Having a crush on your teacher is incredibly normal. Virtually everyone at some point had a teacher or TA or professor who they thought was cute. Normally it doesn't go any further than a harmless crush. But sometimes the student goes a little too far with it, somehow failing to realize when an infatuation is utterly hopeless.
These folks from around the world recently went online to share their best stories of student-teacher crushes. Some of them are teachers, some are students. All got tangled up in the awkward world of 'hot for teacher.' Class is now in session.
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40. Kid's got some game
I had a student ask me if I was married....yes. This was followed by, “but are you happily married?” I started teaching way too young.
39. How quickly they forget
I taught preschool and the owner's grandson would tell everyone we were going to get married once he was done with first grade. He even gave me mittens with hearts on them because hearts are for love. He’s in middle school now and doesn’t remember me.
38. That's just super unprofessional
My first year. Teaching high school. The A/V Department made an end of the year tape for the students every year as a keepsake. That year they allowed a senior to profess her love to me on the tape. I didn’t know she had done this and they had allowed it until it played over their A/V system to the whole school. Needless to say I was furious. But I couldn’t make too much of a stink because I didn’t want a lot of attention drawn to it. And they weren’t going to take it out.
37. Rooster in the henhouse
This one is a little bit different, but super awkward -- I promise!
It was parent-teacher night. A single mum came in to talk about her son. Her youngest daughter (probably about 4) runs in, jumps on my knee, and exclaims, "My mummy says you're going to be our new daddy.”
It was the longest conference of my life.
The mom actually handled it really well, just came out with something along the lines of "oh isn't she silly?" Obviously, I just tried my best to ignore it and get through the appointment as quickly as possible.
I was 24 at the time and the only male teacher in the school, and the first in several years, so I was fairly experienced when it came to dealing with comments made by students. But this one threw me right off.
36. Love is a warm cup of coffee
I had a student who had a rough life. Mom pretty much abandoned him, and grandma was raising him by pawning him off to family on the weekends. I knew he was going to have a rough life if someone didn’t step in and let him know he mattered.
He asked me one day "how you would know if someone loved you?" I jokingly replied that that person would bring me coffee in the morning. A few days later he came into the gym with a huge smile and a cup of gas station coffee. He walked right up and handed it to me along with a bag of creamers and sugars. He said he didn’t know how I liked my coffee so he grabbed one of each. He saved his allowance, and asked his grandma to leave for school early so he could stop by the gas station.
The next year he brought me a coffee mug so I could remember him when I drank my morning coffee. That kid will always have my heart.
Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels
35. I guess he wasn't learning much
I teach at a local university and I've had a few, including one who used to sketch me during class, one who tried to put his arm around me, etc. The most obvious and persistent was a student who used to follow me after class every day, show up at my office "just to talk," and spent all of his time attempting to look down my shirt. He ended up dropping out of college halfway through the semester.
34. And away you go
A student who had a crush on me wrote a straightforward proposition and asked another teacher to deliver it to me. This teacher was a mentor of sorts to the student, so you'd think he'd do something wiser and more responsible than what he actually did, which was deliver the note and threaten me with some form of unspecified violence if I told anyone. So I informed the principal, and both the student and teacher were transferred to other schools.
33. "You're pretty for a sociologist"
I teach at a university and students ask me out. I had a student once ask me out in front of the class while I was teaching, but I think it was more a power move than anything else.
Bonus story! I teach a sexuality class and a student brought up negging. I asked the class for a definition and one dude goes, "You're pretty for a sociologist." The entire class was horrified that he had negged me.
32. This is my Insta
Young male middle school teacher here. I know quite a few of them who have a crush on me. There's a new fad where they tell each other's secrets and say "oooh exposed!" Since when did snitching become popular? Anyway, I always get told who has a crush on me. And quite often some of the girls will drop by to leave their athletic bags, or instruments, etc. in the classroom and they bring their friends in with them. When they leave I always hear comments like, "I wish I had HIM as my teacher."
My top 3 worst incidents:
1. I had a girl come in at lunch. She told me, "I like you." Knowing full well what she meant, I tried to play it off and said as nonchalant as I could, "I like you too, you're a great student!" She was like, "No, I mean I realllly like you." I couldn't believe the tenacity.
2. Another student asked me to take a picture with her towards the end of the school year. I obliged and on the last day she printed it out and gave it to me with her Instagram on the back and a message about how cute I was.
3. A girl found my Facebook and saved my profile picture as the background to her phone. I deleted my Facebook promptly afterward.
If only I could get that kind of attention from girls my own age!
31. What a nice complime-
I had a kid ask me to marry him the other day. Then he proceeded to say I would be way to old for him by the time he was old enough to get married.
30. "Are you married?"
I'm not much to look at now, but in the mid-90's I was a much handsomer fellow. I was working at a Catholic high school at the height of my best hairstyle and my size 28 waist (those are both gone now). The first day I started, a group of giggling teenage girls were huddled and whispering and looking at me. One of them worked up the guts to come over to me and say "Hello, sir... one question please? Just... just... " she was blushing "Are you married?" So yeah, a bunch of 16-year-old girls were hoping I was single. What they thought they'd do if I was, I'm not sure... but they were crushing.
One day I'm walking down a long hallway at the school and was vaguely aware of a group of girls behind me whispering. I didn't realize they were focused on me until I heard one say, "Look at his butt!" I stopped without turning around, and they burst into loud embarrassed laughter and then scattered like cockroaches when the light turns on.
Now, in 2017, I look like the poster from About Schmidt. But I had my day once upon a time.
29. A Crunch for a crush
I teach 7 grade so... I had a boy come back from the book fair with a freshly purchased set of bouncy balls. He proudly held them out and asked if I wanted to touch his balls. Another time I had a 7th grade boy get down on one knee and ask me to the Valentine's dance while handing me a note. He had taped a Nestle Crunch bar to the note.
28. Anything for an A
Being a TA in college a lot of girls get flirty for favorable grades, some try harder than others. Then during office hours right before the final girls will be coming in with pushup bras and tiny shorts like that's going to work.
Once I subbed for my buddy's high school class and one of the girls sat front row center giving me the "come hither" eyes the entire hour, it was a little uncomfortable.
The most inappropriate thing I've over heard said about me wasn't romantic, but rather about my military experience, just spreading untrue rumors.
27. Muscle man
I'm a primary school teacher.
The girls will just come and find reasons to be close to you. Stand next to you and lean into you, try to lock arms, hug you, etc. They'll say that they really like you.
They try to touch my beard too. I go to the gym a lot and am starting to get decent looking body. They ask me to show them my muscles or if I have a six pack, etc. That can get pretty weird.
One time a girl brought in a plastic rose for me on Valentine's day. That was the sweetest one and I've actually still kept that. Funnily enough it's the only thing I've ever received on Valentine's day.
26. No Disney Prince
Story time. When I was a young whipper snapper back in 2nd grade I had a teacher named Ms. Aust She was young and pretty and I had been watching Disney movies for a billion years so I thought I knew how to woo the ladies. Each morning we would go over attendance and say "here" or "present". I decided to go back to back mornings with "what's cooking good looking" and "What's shaken bacon?" Needless to say I was sent to the counselors office because they suspected I was being abused and acting out as a result.
That got dark fast.
25. As if being a substitute teacher wasn't awkward enough
I used to be a sub. One time I was writing something on the board when I heard a female student say something to a friend about me. I couldn't make it out exactly, just my name and something about a pony. I turn around and jokingly say, "What was that now?" And she gets visibly embarrassed. Almost immediately, her friend shouts, "SIR, SHE SAID SHE WOULD RIDE YOU LIKE A PONY!" I didn't know how to respond, so I just went about what I was doing.
24. Never give up on your dream
I used to be a Cub Scout Guide. One of our boys (10 years old) had a crush on my adjutant (16-year-old girl). He swore she would be his girlfriend one day, and was strangely serious about it. We laughed it off, and forgot about it.
Years went by, the boy become a man, joined the army, came back, went to med school, got buff and handsome, and reached out to his old crush on Facebook.
They were married last May, and now have a baby girl.
23. He's not buying what you're selling
I had a crush on my teacher in high school. After I graduated, I asked him out to lunch with my best friend and I. He agreed. We met up a few days later and he walked in... with his husband. That was a rough day for me.
22. Oh those dirty MSN Messenger days...
In the days of MSN, I got a chat invite from someone who had the same last name as me. I assumed it was a relation, but they didn't say anything and so I left for a bit to eat. I came back and saw a couple more people had been added to the chat and saw they'd been talking about me. I realized they were students because they referred to me as 'Miss ----'. They were teasing one of the others for his crush on me and he was defending my 'massive butt' as 'hot'.
21. Leave God out of this
Starting teaching High School English at 21 in the early 90s. (Very religious) student wrote me an anonymous letter explaining that she believed that God had put her in my class because we were meant to be together. Figured it out by handwriting, reported it. It was last days of the school year before she graduated, so I don't think I ever had to deal with her being in my class again because of finals or something.
20. It's harder when you're a professor
Prof here - early 30s male. It happens a lot - being in a position of authority is certainly the main cause, and a lot of girls (and some guys) like to flirt. But being in a position of authority also means you need to be the responsible one and not do anything unethical.
My best line of defense is to act oblivious. It has the added benefit of making me seem a bit dense about the ways of romance, which I hope is a bit of a turn-off. I've gotten a few 'call me' emails after semesters end, but beyond being happily married, it'd still be wrong (in a hot way I'd probably mess up big time with). So being married I guess helps too.
Usually it's harmless flirting, but this one time... Absolutely gorgeous girl (incidentally born in Slovakia, where the people are really, really ridiculously good looking) transferred into my class from another section and quickly started sitting in the front row, asking lots of questions, being extremely engaged in the class while wearing thigh highs with short skirts and often parting her legs or sitting in very revealing positions.
She started finding me after class when I'd smoke a cig and join me. She made it very clear we could do whatever after the semester ended - probably the most tempted I've been to stray aside from an old Slovakian roommate of mine I met up with in Europe a couple years ago (I gotta do something about that Slovakian thing), but I didn't mess everything up.
So usually its pretty easy, students understand boundaries and we remember our obligations to scholastic/professional integrity and/or other responsibilities (most of us anyway). But 18-23 year olds can also be crazy hot, so other times it's a struggle. We're all humans, so we deal with it the best we're able.
19. I have a feeling the teacher might have figured it out
When I was playing Hamlet in the school play, and the girl playing Ophelia got stage fright at the last minute, so the drama teacher had to costume up and sub in for her, on her knees in a low-cut bodice, hanging onto my leg, and screaming, "Oh, help him, you sweet heavens!"
I got aroused in front of 500 people.
18. Now he's in love with his third grade teacher
I taught Pre-K and one student always wanted to he around me and would pretend to slip up and call me mom. He saw my phone had a screensaver of me and my at the time boyfriend and he got all mad and said I should break up with him. Kids are adorable, I doubt he'll remember me in a few years.
17. I thought they just really liked French
French teacher here. Teenagers are just constantly inappropriate and need very little encouragement- I got asked to prom, had boys tell other teachers that they thought I was hot, had a parent accusingly tell me that she now understood why her son loved French, which I took to mean that my innovative skill set had inspired him... I didn't mind though, it meant that I had a class with 12 previously disengaged 16 year old boys come back for extra homework and revision classes every lunch time and after school and every one of those bags of hormones passed.
Photo by kat wilcox from Pexels
16. She's a poet and she know it
Working as a substitute teacher, i had a sixth grader hand in a poem that went: "Roses are red, violets are Blue I am single, how about you?"
She also worked her phone number into another poem she handed in.
15. We are not amused
Back when I was teaching preschool. Three-year-olds don't do subtle. He always wanted to hold my hand when we went on walks, to sit next to me at circle time, and just to look at me with puppy eyes. It was adorable, but at the same time it was a relief when he grew out of it.
Years later, I was teaching an all-boy class at a vocational high school and was lucky enough to get a bright new teacher on a Comenius exchange to co-teach the class with me. She was also quite attractive and the boys.... reacted. Since it was an English language class, I got a kick out of doing my best Mary Poppins impression: "Close your mouth, please, we are not a codfish."
14. Nice deflection, teach
I do have one embarrassing story about crushing on a teacher from when I was a high school student. It was my senior year and I had a crush on this young history teacher. He would come on model UN trips with us as a chaperone so he knew who I was. It was my birthday and he heard from a different teacher across the hall. He said “happy birthday” to me, and my response was: “Thanks, I’m 18.” I blurted it out very quickly and realized literally the second it left my mouth how inappropriate it was. His response? “Well you can vote now!”
13. No, no, that's a crush
I taught grade 7 and one kid in particular took a liking to me. It wasn't a "crush" per se. It came across more as a an elementary school fascination with the teacher. He would raise his hand constantly during class to answer questions, and when students were doing work he would raise his hand constantly to ask me random questions about my life. He had a few favourite questions like "What song is stuck in your head right now?" or "What's your fiancé's name?" One time he very excitedly told me he had seen me at Costco, and I hadn't been to Costco that week, so he clearly was seeing me in places I wasn't.
12. At least she taught them persistence
My older bro's friend proposed to our 60+ teacher every day. She always laughed about it. Cue the entire football team picking up on this and proposing to her before every game. For about 3 years.
11. Sweeter than candy
During college I was teaching a lesson about money and having a job to kindergarteners and opened with: "So how do you guys think I got the money to buy candy?"
Small blonde child: "Because you're cute!"
Supervising teacher in the back of the room just starts laughing.
10. "You need to keep your ovaries in check"
I'm not a teacher but when I was in college we had a pretty hot biology professor. Not only was he physically attractive but he seemed to be a pretty cool person. Most of the women in his classes were pretty smitten and I won't pretend like I wasn't one of them. However, I went back to college after a few years off so I was 26 in rooms of 18-21 year olds. Five years may not seem like a huge difference but holy crap, it was.
His office was connected to the lab and one day while myself and some other students were doing work in the lab, this one girl was quite loudly proclaiming the things she would do to him, including saying things like, "I don't care if he's married with kids." He was sitting in his office at the time and I said, "You need to keep your ovaries in check, he can definitely hear you right now." She said she didn't care and she hoped it tempted him. It made me uncomfortable for him, I can't imagine how he must've felt. He usually came out of his office to chat with us or help us but not that day.
9. Lawyering up
I teach high school and have since I was 23. At 31, I still hear comments, but in my first year I had a girl who was aggressive. I could tell she had a crush, but as long as she kept it to herself, whatever.
One day after class, she turned in her homework with a note attached. It contained a declaration of love and the exact date she turned 18.
What did I do? I called my union, and they sent a lawyer to mediate between myself and the parents and administration. I love my job and I take it seriously. She had to change classes and was told to stay away from me, and this was all documented. I felt a little bad, but as I said, I love my job.
To this day I use that as my example, one of many, why teachers need a union. We work all day with volatile little people in unpredictable situations. A teacher can do great work and have it all taken away for foolishness. I was glad to have someone to call, and they were there within a matter of an hour.
Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash
8. Sometimes you need to write a letter and NOT send it
When I was in high school I saw a handwritten letter on my English teacher's desk, while waiting to speak with her. Other kids were hanging around the desk, but I think I was the only one to spot and read the letter. It was sitting among piles of paperwork, partially obscured, but not HIDDEN so I suspect even the teacher hadn't seen it yet.
Paraphrasing, but the letter went something like this:
"Mrs. S,
I love your curves. I can't stop thinking about you. You are my favourite teacher because you have a great smile. I want to touch you and kiss you..."
There was more, but I didn't pull the letter from the pile to read it, because I realized how it would look for the teacher, and I was scared other people would see it. She was my favourite teacher at the time, and I suspected this note was very much NOT welcome, judging from her personality (very chill, friendly, professional teacher) and the fact that it wasn't HIDDEN. You'd think a teacher-student relationship would be a little less obvious.
I never told my friends. I never mentioned it to the teacher. I just kept quiet. I suspected she was the victim here, not the student, and I wasn't about to start any gossip about her, potentially getting her fired.
7. I like how kids think you can call dibs on romantic interests
On my first day as a middle school intern, one of my students told his friends, "Miss Turnoffthecentury is mine." I walked behind his seat right as he said it and he just about died from embarrassment when he figured out that I heard him. One of my high school students told me that my intelligence was hot to him. That was one of those moments where you look for another adult who can verify, for any potential, future record, that you weren't just creeping on that particular student.
Photo by Victoria Borodinova from Pexels
6. Coming on a little strong there
Kids or young adults thinking that an older authority figure is attractive is fairly normal and common but it can get creepy if it gets too close.
I had a young teenaged boy get a little too informal/familiar with me when e-mailing me over time, as students can do if they need to. He ended up sending me a picture of an anime character, who had the same hair colour as me, wearing a small bikini. He commented that he liked the show series she was from because he thought I looked a lot like her.
Brakes gotta be slammed right there.
5. Hungry eyes
I was teaching English as a second language when I had this exchange.
Had a 14 year old girl say, “I want to (m)eet you.”
I jokingly asked with a laugh, “You want to eat me?!”
She stared me dead in the eye and said, “Yes.”
Awkward.
4. You should have just taken the F
Back in middle school (16 years ago) I had a crush on a teacher of mine although I wasn't aware of the severity of it until it was too late.
Around Halloween time we were supposed to write a poem about a teacher of ours. I (of course) procrastinated until the night before and then realized that I lost the sheet with the contents of what the poem is supposed to be. All I knew was that it had to be about a teacher. So I chose (my crush, unbeknownst to me).
The next day I show up to class and try and turn in my paper where I was informed by my teacher crush that we were going to be reading our poems in front of two classes (separated by a sliding wall half the time). As other students read theirs, I quickly realized these poems were supposed to be Halloween related. I panicked because mine didn't fit the criteria and had nothing to do with Halloween.
It wasn't until I was reading mine aloud that I felt the sudden rushing 'aha' moment of what I had just confessed to the entire two classes.
Both teachers from either side of the wall and the entire student body watched in stupefied horror as I read it aloud, voice and hands shaking. Too late to turn back.
It went like this to start: "Mr. Hopper, Mr. Hopper, I have a dog named Copper. Mr. Hopper, Mr. Hopper you make my eyes popper."
I don't remember the rest. When I finally looked at Mr. Hopper, his entire face and neck was red with embarrassment. We never spoke of it ever, and I avoided him like the plague. I've never been so humiliated in all my life.
3. Blackmail, black heart
Back when I was teaching calculus at a private school one of my students, an eighteen year old young lady waited for me outside the classroom. As I was walking out she proceeded to push me against the wall, and try to kiss me. It was very uncomfortable and she was clearly agitated because I didn't allow it.
I explained to her I was her teacher, and that, while flattering, it would be wrong for any teacher to engage in that type of behavior with their students.
I immediately reported it to the headmaster, and he set up a meeting with the young lady, her parents, and myself. She apologized and promised to behave herself. Later that day, however, she grabbed my butt while I passed her in the hallway, and when I turned to face her grabbed my crotch, and questioned why I told on her as I jumped back. I told her this was unacceptable behavior, I wasn't going to allow it, and I would report to the headmaster again.
She then looked at me straight in the eye and told me if I didn't allow it she was going to say I tried to force myself on her. That either I would be her boyfriend or she would accuse me of indecent things with the headmaster, and it would just be my word against hers.
Fortunately for me, the headmaster was just around the corner and witnessed the whole thing. However, I went on to resign at the end of the year. I don't need that kind of worry in my life. In the end, had the headmaster not been nearby, and had it came down to my word against a student's, who knows what would have happen. I will not sacrifice my good name just because some spoiled brat is willing to lie simply because she didn't get her way.
2. Rapt attention
I was teaching at school comprised of about 98% boys. They paid attention in my classes. Like a lot of attention. One of them decided to move his seat closer to me every time I turned around to write on the board and then later asked me out... I said no.
1. Troy will not fall
Had a fourth grader in my after school program, where they called me "Mr. Troy." We're out on the playground one afternoon and I noticed her zoning out in my general direction. Asked her what was up and she goes, "Oh, just thinking of what it would be like to be Mrs. Troy." That was a long conversation.
