Most Friday nights, I hang out at Jackie O’s or Casa, dancing to Latin music or talking with friends on the deck. My guy friends drape their tanned arms around me and I laugh back because we’re young and we’re single and we're close enough friends to get away with it.
And then I turn toward the stage, and in the crowd around it I see a familiar bolt of gravity-defying black hair, 70’s throwback eyeglasses, white-on-white Michael Jordan slides. I take in all of this colorful fashion and think, “There goes Monday’s lesson.”
Because, of course, the guy is my student. He’s always my student. And he’s always pretty interested in observing his teacher in her natural surroundings. Yes, apparently this opportunity is as thrilling as watching a tiger bringing down a zebra on the African savannah. Especially since I’m not wearing my Naturalizer Mary Janes.
How I dread these encounters. I’m sure my taller friends are tired of acting as human shields when they would really like to be dancing with a cute girl on the other side of the bar. It’s not that I don’t like my students—I do. But I like to keep my personal life…well, a bit personal (but not personal enough to lock down my blog?). I’d rather not have to explain that the handsome friend I went to China Buffet with isn’t my boyfriend, or that I was walking to school not because my car was broken and I’m too poor to repair it but because I like the exercise. Or that I’m quite old enough to educate you on gerunds and infinitives, thank you.
I know my students are just curious—hell, I remember being entranced by the sight of a favorite professor sitting cross-legged on a friend’s shabby rug at a neighborhood get-together. But that was different, you know? He was wearing jeans!
Okay, it’s exactly the same thing. I guess all teachers have to deal with the gawking student effect, right? Maybe next time, I’ll do what my professor did that night: flash a peace sign and a big fat wink.
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