One of my colleagues from college married a former student of his

[RealSNR]

I found this out via facebook.

I went to grad school with this guy. We were acquaintances, but never really friends. Ideal facebook friends, in other words.

He got a job teaching at a college. In his first year he would have taught her when she was a freshman. She's two years removed from being his student. He's 12 years older than her.

There's nothing immoral about this, but am I wrong in thinking this is just a taaaaad bit creepy?

I mean, if they were doing this the right/moral way, they wouldn't have had any romantic involvement with each other whatsoever two years ago. Meaning they had two years to decide they wanted to elevate the mentor/mentoree relationship to something intimate. Then they had to get engaged and married. All in two years. That's it. Two years.

Whatevs. They're happy, I guess. Just... oh who am I kidding. That's gross. That's ****ing gross. It's weird and disgusting and I don't like it. Blech.

EDIT: Not that this matters since the conversation is dying down now, but to be clear my issue with the relationship is NOT about age. She could go marry a 100-year old incontinent man. I don't give a shit. My issue is that there was very likely stuff going on between them while he was still her professor. No, it's not a big deal to me. It's just off-putting and sets off the alarm.

The next person who posts, "there's nothing wrong with that my dad was 34 years older than my mom..." gets a big fat **** you.

[pr_capone]

Originally Posted by Ultra Peanut

gosh, why would i snidely respond to yet another in the endless stream of "ur a tranny" posts from the luminaries at Chiefs Planet Dot Com

you ****ing tard... you missed my intent and jumped straight into a tirade because you felt I was attacking you in some way. We could have conversed and probably came to an accord but you just wanted to bear your claws. Have at it then... I'm imperfect. My history is pretty laid out across the board. Pick something and poke at it until you feel we are even... in fact, take a little more so that you can feel good about yourself.

Either you can try and have a civilized discourse and possinly try to understand what I meant or you can throw a little tantrum and drama queen the hell out of this tread.

[Ultra Peanut]

Okay, I this is a personal subject for you and it explains your responses. I am pretty sure that neither myself nor SNR expressed the belief that an age difference, in itself, is grounds for not pursuing a relationship. This particular discussion stems from concerns about the unique, difficult issues relating to the power and influence someone in a relationship with a student or even former student could face.

That is all. It is not being played up as a monstrous thing, it's just a tricky situation that only partially pertains to the ages of those involved.

And no, I didn't jump on you because of your intent, I jumped on you because I can't make four posts on this ****ing forum without someone helpfully bringing up an incredibly personal, painful facet of my life that I shared in a time of desperation seven years ago. I AM AWARE. MY VIEWPOINT IS INFORMED BY MY EXPERIENCES AS A TRANS PERSON. Thank you ever so much for your edifying contribution.

[TimeForWasp]

I so horny

[RealSNR]

Originally Posted by DRU

It's just interesting to me how so many people talk shit on so many other people. I hear it all the time in every day life. Get a group of people together and you hear a lot of shit talking about other people.

This is just the online equivalent of it. Like sitting in a room watching all the people, and turning to your buddy to talk shit on them when you don't even know anything about anything about them.

Why exactly are you or is what you're doing any better than anybody else? Why waste your time having that conversation as oppose to some positive conversation?

Why are we so hard on Matt Cassel? He sucks, but that's no reason for us to go on the internet behind his back and make jokes about him having sex with the general manager or being a locker room klutz or getting AIDS and dying in a fire.

I clearly posted this thread trying to sample the board if I would do well to trust my emotions on this one. I didn't do it as a lame gossip story.

There are several posters here who also work in academia like myself who will have some interesting things to say no doubt. Already a good conversation has been getting on a roll since I started the thread. That was my intention.

[Dayze]

pics or GTFO

[RealSNR]

[Dayze]

Originally Posted by SNR

he's ok looking. but I wouldn't **** him.

[pr_capone]

Originally Posted by Ultra Peanut

Okay, I this is a personal subject for you and it explains your responses. I am pretty sure that neither myself nor SNR expressed the belief that an age difference, in itself, is grounds for not pursuing a relationship. This particular discussion stems from concerns about the unique, difficult issues relating to the power and influence someone in a relationship with a student or even former student could face.

That is all. It is not being played up as a monstrous thing, it's just a tricky situation that only partially pertains to the ages of those involved.

And no, I didn't jump on you because of your intent, I jumped on you because I can't make four posts on this ****ing forum without someone helpfully bringing up an incredibly personal, painful facet of my life that I shared in a time of desperation seven years ago. I AM AWARE. MY VIEWPOINT IS INFORMED BY MY EXPERIENCES AS A TRANS PERSON. Thank you ever so much for your edifying contribution.

you made it an age thing when you brought that one of upi favorite professors was skeeving on you and a few other classmates, and he's got a younger-by-a-decade wifeup the younger by the decade bit in your first post in here. This is what I was making all my comments in regards to.

Then then showed surprised at your reaction about the situation in OP. I honestly thought you would have been more sympathetic seeing that they are geting married and she hasn't been his student in 2 years. I honestly thought you would withhold judgement and see it for wat it looks like on its face. 2 peeps fell in love, tehy waited until she was no longer a student... then game on.

I was wrong in how I thought you would see this situation.

[Ultra Peanut]

Originally Posted by pr_capone

you made it an age thing when you brought that one of upi favorite professors was skeeving on you and a few other classmates, and he's got a younger-by-a-decade wifeup the younger by the decade bit in your first post in here. This is what I was making all my comments in regards to.

Then then showed surprised at your reaction about the situation in OP. I honestly thought you would have been more sympathetic seeing that they are geting married and she hasn't been his student in 2 years. I honestly thought you would withhold judgement and see it for wat it looks like on its face. 2 peeps fell in love, tehy waited until she was no longer a student... then game on.

I was wrong in how I thought you would see this situation.

a) The combination of his behavior around female students (not that it was outright bad, just that I kind of got the vibe he was maybe not solely platonically interested) and the fact that his wife was slightly older than me was enough to give me pause. Note that I also stated that I did my best to disregard these thoughts that were in the back of my mind because I enjoyed his classes a lot and he seemed like a swell guy and he never crossed any lines of professionalism, from what I could tell.

b) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

My trans history is not a bargaining chip to be used in an argument, is not a tool for you to use to stifle my expression of completely ****ing ordinary human emotions, and is not something you can point to to try to predict my reaction to wholly unrelated topics.

It's not something I actively use to contextualize every single issue I consider, and it sure as **** isn't something to be treated as my only defining characteristic. Which is what you are doing when you casually toss it around when I'm discussing complicated social interactions or terrible white safeties or the World Badminton Cup.

[DRU]

Originally Posted by SNR

Why are we so hard on Matt Cassel? He sucks, but that's no reason for us to go on the internet behind his back and make jokes about him having sex with the general manager or being a locker room klutz or getting AIDS and dying in a fire.

I clearly posted this thread trying to sample the board if I would do well to trust my emotions on this one. I didn't do it as a lame gossip story.

There are several posters here who also work in academia like myself who will have some interesting things to say no doubt. Already a good conversation has been getting on a roll since I started the thread. That was my intention.

There's no arguing that point as I've clearly jumped into the conversation as well. My general curiosity, though, is why social interactions are more about negative things (whether large or small) than positive things.

I can appreciate good topics and starting threads to get a general consensus about something. But why at the expense of somebody else? Why not post something interesting about yourself for us all to talk about and say whether or not it should be accepted or considered taboo?

Or on a similar note, why do all the comments on YouTube and the like turn into negativity no matter what type of video you're looking at? It's always been very interesting to me that the natural pull of society, across the world, is negativity and shit talking with each other, about each other to other people, etc.

It's usually just a few people, too, but they are powerful and can suck in the people around them. Would be interesting to see those same people turn that power around and use it in some other fashion.

So again, I don't mean any disrespect towards you directly, but my questions still stand. Why worry about it and waste your time, emotion, or energy with it? What draws you to that sort of thing over any of the other million things you could be doing with your time, online or offline? Things that actually do interest you and don't just make you feel icky.

When I see or hear things I genuinely don't like or care nothing about I typically just move on and I don't give it a second thought. In this case I almost did that except that it sparked these sociological questions in my mind, which does intrigue me.

Anyway, sorry for the tirade. I guess maybe I'm the drama queen tonight.

[Dayze]

if you truly respected your collegue, you'd post pics.
bastard.

[Ultra Peanut]

Originally Posted by DRU

So again, I don't mean any disrespect towards you directly, but my questions still stand. Why worry about it and waste your time, emotion, or energy with it? What draws you to that sort of thing over any of the other million things you could be doing with your time, online or offline? Things that actually do interest you and don't just make you feel icky.

He said he was looking for input on whether or not he should worry about a co-worker's potentially questionable ethical decisions.

I don't disagree that people are painfully negative and it's perplexing and frustrating, but I really don't think that's how SNR was approaching things.

[pr_capone]

Originally Posted by Ultra Peanut

a) The combination of his behavior around female students (not that it was outright bad, just that I kind of got the vibe he was maybe not solely platonically interested) and the fact that his wife was slightly older than me was enough to give me pause. Note that I also stated that I did my best to disregard these thoughts that were in the back of my mind because I enjoyed his classes a lot and he seemed like a swell guy and he never crossed any lines of professionalism, from what I could tell.

b) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

My trans history is not a bargaining chip to be used in an argument, is not a tool for you to use to stifle my expression of completely ****ing ordinary human emotions, and is not something you can point to to try to predict my reaction to wholly unrelated topics.

It's not something I actively use to contextualize every single issue I consider, and it sure as **** isn't something to be treated as my only defining characteristic. Which is whatwe you are doing when you casually toss it around when I'm discussing complicated social interactions or terrible white safeties or the World Badminton Cup.

Itbwas never my attempt nor desire to stifle you in any way but to engage in conversation based on my thought process on the subject. Then when you went all icon I was surprised because that is not how I expected you to react because you had been in a situation yourself where you were going against societies expectation of you. I thought you might show empathy and understanding. Instead you showed me quite the opposite and you are more than welcome to that oppinion. My gay and tranny friends, I don't think, would have reacted in the same way as you did so I definitely misjudged your reaction.

At least to me, there seems to be very little to be concerned about if they are in love and getting married. Life is hard enough, married life doubly so, without the world shitting on you. I'm 2 ambient in and steadily plowing coherence so I'm done here.

I hope these twobqre happy with one another and do the fairy tale happy ever after ending. **** the naysayers. As long as she isn't his student anymore and they are both willing... More power to them.

[Ultra Peanut]

You know how upsetting and intensely personal this subject is for you? Now imagine it's the most painful thing you've ever dealt with in your entire life, and then imagine that people brought it up all the time, completely at random, simply because they remembered that about you -- and that they frequently brought it up to try to score points when they disagreed with you. That is why my responses to you have been so clipped and annoyed.

Also?

Originally Posted by pr_capone

I thought you might show empathy and understanding. Instead you showed me quite the opposite and you are more than welcome to that oppinion. My gay and tranny friends, I don't think, would have reacted in the same way as you did so I definitely misjudged your reaction.

Acting like people who face open bigotry on a regular basis have an obligation to act in a certain way as a result of having faced said bigotry is unbelievably absurd.

[Simply Red]

I'm entirely lost, but i'm just going to say - I'm not sure, for now.

hey thanks a lot guys!