One of my former students has now transferred on to a large university elsewhere in the state. A 22 year-old junior, she took a class this past quarter with what she describes as a “desperately hot” 30 year-old assistant professor. He’s in his first year teaching the best of all possible subjects (history), and according to my former student, he’s said to be “single and straight and very available.”
My former student has read my various postings on student crushes and on older men, younger women relationships. She shot me a message on Facebook this week, asking me whether I thought it would be appropriate for her to ask out “Dr. Desperately Hot” now that the term is over. She’s quite clear that this isn’t just an intellectual crush — she’s interested on, as she puts it “every level.”
Assuming she’s not likely to be his student again, I wrote her a short note telling her, in essence, “Go for it.” An eight year age-gap is not insignificant, but it’s not an insurmountable one. (I admit I would have responded differently had her Dr. DH been 40 instead of 30.) I’m familiar with the campus on which she studies and he teaches; the university policy in place, like that at Pasadena City College, prohibits professors from dating their current students, but says nothing about dating former students who continue to be enrolled in other instructors’ classes.
I got a follow-up note:
Cool. So, another question: how do I ask him out??? Do I suggest coffee, trying to make it seem like I just might want a friendship? Or do I just flirt with him (more than I have been!!) to see if he takes the inititaive?
I pointed out to her that students frequently invite me to coffee. The nice thing about coffee is that it can have multiple meanings; it can be a wonderfully casual “first date”, or it can be an extension of normal office hours, complete with refreshment. I’m a great believer in having coffee with students, knowing that the chance to chat with a professor one-on-one in an informal environment was one I always treasured when I was an undergraduate. It’s a situation that can be, and indeed should generally be entirely non-sexual, uncharged and unfraught with romantic implications. But it’s relatively easy for even a young adult to inject some gentle flirtation into a coffee date — and my former student can try that with Dr. DH and see how he responds.
I warned her, half teasingly, that she might be very disappointed. Many of us who are masterful and charismatic in the classroom are stunningly not so when we are out of “our element”. While there’s nothing inherently unethical about a 22 year-old dating her 30 year–old former professor, the chances are pretty damn high that she’s got him on some sort of a pedestal. Up until this point, theirs has been a one-sided relationship; he lectures to a large classroom, she sits and gazes at him. She projects more on to him than he has to her, even if he has “noticed” her in a way that goes beyond the purely professional. The chances of disillusionment on her part are near 100%, though I’ve seen more than one relationship survive that process.
Because we’re friends, I felt comfortable challenging my former student to check her motives. Some students pursue professors for the same reason some young women seek out older men; they look for a yardstick by which to measure their own attractiveness. Dating (or, depending on the milieu, merely having sex with) a popular professor who is widely acknowledged to be “desperately hot” might be simply a way to boost the ego, or to boost status in the eyes of peers who share an attraction to this desirable instructor. Even if he is older and presumably wiser, it’s at best unkind and at worst deceptively manipulative to pursue a relationship of any duration merely for the sake of bragging about it (even if that bragging is confined to one or two very close friends.)
I’ve said a time or nine that older men, younger women relationships are problematic — but not always strictly inadvisable — for many reasons. I’ve pointed out too that most student crushes on professors are less about the desirability of the instructor and more about how that professor makes the student feel about himself (or herself), about ideas, about possibilities for life and the world. But all of this doesn’t mean I don’t think a mature young student can’t ask out a relatively young, eminently single, hot assistant professor. Something interesting will happen no matter what the final outcome.
I wouldn’t assume that because he’s “said to be” single and ‘very available’ that he really is. It could be true, but it strikes me as more like wishful gossip. I mean, c’mon. “Very available”? Who says that?
It’s true that one is either available or not. Being “very” available is a bit like being “very” unique. It’s a misuse of an intensifier for a purely either/or situation, I suppose.
Maybe “very available” is code for “single and looking?”
Now, “desperately hot”…there’s a weird-ass description. Is he so statuesque that he frightens off everyone he meets and is therefore cripplingly lonely? I don’t get it.
Hugo, what would your reaction have been if the situation were reversed? That is, if the “desperately hot” professor had contacted you asking you whether you felt it would be ok for him to ask his ex-student out on a date? Would you have told him to “go for it”, too, assuming his motives were sincere?
If you read my posts on student crushes, John, the answer becomes clear.
Hugo,
“I pointed out to her that students frequently invite me to coffee.”
You must have an impressively good relationship with your students. I’ve never even had coffee with my Oxbridge tutor ;) And I would have never dreamt of asking a hot and young female lecturer out on a date…
“I’ve pointed out too that most student crushes on professors are less about the desirability of the instructor and more about how that professor makes the student feel about himself (or herself), about ideas, about possibilities for life and the world.”
I’m sorry, if it’s mutual, that’s exactly what a good relationship is about. If being with my partner makes me feel good about myself, and my being with her makes her good about herself - that’s the essence of it all, isn’t it.
Apart from the answer to the last comment, wow, the allusion of a balanced post :)
Hugo
“I pointed out to her that students frequently invite me to coffee.”
Yes, I would agree with Sam Seaborn that you must have an impressively good relationship with your students–with clear boundaries.
If I asked a man out for coffee I would anticipate that he would automatically assume that it was a precursor to a date or sexual/romantic interest. This of course, has to do with my personal experience. With that said, I may have gone only joined a coffee meeting with a professor if it was a group situation. I even tended to feel leary of that, knowing what I did about some of the professors. Professors were invited to parties, but I thought that was kindof weird too and I was uncomfortable. Truthfully, I can find too few situations in which I felt comfortable socializing with professors. I always wanted to keep everything strictly professional and then that way they could not misconstrue intent.
I teach gender studies and sexuality, and so it isn’t unusual to have students who want to talk about their private lives with me — nor is it unusual for me to go grab coffee with students of all sexes. I think my boundaries are very good, thanks, and I’ve worked hard for many, many years to make them so.
I watched a TV show recently where one of the male protagonists has coffee with a lot of women, which he claims puts them “off limits” to the other guys he hangs out with. But, they tell him, coffee is not a clear marker of interest. It’s a safety net so you don’t really have to ask someone out and thus do not have to face rejection.
Which is kind of how I feel about coffee. It’s non-committal, it’s during the day, there’s nothing overtly sexual about it. It’s the perfect foil for getting a feel to see if you can ask someone on a real date.
In other, unromantic relationships, it’s also a nice way to hang out and chat with a friend.
So what do you do when a student you suspect of having romantic attentions towards you asks you out for coffee? Can you tell the difference between the girls (or maybe guys too) who want a mentor and those want something else? Do you set more boundaries with the ones who have crushes on you, and if so, is that actually penalizing the ones who do “want” you?
Forgive me if you have blogged about this before, Hugo.