Help! In love with teacher.

The only thing you’re wrong about here, is that you think you’re the only one who’s ever fallen in love with a teacher. GUESS WHAT?? Everybody falls in love with a teacher when they’re around your age of 14. It’s pretty normal for girls and boys to fall in love with their teachers. After all, you’re at the age where it’s normal to start having romantic and sexual feelings, and your teacher is older so he’s not gawky like a lot of boys your own age and he’s confident because he’s a man and has experienced decades of life that make him attractive to young girls like yourself, and you see him every day at school so he’s a constant reminder that you’re starting to look for love in your life. So what I’m trying to tell you is that you’re normal to crush on a teacher — and even think it’s love.

That said, you know it’s wrong for this to go anywhere. Aside from the fact that it’s illegal in AND OUT of school, he’s an adult and you’re a new teenager. It’s fine to crush on him, but it’s wrong to date him or for him to make you think anything is going to come of this. Sorry!

If you have a best friend, she’d be the perfect person to talk to about this. A favorite aunt or family friend is also someone good to discuss this with. And of course, I’m always here for you!

What I’d encourage you to do is to celebrate your burgeoning womanhood to come, and look for younger men who are around 14, 15 and 16 to befriend and hang out with at school dances or basketball games.

I hope that helps. I’m sorry it’s not what you want to hear, but I think you already “get it”.

Join me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url]http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001113133958[/url]. 😀

[b]Evie[/b] gave you some great advice. Thanks, [b]Evie[/b]! 😀

You’re very welcome! I hope that in sharing my experience, it will help you in how to deal with your feelings about your teacher. Having been in your shoes, even at my age of 28, I can relate. What follows are my experience and my thoughts on your situation.

The best and only thing you can do is to keep your relationship at the friends level. You did the right thing by drawing the line there. From my experience, whenever it has to do with feelings for a teacher, the first thing is to draw the line. Keep your academic relationship/life and personal relationship/love life seperate. I find that once I did that, I find it easier to deal with my feelings towards the teacher. That is my advice to you. That and give this some time. Time changes everything.

Don’t feel bummed out that you can’t be more than friends with him. You might feel that way right now and maybe for a little bit, but look on the bright side. Being friends with your teacher isn’t a bad thing as long as remind yourself not to and don’t cross the line. Having a teacher you get along with in school is a great asset to your success in academics. Even though in my case, it’s in college rather than in middle/high school, in my experience with my college professor who’s only a few years older than me (really young guy!), he and I have a great and healthy teacher-student relationship and this healthy relationship helped me in the long run. In the past 3 years since I know him and had my first class with him, aside from being my mentor academically, there were one or two times where he taught me life lessons and gave me advice, in his words, “as a friend”. He gave me advice as a friend. Academically, in knowing your teacher, it helps you in such that you know what his expectations are and how he teaches, so you benefit in getting a good grade in class by turning in homework that shows what he expects even when the syllabus doesn’t say it all. It helped me and I excelled in that professor’s class because I know what he expects from students (and not only his class did I excelled in lol).

I’ve been through the same things you did, having friends suspect and teased me about it. But knowing that from the start, keeping my academic life and personal life separate helped me deal with the teasing and suspicions easier, especially when people starting asking questions. I didn’t have to feel scared that someone might find out or feel my heart racing like you said you did. I find that I could face it head on. I don’t think you should try so hard in covering up your feelings. The harder you try, the more suspicious people will get. The last thing you want is someone misinterpreting your actions (you trying hard to hide your feelings) and/or start a rumor. In my experience, in separating academics and personal life, I can face this head on and not have to be afraid. I can admit to my friends that “yes, I like this guy, but I know that nothing will ever happen”. For me, it felt like some kind of new freedom.

And it’s great that you’re planning to talk to one of your close friends about it. It helped me a lot when I talked to my best friend about it, her being the first person I told. Does your friend have or had any dating experience? If he or she does, it helps even more. My best friend had a lot more dating experience than I did and it helped me a lot.

I hope that in sharing my experience helps you! Good luck! Things will get better and one day you WILL meet that special someone. In the meantime, enjoy life and enjoy being young! 🙂