Teacher 28, Student 18. Long story.

[AnthonyPatch]

First of all excuse my English. It’s not my first language so I’ll make some mistakes. I hope that at least I make it clear. This is a big forum and I thought I would find here some good advice for my story. I can’t really tell this to all my friends or family, only to the closest ones.

 

Secondly, I am sorry because of the length but you will be able to understand it better with these details, not only with the facts. At the same time, I need to get all this off my chest.

 

I’ve been teaching foreign languages (mainly French) for five years and I’ve never experienced anything like this: in mid-March I got some new lessons with 2 girls (separate lessons, but they’re friends) in a sports residence here in my city through a friend. As the lessons continued I started to see some changes in the way one of the girls behaved with me. We were always alone in the study room and if she knew someone else was going to be there she asked the receptionist to give us another place. This never happened with their other teacher (also a young man), and when I told him he was surprised as he always gave lessons to her with other students studying next to them.

 

If you’re a teacher you know when something changes with a student. I don’t consider I’ve been teaching for so long but a lot of students have already passed before me in all of these years. She used to blush with some of my jokes; sometimes (toward the end of the academic course) she stared at me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable, wouldn’t keep her eyes out of mine. I started to feel curious about this girl and finally, when I got to know her better, I found I really had interest in her. Not in a sexual way, those kinds of thoughts never came to me. I loved the way she smiled, the way her eyes sparkled when she looked at me, (I can’t help being romantic, that’s maybe silly, I know) and more little things.

 

This girl is shy, responsible and she’s making a big sacrifice to keep her studies and the sport both at the same time. I felt really attracted by the fact that she wasn’t the “typical” teenager, that she showed me to be really mature and that we got along really well.

 

I didn’t want to lose my job by mixing with a student so I decided I would ask her to go have a drink after the end of the lessons in mid-June. That conversation came by chance in a WhatsApp (we use that app a lot here in Europe) where she was telling me she had passed her language exams with really good grades. It’s important to add here that during the lessons (mid-March to mid-June) we never chatted, I never wrote to her because I didn’t feel that was correct even if we got along well in person. So we only used technology to talk about grades or choosing the hour of the lessons. But returning to that conversation I thought it was my opportunity to ask her out to have a drink and “celebrate”. She said yes. Not only that, several days later she even reminded it to me, also via WhatsApp. She had to change the lessons’ time and she said “I will “pay” you after my exams with some drinks”. Knowing she’s shy I found this comment to be her showing me some interest in meeting me outside the lessons.

 

After this conversation everything changed and went uphill. It was two weeks before the end of the lessons and the coming of her final exams. Remember she’s a really responsible girl, doesn’t like to go out as her friends but prefer to be in the residence studying. However, she wanted to know about me. She kept asking me questions instead of doing exercises, she was closer in the class and I had the feeling that her friends knew about “her teacher”. But things never go as planned, and in one of the last lessons she told me she had to go to her home (in the north of the country) after the day of her last exam. I was sad knowing I wouldn’t get to see her. She also didn’t seem to like the idea of being the whole summer away (she had sports competitions in Europe).

 

So we come to the last day of the lessons. Knowing I had lost the opportunity of meeting her I wanted to at least remember her we were going to “leave something pending”. My only goal was to see her face when I told her that as we never had talked about having drinks in person, only by WhatsApp. That day it was a double-lesson, I had to spend 3 hours with her (she wanted to, I’ve never had an individual lesson so long). Some things happened that day that I didn’t understand: 1) she asked me to take a picture with her as an excuse to send it to a friend (the other girl I also taught language there) and she sounded really nervous when she asked me. 2) out of the blue she read me something a (girl) friend in the north had written to her, all beautiful things about her. 3) I told her she could keep sending me writings/essays or exercises in summer if she wanted to and I would correct them and her face changed, she smiled, took out a piece of paper, drew some lines as if they were weeks and told me she was going to send me weekly writings telling me her summer, competitions, etc. I knew she wasn’t going to do that (I wasn’t wrong lol) but I never understood why she told me. She seemed like she meant it.

 

In one of the breaks I started a conversation whose only end was to tell her about the drinks. “You and me are going to leave something pending”. She looked at me in the eyes and said “in September I’ll pay you all drinks I owe you”. She looked sincere. We started joking about all things we would have to celebrate. It’s also important to add here that it’s not 100% sure I will continue being her teacher but she wanted me to prepare her for an official language exam.

 

When we said good bye in the reception I wished her good luck in her exams and she remembered me about September, she said something emphasizing the fact that we would meet then. And she came towards me like she wanted to kiss me in the cheek to say goodbye but I felt embarrassed because we were surrounded by other students and workers so I didn’t move. We smiled and that was all.

 

I was sad because it seemed to me like something were about to happen between me and her and now I had to wait almost three months to know. It’s been a month and a half since that day and, of course, she hasn't sent me any writing. We haven’t talked by WhatsApp and two weeks ago I decided to write to her. Being shy I thought she would never write to me, her teacher. I wanted to “break” that professional wall outside the lessons and made it personal. So I wrote to her and she answered me two days later but by her writing she seemed happy (she said hi with an emoji with its tongue out, she never did that during lessons nor other student has before write to me that way) and said she was sorry for answering late. I asked her about her summer and her competitions and she answered the next day by telling me where she had been, where she would be the following week and told me she was really busy with all travels. She asked me about my summer, she even sent me a picture (I hadn't asked her for one) … I was surprised. She seemed like she wanted to talk with me so I answered her and made her some other questions about her competitions.

 

Well it’s been two weeks since that and I never got an answer. Why? I don’t know. I don’t understand. I don’t really get why she changed her mind that way. I know she’s really busy but you only need 2-3 minutes to answer to somebody and I’ve seen her online. I’m not going to bother her anymore because I’m not that kind of person and I guess I get the message: she doesn’t want to keep that conversation with me, even if she seemed interested. I imply she isn’t going to write me in September so the story finishes here because after all this stuff with a student I’m seriously thinking about resigning working there (it’s not my only job). I’m hurt and confused because never before someone has ignored me this way and I can’t stop thinking about why's that haven’t an answer. I guess it’s my fault because, at the end of the day, she’s just a teenager. In my defense I will say these things you never choose them, they just come up.

 

What could have happened?

 

I thank you very much if you have read until the end. It really felt good to get all this off my chest.

Edited July 24, 2018 by AnthonyPatch

[Gaeta]

You are suffering from a bad case of infatuation.

 

You were so infatuated that you gave meanings to things that have none.

 

She's just a kid, I don't care how mature and responsible you think she is she is still just a teen so let her live and experience the life of an 18 year old. She doesn't need you to come along and have her miss on her youth.

 

You're a 28 year old man, find yourself a lady your age with whom you can interact on the same level.

 

You are far far from this girl's mind. That's how it is at 18, one day it's cool to take a picture with a cool teacher and the next day it's about the new guy on the team. You were the cool guy teaching French, that's all you were.

 

 

 

 

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[smackie9]

You are letting your imagination get the best of you. You are seeing what isn't there. I agree with Gaeta, there is nothing here, just a girl who thought you were a kool teacher. This girl has set a boundary, that this is strictly a teach student relationship and nothing more. So sorry that you are disappointed but you need to get you head out of yer butt, because it's clouding your better judgement. You are an adult, see it for what it is.

[Scarlett.O'hara]

What happened was that she was never taking it seriously from the beginning, you were just too flattered and caught up in it to realize she was behaving like many other teenage girls do. It was just a bit of fun she could boast about to her friends, hence the reason for asking to take a photo of the two you together. She will show her friends, they will giggle about it and she will feel cool and hope her friends envy her for a while, then she will move on to something else. That is what teenage girls are like.

 

I have to ask you though, what on earth do you think you are doing pursuing an eighteen year old girl in your class? I get it, you thought she was cute, interesting, and “mature”, but seriously, despite what you said about not crossing any boundaries before the end of classes, that is exactly what you were doing. Just because you were arranging the date for afterwards doesn't matter. It is still a conflict of interest and inappropriate.

 

I am not saying this to be mean, but to try and shake some sense into you. You are playing with fire and risking your reputation and job. If you love your job, is it really worth the risk?

 

Think about it. If you had started officially dating an eighteen year old student, what would that have done to your reputation? You are still technically young in your profession, don't you want a long successful career? If the answer is yes, you need to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

[fromheart]

I'm presuming the age of consent is at least 18 wherever you are.

 

She was probably interested in you while you were the teacher, in a personal context the interest waned once you made yourself available.

 

You've put yourself out there, its up to her if she wishes to respond.

 

Better to date outside of your profession, unless its love which is something different.

Edited July 25, 2018 by fromheart

[Doost]

I had trouble reading your entire post I got bored. Based on what every one else is writing you should move on.

[damni]

I actually find your post very disturbing. The way you write tells me you have way over fantasized your interactions with this girl and really where is your code of ethics? You are a teacher, she is a student and you were texting her while your tutoring...big no no.

 

She most likely was never really interested in you, she likely found it amusing her language teacher had an crush on her. She's properly dating boys her own age back home now anyway. I think you need to get a life outside of work so you don't read too much into interactions like these.