I know it's wrong but I love my professor.

Post Reply New Topic

Hi, what a lovely topic! I was waiting for some interesting topic to engage myself and here is a question for you. Why do you think it's wrong to love your professor? Professors are people just like everyone else, right? When we like professors, we do not need to act on it, due to conflict of interest (while we are in school) and not to violate university policies, but loving and admiring is certainly not a sin or a mistake.

It's actually a beautiful feeling even if it is from a distance. We need more love in the world. Professors usually like to be visited in their offices. I had a friend of mine who used to be a professor and he told me that if nobody stops by his office, it did not feel good to him, because the most liked professors are usually visited often, because students love talking to them.

The feeling of closeness must have been very nice, isn't it? Sometimes that is hard to accomplish. We can't feel close to everyone. There is something that resonated within you. However, it's very difficult to know for sure and with 100% certainty that the other person feels close to us, the way we do. It's difficult to know what the other person is thinking or feeling with certainty. Maybe the other person does not even know. Sometimes people will act "as if" they feel somewhat close to us but they actually do not feel that, they just act that way because they are nice and social.

If she knows all of your obscure, specific interests and hobbies and she asks you about them, that can indicate that she is interested in who you are as a person, because there is a conversation going beyond school stuff, however, it's not unusual for professors to talk to students this way without having a romantic interest.

Sorry to hear about your first year of college, it must have been very tough for you. I am glad that your professor was there for you through all sorts of academic and emotional crisis. She always is willing to listen to you, she really understands you with no judgement. Some professors are good like that and some would not want to provide that type of support. You described how she made you feel so beautifully. It looks like you don't know for sure if she is nice to you because of you, or because she is aware that you have Asperger's. Professors are usually trained to detect students under your circumstances, but they are not professional psychologists to be able to determine that from just simply talking to students.

What a wonderful feeling, no one had ever treated you that way before and you couldn't help but to fall in love. Or at least you think it's love. Falling in love is, in my opinion, beyond someone's will. We can't make ourselves fall in love. There are people we want to fall in love but it does not happen with them. It happens with someone else. It sounds like you are unsure if you really fell in love or if this is an infatuation? So how do we know the difference?

Infatuation is more about falling in love due to a role, e.g ( professor, police officer, priest etc.) while falling in love is more about the physical attraction, spiritual attraction, intellectual attraction, emotional attraction outside of the role. Basically, would you like this person as much as you do now, if she isn't your professor? Try to imagine it. If yes, than you fell in love. If no, then it's just infatuation.

It sounds like you like to be in her presence. You pray that she'll sit near you. You like to sneak a deep look at her because she's so beautiful and just seeing her brings you a lot of comfort. This is emotional attraction. She makes you feel good, happy, and comfortable. So you are emotionally attracted to her. What about intellectual attraction, physical, spiritual? How compatible two of you would be? Was it love at first sight? When did you become aware that you like her romantically? Or was it something that developed after awhile?

As you said, realistically speaking, no you can not expect anything from professor while in school (in romantic sense). Professor can lose her job and if you really like her under no circumstances should you reveal your feelings, or add to such risk, and if she really likes you, under no circumstances she would put you in such risk, or reveal her feelings, while you are in school... and we should not interfere in anyone's marriage. Period.

There are 3 challenges in your situation at present time. 1) she is your professor, 2) she is unavailable ( married ) and 3) mutual compatibility is unknown. This is hard! You could have had someone else with no such obstacles. But, if you really like her that much, in order to overcome these obstacles, you need to graduate first and focus on your studies. After the graduation, you can asses the situation again and see how things are. Things in her life ( and your life ) may change, you never know. Then you have compatibility issue, but that is the very last step. You would need to know her first, to be able to figure that out.

It's great that you had the courage to speak of this experience in public forums. I hope you get more insights and please feel free to ask any question, if I can be of any help, I enjoy helping as much as my free time allows me.

You are very welcome, the pleasure is all mine. I completely understand why you would not really be interested in ever trying to pursue a romantic relationship with your professor, you clearly indicated your reasons, she is after all married (unavailable) and more than ten years older than you (not compatible?). This is what your mind is communicating to you. But the fact remains, you still seem to like her enough anyways. Your body, heart and soul ignores your logical reasoning. That is the power of emotion. I know it can be sometimes uncomfortable, but heart wants what it wants. On the other hand, the mind will be in a complete opposition to that, until you compromise. This is going to be a continuous conflict, mind vs. heart, and both are equally powerful. Enjoy the experience, and let's see who wins?

I would try to think why am I attracted to someone like the professor? You would learn a lot about yourself. Maybe it's not about the professor but a type of person you like. Perhaps you like how she makes you feel, her intelligence as well. This may mean that you like intellectually stimulating people, as well as people who make you feel accepted. There is so much to learn from this experience. Or it could be that you like specifically her and she just happened to be your professor. This is possible too. That's something you would need to discover.

You said you really like the dynamic, and that she's almost a parental figure for you. This indicates that you like a nurturing type, motherly type of women, but who does not? We all like when others care for us. Or it could indicate that you are missing the motherly nurturing care, maybe not in this very moment but care that you were missing in your past. However, why does it matter? Whatever the underlying reason is, we are always attracted to someone who makes us feel certain way, for a reason, and that is all what matters.

I do not think that attraction to motherly figures sounds creepy, however if you do have some "mother figure" issues you can't escape it. This is an opportunity to process those feelings. Nobody knows if she knows about your autism, but if she is more understanding of you than most others, who knows, maybe you trigger those nurturing feelings in her too, or she could have been simply a caring person. I would think she is likely a caring person, because it is very difficult to know what type of caring is romantic and what type of caring is being nice without knowing the person more.

Regarding your crush, I understand your main concern that if you do or say something inappropriate, and she feels uncomfortable, she would try to distance herself from you and you would lose the relationship you have with her in the present time. That is one possibility. If she finds out that you have a serious crush on her, and it makes her feel uncomfortable, yes, she would very likely distance herself to avoid any trouble. Not many people are able to lose their jobs, after so many years of working hard to get there in the first place, even if she really likes you back. Therefore, there is a possibility that she does not know that you have a crush on her. At least not a serious one!

Now let's assume, for the sake of argument that she does know that you have a serious crush on her, and that she likes you back. What would she do then? Hmm, I think it depends on your actions. If you keep it respectful and balanced, under control, she may feel, she can handle it. But keep in mind, she knows the university rules and would not want to take a risk. Would you? Think from her perspective. Or imagine if you were a professor and this happened to you. If she would cross the rules, then I would question her genuine liking for you. The professor who really likes you, would be likely casual with you, talk to you a bit more friendly, smile more when talking to you, have a little deeper eye contact and be exceptionally kind, respond to you quickly, willing to accommodate you, etc. Small things you know, but that still does not mean they will act on it. The person feels it, but will not do anything about it.

Finally, what sort of things would be okay to say to her? Are you right in assuming you should avoid making any comments about her appearance? Definitely no comments about her appearance. Truthfully, I don't think anyone can hide the intense attraction. Maybe yours is not so intense. Intense attraction, can be seen when they look at you, but also felt as an energy, even if they do not hold an eye contact for a long. When you look in someone eyes you can see someone's soul, the impact is strong, there are not many people who can cause such impact thus you immediately notice. As long as you do not verbalize it directly to her, no matter what she sees, she has no proof. It's going to be vague in her mind.

Someone commented about the infatuation vs. falling in love, if it is still relevant I will comment on that later on.

My professor is great. I had her for two semesters in a row and she is the advisor for a club I attend as well as being involved in a charity center I volunteer for. Now I'm not taking any of her classes but I still see her once a week for club meetings and I use whatever other excuse (I think is socially appropriate) to stop by her office and talk to her. In the time we've spent together which as I mentioned is a decent amount, I feel that we've gotten to know each other very well and are somewhat close. I know her kids pretty also, as well as a lot about other aspects of her life. She too knows all of my obscure, specific interests and hobbies and she asks me about them.

High school was really rough for me and I didn't know how I would fair in college. My first year of college was really a test for me and I don't think I could have survived without her. Since then she has always been there for me through all sorts of academic and emotional crisis. She always is willing to listen to me even if I go on too long about a particular topic, which I know must happen occasionally. She really understands me and my problems but never seems to judge. I don't know if she's aware I have aspergers or not.

Long story short, (and I know this is a common thing among aspies) no one had ever treated me this way before and I couldn't help but to fall in love. Or at least I think it's love. I'm really infatuated. When she enters a room I'm in I pray that she'll sit near me even though normally I don't like people to be too close to me or to touch me. I know not to stare when I see her but when I can I like to sneak a deep look at her because she's so beautiful and just seeing her brings me a lot of comfort, especially when I'm upset.

She's married and I don't have any realistic expectations of her reciprocating interest back at me or is becoming a couple. I know she could never go beyond caring about me as her student but I still am enamored none the less.

I guess maybe Im looking for advice. Or maybe for someone to tell me what it is I'm feeling but, whether anyone even sees this, it feels good to have written it out.

My advice is to stop torturing yourself and stop associating with her. Move on, find someone your age who is not in a relationship.

I actually don't consider it torturing myself. I'm pretty happy with our relationship and seeing her brings me a lot of joy. Obviously I don't think we could ever have a romantic relationship, nor is that something that I want. I'm really just looking for advice on how to make our student professor relationship even closer and how to avoid doing or saying anything that might be inappropriate.

I understand it would be unwise to ever try to pursue her but why should I try to forget about her? The crush I have on her brings me a lot of happiness as you described so why try to move on? I just don't get what the problem is with fantasizing. Also even when you take away the attraction I still have so much admiration and appreciation for her I would always like to spend time with her no matter what.

You have admiration and appreciation for her, but do you have respect for her? I would not consider myself respected by you if I were in her situation, because you would be disrespecting my marriage. I too, once had a crush on a professor who was married. But I respected him, his marriage, and his wife. Because he was married, it would have been wrong for me to attempt to derive pleasure from him, or invoke pleasure in him, as the right to those things belonged exclusively to the domain of his wife. So, out or respect, I did not interact with him any more than necessary to complete the course.

I do respect my profesor and i dont think that wanting to improve our student professor relationship is a threat to her marriage. Never have I ever said or done anything that would insinuate I want to start a romantic relationship with her, nor will I ever. I do respect her and her family and I know her kids quite well. There is a big difference between a student professor relationship and the relationship of a couple.

Maybe it was difficult for you to differentiate with your professor so that's why you just decided that any interaction with the person was bad.

Let's be honest though, probably neither of us were ever a threat to their marriages. Me personally even if my professor knows I have a crush on her I don't think she would view her young autistic student with puppy love as destructive to her marriage.

I did not say it was a threat to her marriage, but it could be, regardless of whether or not you try to instigate a romantic relationship with her, because society has certain unspoken rules of engagement and appropriate degrees of proximity for certain relationships. Your social proximity to her, combined with her responses to you, even to your subconscious body language, could seed discord in her marriage in the form of jealousy by her spouse. Even if your relationship with her is entirely platonic, many relationships have been ruined for the fact that the spouse perceived what they viewed to be an inappropriate closeness between their partner and someone outside the marriage, and by inappropriate, this could be a non-sexual, deep social affinity. Trust me on this matter, I've seen it happen.



No, it was not difficult for me to differentiate with my professor. I did not have any less interaction with him than I did any of my other professors. I did not make an effort to interact with him any less, or any more than any of my other professors. The key here is, my attractions to him did not influence my behavior such that I made an effort to become closer to him, and your attractions are influencing your behavior such that you are making an attempt to become closer with your professor.



See above.

Most of my interactions are with those of the opposite sex. Granted, I'm not the most attractive women in the world, but that doesn't matter to the spouse. The spouse could become upset at any perceived breach of territory and part of respecting the person is not transgressing boundaries that could weaken the integrity of their marriage.

You do not have any further course work with this professor so what is your reason to want to get closer to her if not for your attraction to her?

A good analogy to what you are doing would be if an alcoholic walks into a bar and says to the bar tender "I'm an alcoholic, and I have no intention of getting drunk. *Sits down and orders a shot*. But...*takes a sip* I'm going to drink a few shots of this."

Yes I will admit that although I do have to see her on occasion regardless I am trying to get closer to her because I'm attracted to her. Of course it's not just because I think she's beautiful but also because she has always been very supportive of me and has helped me through some tough times. However, even though I no longer have any classes with her does that really mean our relationship can't continue. I know I have to be careful to not cross a line and do something inappropriate but is it really that unusual for a student to keep in contact with his professor after the class is over? Our interactions mostly just consist of innocent conversation and on occasion I will come to her for help or advice and other times she asks me for favors. I don't think there is anything wrong with this. If anything even if I wasn't attracted to her it would just be good to stay in touch so I could ask for a letter of reference in the future. I don't understand why this is bad only because I'm attracted to her because if I wasn't I probably would be behaving the same. It's just that as I've said before she really understands me supports me, and seems to care about me like few if any people ever have. I really can't help if I crave this sort of comfort I get from talking to her. I really do understand that I should never attempt or have expectations for our relationship to be romantic and I don't want it t be that way because I like what we have now. Plus I never see her husband. We've only met once and didn't actually talk. So given all this, am I really doing something "wrong"?

Well aside from what I've already said, you are deceiving her with respect to your intentions for the relationship. And personally I think that's very unbecoming of you. But I suppose you meant "wrong" from a practical perspective rather than from the perspective of principal.

At worst, you could destroy her marriage. So yes, it's wrong.

I'm pretty sure you're blowing this out of proportion. I respect your right to an opinion especially since I asked for it but I don't agree. It's really just an innocent crush. This week I'll probably see her to ask her to help me schedule my classes. Hopefully she doesn't divorce her husband after that.

Hi, what a lovely topic! I was waiting for some interesting topic to engage myself and here is a question for you. Why do you think it's wrong to love your professor? Professors are people just like everyone else, right? When we like professors, we do not need to act on it, due to conflict of interest (while we are in school) and not to violate university policies, but loving and admiring is certainly not a sin or a mistake.

It's actually a beautiful feeling even if it is from a distance. We need more love in the world. Professors usually like to be visited in their offices. I had a friend of mine who used to be a professor and he told me that if nobody stops by his office, it did not feel good to him, because the most liked professors are usually visited often, because students love talking to them.

It's really just an innocent crush.