(I Wanna Be) Teacher's Pet

I'd had better all go away…
It should, it will all be over soon anyway

It is a truly sad day when you find yourself passing sideways glances at your tutor.  As per usual, immediately I want to blame such inclinations on the church. No new man has entered that establishment in forever long so far as I can tell, more woman join from time to time but in every other sense it seems unchanging.

I feel split between being human and being a spiritual follower of Christ. If I was a better person (that is, more Christ-like), I would divert my eyes or pluck them out completely, even though I think labelling it lust is going a bit far.  I’m actually unsure why I’ve even noticed this tutor, he’s not at all the type I usually think twice about and this new found curiosity has left me a tad puzzled.  As a woman, I can't seem to go too long without having someone that I notice, someone who is on my radar so to speak.   But even with age, my standards seem to be slipping if anything.   Yet if I were to heighten my standards there would literally be nothing to look at, or to think about, and nothing to resonate with those feelings of love-come-someday that I've carried with me off and on since my teen years.

It is different this time though, in a sense. I've not been in this setting before, so there has not been this teacher/student slant historically (well, obviously I had teachers while I was at school, but I certainly never thought twice about them due to the age difference).   Acknowledging that he is a teacher, albeit my teacher is not what bothers me the most…

It's the part of me that is spiritual, that is already screaming WARNING. It is that sickly feeling that I got when I did some online stalking scouting (yes, I'm honest – and like I said, human).  It’s a kind of fear, like I might in one more click's time find something….. unsettling.  Jointly, it is revisiting the attraction toward an unsaved man even though my eyes are fully open this time (I no longer believe I could ever change someone).  And then there is that other thing which kind of hangs in the air, that thing which I've been trying to block out.  I had the opportunity today to discuss it with the woman sitting next to me in the lecture after she made an unrelated commented about him.  I couldn’t bring myself to ask what she thought though because, in truth, noticing someone - for a time, at least - makes you feel good about yourself and I don’t want that bubble burst.    This isn’t just the good thing about it though, it is also the bad thing, because it’s the thing that can see you be metaphorically dropped from ten stories high to receive a painful whack on learning something (they don’t like you/that you are being ridiculous/that they already have someone etc). 

In my own defence though, I didn’t plan on noticing him and when I first became aware of this interest coming on several weeks ago I managed to stop it.  This fascination (though I am reluctant to want to label it anything) never became anything until I went to see him during his office hours, and now I think maybe that’s half the problem.  When was the last time I was alone with any guy?  It didn’t help that all feedback I received was positive (actually, it was more than positive).  I kind of felt like if I didn’t appear as the mature student that I am then he might have been left wondering if I got help for the assignment I was seeing him about.  I felt almost embarrassed for my own achievement…

In usual Wendie style, that sense of embarrassment left me unable to function as I normally would.  My conversation became some-what stilted as I tossed words over in my mind a couple of times before finally allowing them to be vocalised.  I also found myself looking, rather than listening, which is dangerous in itself not the least because if I was asked a question I’d have no clue how to answer it.  I wanted to make small talk, to exchange the kind of pleasantries that were acceptable between peers rather than the student/authoritive figure relationship.  I went to get up twice to signify leaving; both times knowing I could ask more questions (study wise, of course).  Each time he’d ask me if I wanted to ask anything else, then I’d promptly sit myself back down and say something more.  I really am quite hopeless in this way..

Then I felt like he was nervous when class began this afternoon, in reality it was probably just my mind feeding off of its own nervous state.  I didn’t want to be seen; I wanted to disappear under my desk.  Am I really the mature one here?  I still feel like a fourteen year old.  I tried my hardest to look at the black board and to not let me eyes go to where ever he was.  When he posed a question to the class I made certain my eyes were not within any line of being seen; I probably appeared quite apathetic.  Still, every time I did look over his way his eyes were already on me. That's just want you want to believe - could any noticing not be because you are the token older student?  Or because you were more or less directly in front of him?

 

 

 

And that is where the overlapping sits. Between being human and being spiritually sensitive.   Part of being human is needing to believe that there is hope, and part of being spiritual is believing that there is hope.  Yet, I don't want hope from either, because both will cause grief.  And if I ditch at least the spiritual portion of hope in relation to this specific matter then I still ditch hope entirely, because I don't believe there is anyone out there (a sub-disbelieve from not believing there are enough men).  It’s what the church wants us to think, that hope will perform its duty and produce according to the heart’s desires.  In this world I feel embarrassed about my heart’s desires, because year after year nothing changes and in the meanwhile all of my unsaved peers are married. 

Next week is the last week that I will have to sit there like a timid mouse in one of his classes.  My mind has begun staging creative (and unlikely) outcomes, like that for once in my life all shackles of anxiety will fall to the floor and I was be gripped with a new found confidence and every possible opening to flirt in such a way that he will read it but none of the other student’s present will catch on.  Then again, he is a male, so subtleties may need to fall to the way side.   Perhaps I should take a page from Doris Day's approach to the matter...

                                              Would this work better than subtleties?

 

Of course, it would be much nicer if he just waited until class was dismissed and then called me over for a quick word.  This isn’t an American rom-com though, nor is it a situation where someone would put their career on the line for something that would probably not last much longer than the duration of a semester, if it were possible at all.  From whatever angle you look at it, it would be too much of a gamble.  In reality, he probably won’t remember me five minutes after the term ends.  And that’s fine, because eventually any thoughts I have of him will start to become less frequent in his absence.  I’m aware of the emotional dangers I’m currently in, but I also have to admit it has been pretty to think about for the last little while.  Come the end of next week though, all ties will be severed as the course comes to a close, so I guess it will simply be so-long…

 

 

-Wendie