Dear Mr. Shumway: Thanks for not marrying me.
When I was in high school, I had the biggest crush on my chemistry teacher. Big enough that I was soooooo going to marry him.
Now, picture this. I was a complete and utter friendless dork in junior high. High school wasn’t much better. When my family moved up to Alaska a few years later, I decided I wasn’t going to be like that anymore. Of course, a crippling-shy personality didn’t exactly make that come true — I was still a total dork — but I did manage to gain some self-confidence.
I liked to imagine myself as something like this. The reality was not like this AT ALL.
At the same time, my high school got a new chemistry teacher, pretty much fresh out of college. And OMG, he was a dork, too. And kind of cute. And he blushed and got embarrassed pretty easily. And I fell hard hard hard.
I managed to score his teacher’s aide position the next year. (Crush aside, this was pretty awesome. It meant absolutely no homework.) I set up the labs for the next class. I graded tests. I cleaned out his fish tank. And I made plans.
They went something like this:
I was going to grow up, go to college, and return an awesome swan. He’d be all: OMG! You’re so amazing and I love you!!! Then every night we would go to his cabin (I don’t know if he had a cabin, but this was Alaska, and I know he had a dog and was the outdoorsy-type, so I assumed cabin) and revel in our dorky love.
(And, okay, maybe one day we’d have a Big Misunderstanding, and he’d think I was cheating on him, and despite my protests and claims of innocence, he’d call me a WHORESLUT and then I’d cry and run away from our cabin into the snowy woods, and then he’d feel sorry and come after me — but too late! Because I’d already be frozen to death and my tears dried into perfect little crystals on my cheeks, and he’d be sorry!)
Um. So.
One day he came back to school from a break and was married. I was devastated, but I decided to attend the same college that she did. (Brown. And no, I didn’t even apply there.)
Anyway, despite all of that, I’m glad he didn’t notice how awesome I was and sweep me into dorky bliss. I kind of like what I have now. And every time my husband calls me a whoreslut, we die laughing instead of freezing to death.
But I’d also like to thank:
Dar, the Beastmaster; Diana, the Visitor; Superman and Batman; Starbuck from the original BSG and Face from the A-Team; MacGyver; Zach Heffner in the fourth grade; Clint Johnson in the seventh grade; Lucivar; and Angelina Jolie from the moment I first saw her in Hackers, an otherwise horrid movie. Okay, and Starbuck from the new BSG, too.
Thank you for not marrying me.
Dear Mr. Culver (high school physics teacher),
Thanks for not marrying me.
lol! What is it about those scientists?
You made me laugh so much that my bf turned around
I love that ending
That list could have been a lot longer, but I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one day
Heh, awesome self-image! Yeah, I was the dorky loner as well. I look back on my early crushes and wonder wth I was thinking. (Clearly, I wasn’t.)
Now I have a man who loves me in all my dorky glory…and a pair of little dorklets just like us. Thank God for unanswered prayers!
Yes, definitely. When I think about it, a lot of those early crushes involved me being not-me — a better, Mary Sue me. I’d rather do it this way, and be me-me … it’s not like marriage and romance isn’t hard enough without managing another (fake) person in there.
My high school chemistry teacher got fired for ‘inappropriately pursuing female students’. He was mucho creepy.
Dear Self,
Good call on skipping all those late afternoon study halls he kept inviting you to.
Love,
Jill
HA!
I definitely never got that vibe from Shumway. If I had, I think this would have been a very different story, and “creepy” the word of the day.
OMG…. WHICH TEACHER???? ROTFLMAO!!! I never got that vibe from my teachers either…and one of them married a student as soon as she graduated!
(guess that was one way to get a A+ in government!)
I was pretty normal and pathetic. There was this awesomely pretty football player in high school. I shared a speech class with him. What a joke. Whenever I got within spitting distance, surprisingly(or not), my powers of speech promptly disappeared. No cute teachers. That would’ve been nice.
Teachers are nice (as long as they aren’t the creepy type above) because they are kind of a safe crush. You know deep-down that nothing can really happen, and so you can have all of that longing with none of the real soul-crushing teenage rejection.
Or that’s the way I like to see it
Awesome post!
First…
“crippling-shy personality”
*snarf*
Second – awesome list! I loved Dar!
LOL! It’s true! I still have severe anxiety in social situations. The internet makes it easy to interact, luckily.
Marc Singer! *happy sigh*
Hackers was a horrible movie but I kind of love it. Sometimes I feel an intense need to throw my arms up into the air and scream HACK THE PLANET.
Ahem.
That’s kind of how I feel about it. It’s an awful movie (oh, god, and the clothes! Agh!) But it’s the good kind of trainwreck, especially looking back at it now. The technology is so, so dated.
I was the punk with brains in school. Sadly I acted as if I were too old for the rest of my classmates. And then there was my history teacher – wild shoulder length hair, light green eyes and cool enough he actually sat cross legged on his desk. He treated me with respect and talked to me like a human being. I wonder whatever happened to him.
In short, I think we’ve all had that one teacher we crushed on. I know he was mine. (Hugs)Indigo
Yeah, I think a lot of us do.
One of my favorite blog posts ever was from Suisan when she talks about one of hers and how he’d slice his apple with his pocketknife. I’ve only read that entry once, but that image has stuck with me for so long, and I think it’s the same with Shumway (his thing that I still <3 was his laugh).
... okay, now I have to find that post.
Aha! http://suisan.blogspot.com/2006/04/memory-that-wasnt.html
Ahem. Yes, it is good that we most often don’t get our youthful wishes.
When I went to college (UC Berkeley) I was standing in line to buy text books when I saw someone from my high school. Here’s how the conversation went:
Him: What are you doing here?
Me: Buying text books.
Him: You go here?
Me: Yes.
Him: I didn’t know you were smart enough to get in here.
So, I was a nerdy dork who was believed to be stupid.
Oddly enough I never spoke to him again.
Believe it or not I never crushed on a teacher! Not even in college! Before you nominate me for sainthood you must understand that this was not because of my upstanding moral character but more from lack of opportunity.
Wish I’d had one or two hunky teachers though, would have made some of those classes easier to pay attention in. Now I just feel gypped!
There was this one guy (fellow student) in 6th grade who was the pretty-boy-all-the-girls-wanted and he actually seemed to like me! It was sooo flattering though it never went anywhere beyond me acting like a dork whenever he was around. He came out of the closet our senior year of high school. A lot of things made sense after that…
Mr. Menzel of the golden tan(a neat trick in Minnesota), brown wavy hair, and light blue eyes. He drove a blue Corvette. I made a complete fool out of myself in 10th and 11th grade following him around the school, running into him in the hallway whenever I could. But, lord, was he good-looking. As embarrassing as that was in retrospect, I think I would probably do it all over again!
My first crush was Cpt. Nemo.
My second was Aragorn.
Sorry, it doesn’t get any more hopeful.
But safe? Oh, yeah!
=A
I agree, lots of fictional crushes here. Realistic? No. Fun? Yes.
I had this amazing, wonderful teacher in middle school who to this day is still the only person I think about (in a good way) when it comes to school.
He was my…I don’t know what you call the class now, but his class was basically my homeroom during the day. We bonded in a completely, noncreepy way and when I was in my 20′s I was actually able to see him again and thank him for being such an amazing person. He’s the only teacher I ever had who actually made learning fun and he spoke with the most amazing accent EVER. *sigh* I had a total noncrush on him (if that makes sense).