I had a teacher in high school (who shall remain nameless) who I was in love with.
She was young, beautiful, funny…and I was 16-years-old…so I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
But a lot of kids out there just can’t seem to hold back their feelings about their love for certain teachers and they just have to let them know about it…
So let’s see what teachers had to say about these situations on AskReddit.
1. You guys are pushing it…
“I teach undergrad college students, mainly freshmen.
I had to change my name on social media about a year into working this job because some e-boy freshman I taught literally once found me on Facebook and tried to chat me up with the “Whoa this is so crazy! Now that I found you again we’re going to have to go out and catch up 😜”.
I didn’t even remember teaching him! To his dismay I turned him down, blocked him, and changed my name on all social media.
I had another student in a class that I substituted for a few times that would CONSTANTLY chat me up while I was trying to teach. I had mentioned that I had a significant other/boyfriend more than a few times but he clearly wasn’t getting the point.
It came to a breaking point when he interrupted my lecture to tell me how much he liked my shirt (from a crappy BBQ nonlocal joint). I turned around, said “thanks it belongs to my husband” (a lie) and went back to teaching. I had a ring on that day by chance just because I like wearing jewelry.
His table mate was DYING, he had a front row seat to this kids failed flirtation attempts, but this one was the icing on the cake. He didn’t flirt with me again after that.”
2. Sorry, not gonna work.
“I had a failing student who wanted to go to med school proposition me. She did get the D, but not the one she wanted.
She was a model, very attractive and in any other context I would have said yes.”
3. Love note.
“Yes… the girl wrote me a full on love note. I took it immediately to my supervisor indicating my lack of knowledge of the student’s interest or my interest in any way shape or form in reciprocation.
As a male in a high school I felt (feel) the target on me is incredibly large. My super quite literally took the note shredded it said we would not speak of it again.
I was not settled by this. I did have a talk with the student with my neighbor teacher in her room with BOTH our doors open. It was a 1:1 conversation with the student letting her know this was not behavior I was willing to accept and would move forward in our interactions as we have in the past, me the teacher, her the student.
Things ended up basically back to normal. This scenario was one of many issues in education that led me to leave it. I don’t want some young fool to ruin my life due to accusations and supervisors to not assist me because they don’t want to deal with it or are uncomfortable themselves.”
4. Student teacher.
“While I was student teaching, it happened to be teacher appreciation day and I had a female high school student tell me they loved me. Talked to my supervising teacher about it and they wrote it off as being dismissive and gave me some tips about “in case they were serious”.
Turns out they were, the student would try to go out of their way to get help from me, try to spend time alone with me. I was asked to help with an afterschool play thing and they grouped us together and made it even more awkward.
Thankful no moves were made, but it was really uncomfortable the whole time. On my going away card she wrote a sad note like “you didn’t tell me you were going away 🙁 I’ll miss you.”
5. That’s awkward.
“I was teaching as a substitute teacher in a professional high school where most of the students were almost my age 21-22 because most of them were refugees.
The students, however were really happy to learn english and participated a lot. So I decided to give my email in case they had questions out of class… My bad,I shouldn’t have done that. After my contract ended, boy from the class kept sending me messages asking for a “friendship or more”…
He literally spammed me for a few months until I blocked him… It is such an awkward situation …”
6. Highly sought after.
“I taught high school for a couple of years. Freshman girls would smile and giggle, and come up with silly questions to come up and ask me between classes while their friends stood there and giggled. No big deal.
The senior girls were a different story. I’m married (happily), wear a ring, and was, as a male, extra careful to never be alone with female students and, it if happened, to make sure the door to my class was wide open. I had three straight up, and with very clear and explicit words, tell me they didn’t care if I was married, they just wanted to have s*x. I reported each incident.
I had one female student that would hug me constantly, even though I had told her several times to stop. I don’t like other people touching me anyway, but this was super creepy. She would come up behind me and embrace me, even managed to surprise me with a full frontal hug once.
I had reported this to administration each time, but was not believed. “It’s just a harmless schoolgirl crush,” I was told. One day an assistant principal just happened to see her come up behind me and embrace me (like my wife would), and he immediately took her to his office.
She was removed from my class and instructed to never speak to me again. It was so bad that the female teachers in the rooms close to me gave me their cell numbers to text them if I needed someone in the room.
When I started teaching college I have had girls flirt with me, but that’s it. No “I’ll do anything to pass“ situations, or “I’m not in your class anymore,” things. They would flirt and I would completely ignore it, and it stopped.”
7. Sweet and concerning.
“My first teaching practicum was in a grade 7-8 class of students who were learning English as an additional language. There were two boys who never spoke to me, and while they did have fairly limited English, they somehow managed to speak to other teachers just fine.
On my last day, one boy told me that I was a beautiful singer and that he’d been watching my videos on Facebook. I guess he somehow creeped my very private profile and found some old videos of my performances at an open mic.
For the next year, he would continue to send me messages on Facebook saying “I miss you Ms B” and “Why don’t you come visit?” I never responded. It was both sweet and concerning.
I wish I had a chance to teach that kid about boundaries and that playing it cool is a better approach to getting girls to like him.”
8. How charming.
“When I was working with Italian exchange students at a summer camp, one gave a big speech in Italian on the final night.
Midway through, she said something then looked at me and then everyone including my Italian colleagues gasped/burst into hysterics.
My colleague told me she had said something like “….and you. I think about you when I touch myself at night”
Not ideal hearing that from a 14 year old, thank God I only had 1 more day with that group.”
9. I LOVE YOU!
“When I was doing my student teaching, I had one student who would refuse to talk to me.
I thought the dude hated me. One day I tried to start a conversation with him, and he started to sob and cling to my leg shouting, “PLEASE MARRY ME! PLEASE MARRY ME!”
10. Not very experienced.
“When I was a Senior in undergrad I made extra money by leading recitation sections for the freshman physics class.
One student clearly didn’t have much experience with girls (never happens in physics! /s) and did the classic move of assuming that because I was paying attention to him and answering his questions, it meant I was romantically interested in him.
This was of course announced with a ton of emails and FB messages in like two or three days, which made it amply clear he didn’t understand that me talking to him about physics and being nice was my job and I treated all students the same.
I basically told my physics prof supervisor what was happening and he was a little taken aback (“I can’t say that’s happened to me before”), but he gave the kid a stern talking to.
Turns out said kid had also been reported by a female classmate to the Title IX office in that first semester, so yeah, he just really didn’t get how to interact with women.”
11. Can we kiss?
“One of my students, who was less than half my age, told me she wanted to kiss me. She said this in a very public place, while I was chatting with her and her best friend.
After she said it, I just kept jabbering away about whatever while my brain went “Wait, WHAT?””
12. Stalked.
“I had a girl in my grade 10 class who stalked me. First day of class I kicked her out for being disruptive, had a word with her in the hallway and she broke down in tears.
Sent her to the counsellors to deal with whatever she was dealing with. After that, she just sort of glommed onto me. Would come to my classroom at lunch, joined the extracurricular activity I coached, would wait for me in the parking lot after school and watch me drive away. Final straw for me was that she somehow found out my unlisted number (this was 10 years ago when I still had a land line) and left a really bizarre message.
I recorded it and emailed it to my AP. When she got to school that day, she brought me a gift bag full of stuff which I was afraid to open. I brought it down to the office. My AP, the counsellor, the girl and I had a meeting during my prep period where the girl herself said that maybe she should be taken out of my class.
As soon as I left the meeting to go to my next class, I was told she flipped out and was screaming at the AP and the counsellor about not wanting to be removed from my class. I was required to park at a nearby park for the next little while and the school counsellor drove me from there to the school at back to my car as they were scared she would do something to my car.
She was placed in a female teacher’s class after that and soon after she sadly tried to take her own life. I’m not sure what happened to her after she was placed at the children’s hospital. I hope she got the help she needed. We did learn, though, that a similar thing happened between her and another teacher at her jr. high school.”
13. That’s creepy.
“When I taught 14 and 15-year-old students (I was 23 at the time), on one of my last days at the school, a group of 3 boys cornered me and demanded that I choose which one of them I wanted as my boyfriend.”
14. How can I avoid her…?
“She would wait for me in the parking lot after class.
I had to start using the buddy system just to get to my truck without incident.”
15. Propositioned.
“Was directly propositioned right before his graduation. He was 18 and I was 24, it was my first teaching job.
It was ridiculously uncomfortable and he’d been flirting excessively all semester.
Didn’t expect him to be brave enough to say anything but I guess he thought with graduation 2 days away it didn’t matter anymore. Husband was less than amused. “
16. More than once…
“A few times.
They tell me that they are attracted to / love me. I let them know that my feelings for them are like a child of mine or little brother / sister.
I move forward, treat them with considerate respect – do my best job to provide them an excellent education.
Public school teacher of a decade and a half.”
17. The note.
“I had a student who, on the last day of class her junior year, left a note on her desk that said I was “cool, and if [I] wasn’t married, [she’d] totally ask me on a date.” We crossed paths again the next year and both pretended that nothing happened.
It was actually a sad story, because her mom had died earlier in the year, so I think it was a mixture of her feeling extra vulnerable, and me being 23 when I started teaching, that lead her to leave that silly note.”
18. Avoid at all costs.
“I had a student that used to draw hearts in her exams, she’d go to the office hours to ask me absolutely nothing relevant.
This was in university, and by the end of the semester she sent me an email asking me out and with a nude pic. I never responded and she never contacted me again”
19. Yikes.
“A child once told her friend that she wanted to marry me.
Additionally, she said that she hoped the mother of my children died so we could be together and that she’d been planning to do cartwheels in front of me so that I could see her underwear.
She was 9 at the time.
It was truly grim.”
20. Uh oh…
“I was an ESL teacher at a language school that was owned by a Catholic university. I taught a lot of the brothers (most of them working their way to priesthood) from other countries that would come and learn English at the school.
One day in a one on one class, a Vietnamese brother told me his s*x dream in broken English and then later told me how much he liked me and how he would get sad when we do teacher rotations.
It was veeeery awkward. I later reported it to my head teacher and thankfully never got to teach him again.”
21. Be gentle…
“Yes, a few times.
I just let them down gently, try not to crush their spirits or embarrass them too badly.
Then I make it clear it’s not happening, and continue being kind and understanding.”
22. Getting it from all sides.
“I taught primary school for many years.
Lots of little girls and their moms have confessed their love for me. I only every slept with one student’s parent. And zero students.”
23. A bold move.
“I was a substitute teacher while in college.
One day while subbing for a middle school art class, a 6th grade boy passed me a note on his way out of class. It read, “Miss C, I want to make love to you”.
I’m not sure if I was more shocked by the proposition or the wording! I didn’t sub for that class again, thankfully!”
24. My tutor.
“I was a tutor when I was 20.
I had a female student, (8th grade) come to me, tell me she was high on pills, and proceeded to tell me about her dream where she confessed her love and made out with me.
I clearly stated I was not interested and alerted admin of the fact she was high at school.”
25. Pretty popular, huh?
“I run technology for a middle school and have had numerous teenage girls profess their love to me.
I am not that attractive and try to limit all my interactions with every student, since I’m not an actual teacher (I am often asked to sub, provide assistance and lunch and after school duties, and still have to assist students with their technology).
I once had a girl walk into my office, kick the door closed, and then begin venting to me about her day before telling me that the thing she loves most about me is how easy I am to talk to. I now keep my office door closed and locked at all times.
Since my second or third time dealing with a young individual telling me they have a crush on me, I’ve come up with some talking points to try to make this the most positive interaction possible:
I am really proud of you for being in touch with your emotions and having the courage and confidence to discuss them
There are numerous reasons why this is wildly inappropriate and why after this conversation, we will never discuss this again. None of them are your fault, but nothing will ever go further than this conversation
You have so much potential and should exercise that instead of spending time thinking of people SIGNIFICANTLY older than yourself right now.
Considering how little we’ve ever interacted, I want you to think of what qualities you found so profound that you felt the way you do. Consider them and ask yourself how that will best benefit you. Always know what you want and go after what will bring the most positivity in your life. You are the most important person in your life, so make sure you always love yourself first.
After that, I report the interaction to one of the administrators at my school in case they get a call from a parent.”
Have you ever had a student profess their love to you?
Or maybe YOU were in love with a teacher during your school days?
Tell us your stories in the comments! Thanks!
