I have a longer Required Reading post in the works, but this link deserves its own entry.

Professors: Hot at Their Own Risk examines the challenges that attractive academics face.

The idea of appealing educators being harassed by their students seems a little gross as I approach 40. When I was in college, though, there was always that hope at the beginning of each semester that one of my classes would be taught by a hottie. As best as I can remember, it only happened once.

The graduate student who taught one of my Spanish classes was a looker. She was smart, funny, spoke four languages, had a cool sounding name, and her looks were right up my alley. Since I had trouble talking to random girls at bars or parties, there was no way I could pull off making a move on Senorita Dias. But over the semester, we established a nice rapport so there was always that tiny chance that perhaps we would run into each other out on the town and one thing could lead to another.

I know, this from the guy who walked right by the hot TV anchor he was in love with when she was staring at him a few years later.

Anyway, as I tended to do back then, I skipped a number of classes over the semester and missed some assignments. Since she was a student herself, and super cool, she opened her office at the end of the semester for everyone to come in and complete all their missed assignments after our final oral exam. When I arrived for my presentation, one of my friends from class was in the corner knocking out all of his missed assignments. This both put me at ease and gave me a shot of confidence: he struggled in class so I was going to seem fluent in comparison.

The exam was basically a conversation. The instructor would ask a question to start and our job was to carry on a conversation, completely in Spanish, for 5-10 minutes. I was in the zone! I was conjugating verbs correctly, remembering obscure words, and so on. It was going great.

I finished up and swapped places with my buddy. I worked through all my missed assignments as he struggled to put more than three words together correctly. From time-to-time our teacher gave him permission to ask me for help. I was both being generous and padding my grade!

His exam ended, he left, and I wrapped up my make-up work. The teacher said something about having missed her bus. I had driven to campus that day and offered her a ride. She seemed a bit nervous but accepted. We walked to my car and talked about our plans for the holidays. At one point she tripped over a coat hanger that was lying on the sidewalk, getting her feet caught inside. She was either very clumsy or very nervous. Was she nervous because she was hanging out with a student, or because she was interested in me, too?

We got to my car, I drove her home, we said our goodbyes, and I never saw her again. Naturally. I know a normal guy would have made some kind of move, either seeing what she was doing before she left for home or giving her a call when the new semester started. Not me, the champion of failing to pursue romantic opportunities.

“I never thought something like this could happen to a guy like me, but…”

There’s no doubting I would have blown it, but who doesn’t at least smile and say hello? Me, that’s who.

❖