Your first lesson? Stop lusting after teacher

Opinion

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: How do you handle being in love with a Grade 12 teacher in your high school without her knowing? My situation is hopeless. School is starting again soon and I’m in Grade 12 for the second year. My stomach is already acting up. What can I do? How do I handle it?

— Back to Seeing Her Again, southeastern Manitoba

Dear Back to Seeing Her: If your teacher can avoid feeling the uncomfortable beams of lust from your direction this year, it will be much better for both of you.

To be sure, many high school students have had crushes on teachers, but to pursue a romantic relationship is simply out of bounds ethically and professionally, even once a former pupil is an adult. A teacher could get into a lot of legal trouble and lose their job for consorting with a student.

Manitoba Teachers’ Society guidelines are clear: “Teachers must avoid any situation that could create a conflict of interest, including situations where a relationship with a student or former student could be perceived as exploiting the privileged teacher- student relationship.”

You’re just going to have be mature about this and direct your romantic attention elsewhere.

This should be your final year, so be an interested student aiming for the highest marks possible to get you into the working world.

As for the nervous stomach problems, go see your doctor about how to best remedy them so you’re feeling well for when school begins.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My new next door neighbour and her housemate (another woman) have been enjoying their pool all summer, but have never once invited us over for a swim — not even on the hottest days. That just ticks me off. It’s just wrong and unneighbourly.

My male housemate and I even hinted on a scorching-hot day we’d love to come over, and they just pretended not to hear us.

My mother says, “If they invite one neighbour, maybe they feel like they’d have to invite the whole neighbourhood.“ Easy for her to say from her own backyard pool with the “ladies who lunch“ crowd.

My buddy and I have decided to buy our own pool now on a fall discount, and it’s arriving soon. So should I ever invite these babes next door over for a swim?

My mother says she knew someone who used this line on neighbours: “During the summer we have to please the relatives, but in late August we look forward to having a pool party and inviting our neighbours.“

Would that be a good way to handle it?

— Pool Politics, North End

Dear Pool Politics: That sounds like a good line to try out, but why not give all your closest neighbours a chance? Invitations to swim — with you providing snacks and refreshments — might bring them over and start some fun friendships that may even outlast the warm weather.

But if they don’t accept your invitations once or twice, you’ve tried and leave it at that.

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6.

Maureen Scurfield
Advice columnist

Maureen Scurfield writes the Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.

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