

So, this is about where the “Retro Blog” comes in, so go there to read more…

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