hi, i’ve tried to write this a few times before and i’m never able to get it to a point where i feel comfortable with someone reading and evaluating it. but basically…. i am a high school senior and i am concerned about the importance and closeness level of a relationship between myself and a young teacher at my school. i am 16 and transmasculine, he is male in his 20s and pretty new to teaching, we kind of feel more like peers than members of a hierarchy even though he has taught multiple of my classes before. and i have recently become a TA for his class which further blurs that line because i am kind of on the authority figure side of things as far as any class hierarchy goes. so anyway:
basically, i have a bad home life, my dad is abusive constantly to my mother and incidentally to myself and my sisters; i don’t tend to feel particularly safe at home and this teacher has known about this since the middle of last year. since then, i have been invited to stay in his classroom anytime he’s in the building (including many hours after school for days on end, but also before school and a few times during my other classes with him excusing my absence, i usually try to make myself useful and set things up for class but often times just sit and talk, or we do our own things quietly in tandem) and he’s kind of been a safe place to go to talk about my life, get advice, and go when i’m really struggling. he’s also just a good friend and a fun person to talk to, and he’s in charge of the club that i’m a member of so even when i don’t have crazy scary things going on and need a place to be we tend to have interaction in a regular school context too once weekly. without the kindness and friendship of this teacher i would not have made it through the past few months as everything has fallen apart further at home, i ran away for a couple weeks, things have really just been unpredictable and scary and i’ve relied on him as a resource a lot including to help excuse me from other classes or help me figure out how to lie to my parents in contexts where it’s necessary.
anyway, i’m just a little nervous that i’m starting to care too much in the wrong way, and that the bounds of a professional relationship really strongly don’t exist in this instance - all my friends kind of passively acknowledge the fact that me and this one teacher have like zero boundaries as far as when i can be there and what we can talk about and they’re all kind of quietly awkward about it. and it’s not like anything is actually inappropriate or that he has ill intent and that’s not what i’m here to ask about at all, please don’t read this as that kind of a question the problem here is my own boundaries. the problem is that he’s like. a really important person to me, but that we interact in such a context with so many different dynamics and reasonings going on that you can’t really view it as a normal friendship, or mentor relationship, or really any normal type of relationship, and then also am afraid of what will happen when i graduate and we don’t see each other anymore, because with the nature of our friendship being school-centric and with an age difference and power difference we aren’t really set up to still know each other a year from now. and i’m not too proud to admit but that i do also have some rather unrealistic fantasies in which he somehow breaks me out of this shell and helps me become a carefree adult and maybe a bit of a crush. i would say it’s pretty one sided but so my problem is just kind of. i care a lot about this person. that’s not what our relationship is supposed to be. and it is both important for my security to keep spending so much time in his room especially right now, and also like. we’re on good terms and i enjoy his company in a teacher way and don’t want to lose one of the only positive relationships i’ve ever had with an adult in my life. and like i said, i’m his TA now and he’s the guy in charge of my club. so it’s not like i can start avoiding him how you’re supposed to when you have feelings you shouldn’t act on or feel like boundaries are being crossed. but i don’t want to cause problems either by somehow making my overcommitment clear and putting him in a position of either hurting my feelings or getting himself in trouble, and i just kind of. i don’t know. we’re close, and he trusts me with a lot of things and i trust him, and i don’t want to put our relationship at risk through having complicated feelings or through backing off to try and change how i feel. and again, it would be really truly unsafe to stop spending so much time with him because the alternative of going home is usually pretty bleak.
so basically i just… have complicated feelings, and don’t know what to do. i really don’t want to lose him, and i would like to keep in contact after high school, but i want to know how to do that in a way that is still appropriate and normal in the context that we actually know each other, even if we know each other a lot more well than other students and teachers that is still the basis of our relationship and i don’t want to mess things up and blur lines further than they already are. but he’s a very important person to me, and as the end of high school is approaching i’m stuck between wanting to stay in touch and continue to lean on him through this time, and wanting to keep things in a normal appropriate bounds for a student and teacher to be close with one another.
i can’t talk to anyone about this in the real world, so i’ve been sitting with it for many months now not sure where to go, when i need an adults advice and what i have to present to them is a list of ways that a teacher has broken rules for me where he could probably get in a lot of trouble like not in a way where i feel like he has crossed boundaries it is quite the opposite but some of the things that he has done to help me or when i was around were definitely not allowed. and i’m not looking to get him in trouble and not trying to have some outside party get involved and try to ask him questions or whatever and it would be really embarrassing and people are quick to read into things so it would just be a scary situation. but like. i need advice on how to deal with the combination of my situation, my feelings, and my future, and i kind of have a single person who gives me advice and it’s him. so i’m kind of reaching out here just hoping that i can have some honest advice from someone who i hope can look at this from a removed standpoint and give me the advice i need about what to do about my feelings and how to keep this relationship professional and normal while also, keeping it in my life. this has been weighing on me since before summer vacation, and it’s difficult to organize my thoughts, so i’m sorry for the long ask but i really appreciate you taking the time to read it and offer me any advice you have. not entirely sure if this blog is still active again, hope you are doing well out there and only taking time to answer these if you have the mental energy for it. best wishes, i appreciate you reading this far!
hey friend, i'm so glad that you were able to write this all down and send it to our inbox. truly! it's not easy at all to do that because it forces you to acknowledge your thoughts + feelings, and to put it all to someone for advice does feel vulnerable. but you did it -- and honestly that can be half the battle sometimes.
you're incredibly self aware and articulate, and I think you've hit the nail on the head in regards to the blurring of professional/personal lines.
how to find a resolution to this though? one way could be to start to slowly branch out a bit with friends. if you're possibly able to find a connection with someone else, someone that you trust and like? it could help you to feel like you have more support, and means you feel a little less dependent on one person.
starting to branch out doesn't mean that you have to ditch the friendship you have with person? if anything, it may end up creating a stronger and authentic relationship because you're more able to clearly define boundaries and you feel more in control over your thought + emotions (instead of heading too far in the other direction and being dependent on them).
just quietly...it sounds like your feelings are complicated now because of how much value is being placed on this one person and this one friendship, sometimes it can cloud our perspective a lil. when we have so much attachment to a person and we place a lot of trust in them, our heart can get a bit confused? if you have real romantic feelings then I definitely would not act on them, but it might be that you just care a lot about this person and what he represents for you: safety, protection, stability, trust.
I'm not judging you -- this situation doesn't sound 'inappropriate' in the sense of a sexual relationship, it doesn't sound like he's taking advantage of you or trying to manipulate you, there aren’t a lot of red flags. however... in spite of what I've just said, it would still be a good idea to break the cycle of attachment/ dependence on someone who's older and an adult and someone in a position of authority over you.
it’s not going to be an overnight solution, this particular issue isn’t likely to resolve itself in a few days time. but start off with the decision to make a few new friends, people who add value to your life. sometimes taking personality tests (like myers briggs) can help with that? if you know what you’re like as a person, it can help you find similar people with similar personality types, and a friendship might be more likely to form and to be positive.
it takes time to make new friends! I’m 29 and I’m the first to admit that it’s something as an adult that I don’t find easy either. but seriously try to make time and put some energy into creating a new friendship, take it one day at a time. let us know how things go for you lovely, all the best xxx
