Saturday, May 17, 2008
When a student turned her affections on me, I learned the values of professional boundaries.
Dec 10, 1999 | There are two sides to the "sexual pedagogy" coin: our attraction to and involvement with students, and the unrequited attractions they sometimes have for us. The latter can be anything from mildly amusing bits of romantic illusion to a real-life version of Clint Eastwood's stalking drama "Play Misty for Me."
The earliest episode I remember occurred in my first year of teaching, at a junior high school in Palo Alto. "Mara," a precocious little seventh-grader, mailed me booklets of scented love poems, bound in pink ribbons, into which she had poured her delicate soul. She lingered after class to discuss whatever she could manufacture as an excuse, staking out a spot on the edge of a desk so she could swing a lithe leg in what she thought was irresistible provocation. Of course I enjoyed it. Who doesn't enjoy being adored? But soon enough, as things go, she carried her capacity for crushes to a different recipient. The others who took her place over the next couple of years became a source of both delight and irritation as my wife and I handled their mysterious phone calls and fervent little gifts.
The scariest crush I've ever been on the receiving end of occurred about four years ago, at Columbia College. "Diane" was an invisible student in my philosophy class for a month or so before she showed up in my office one afternoon bearing news of the historic inevitability of our involvement with each other.
"There's just something about you. I mean, it's about time we talked to each other, don't you think?" Having entered my slum-like office one morning, she balanced herself on the edge of my mangy easy chair and spoke with airy self-assurance. "I'm Diane Weintraub, from your Tuesday philosophy class."
"Diane, huh." I glanced up and gave her the once-over. I was in a perfunctory mood and resented the intrusion. She backed away slightly, startled, uneasy, but didn't try to avoid my gaze.
Oh man, I thought, this is going to be difficult. Diane was drastically overweight and homely in the most unsavory fashion: jowly, beady-eyed, somewhat resembling a stuffed cobra. But my sexist, body-fetishistic first impressions had been wrong before, so I immediately countered my own perception and gave her the benefit of the doubt.
"Well, what do we need to discuss?" I didn't want to talk to her, but there she was. Her face twisted into a ghastly, reddish smile. "I was meant to take your philosophy class, wasn't I? I mean, we had to meet each other. It is our destiny."
Get Salon in your mailbox!