A friend once described me as “an introvert who needs people,” a classification that goes some way towards explaining my love/hate relationship with the new ways we’ve come to communicate with each other.
I hate talking on the phone, so I happily welcomed the spread of email. I got a cell phone in order to talk on the phone less, not more, thanks to built-in caller ID. It turns out I hate spelling out words using a numeric keypad even more than I hate talking on the phone, so I haven’t become much of a texter. Blogs in their early days were populated largely by recluses and misanthropes, so I felt rather at home. Even now, the blogosphere is exotic enough that there are very few points of contact between real life and online life unless I actually seek them out.
Then came the “social networking” sites: Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and the like. I didn’t see the point at first, finally joining Friendster when friends told me they were getting dates with it. For my demographic I guess I was an early Facebook adopter, but only recently has it become enjoyable as more and more of my IRL friends join — and as I get the hang of status messages and photo tagging.
Unfortunately, as Facebook spreads among people who are new to online social interaction, it creates social problems for people like me who go online largely as a refuge from the pressures of offline interaction. And Facebook’s most distinguishing feature, the use of real names as user names, means a new porousness between social spheres. And this creates pickles, a few of which follow:
1. The One-Off: This pickle existed with MySpace and Friendster, but it’s worse with Facebook. You’re at a party, you meet someone who’s sort of interesting after your fourth beer, you share some pleasantries and maybe some drunken confidences, and you part at the end of the night with warm feelings. If you’re like me, you have learned enough about yourself to admit that you will probably never see this person again. You’re also dismayed when you get a friend request a couple days later. Do you add a “friend” to your roster who would otherwise drift harmlessly into the obscuring mists of time, or do you hit “Ignore” and violate the temporary bonds of drunken fraternity?
2. The Crossover: Like many people, you have different values than some of your family members, values that are reflected, however weakly, in your Facebook interactions. You get a friend request from a super-religious family member. Do you keep your social spheres separate and protect your sister from the mildly blasphemous realities of your life, or do you let it all hang out, figuring you have nothing to hide?
3. The Old Flame: A high-school crush tracks you down, the girl you took to Junior Prom. She’s got a marriage, a kid or two, an interesting career. You’re happy to hear from her. Will she be surprised to hear you’re out of the closet, or will that finally explain the awkwardness after the dance all those years ago?
4. The Dark Hole Whence No Light Can Escape: It turns out that Middle America is catching on to Facebook, and that includes dozens of members of your high-school class. They somehow remember your name and send you friend requests. You can’t remember most of them; a few ring vague bells; a handful seem really familiar but still quite hazy. You begin to realize the extent to which you’ve blocked out the social intrigues of high school, or maybe the extent to which you were left out of them in the first place. Do you add these people as a pro forma gesture to the past, or do you defer until you can dig up your old yearbooks and maybe refresh your memory a bit, or do you take the opportunity to rehearse the reasons you hated high school and feel satisfaction that you don’t have to go back in any way, not even via Facebook?
5. The Bad Conscience: You were friends with the guy in elementary and middle school. Freshman year he started to get kinda weird, talking all the time about Faces of Death, which he described as hilarious. You made a conscious decision to end the friendship, the first time you cut someone out of your life on purpose. Now you get the inevitable friend invite — looks like he’s married, has a steady, responsible life, hasn’t been convicted of anything. Do you “add” in memory of the good times in second grade or do you “ignore” out of respect for your ninth-grade judgment?
once you’ve been “ignored” and you realize it’s really pretty painless. it makes it easier to do.
i think these are all new, fantastic options for socializing. everyone finds one, or combinations of them, that they like.
for my FB i drew the line at family members and mission people. (Kate the Great being my one exception.) originally i didn’t even want high school people. so then, the great dilemma came with a high school person that was also a mission person.
at first i ignored. and then i confirmed, and was pleasantly surprised that he’d made the same decisions i had, (although unfortunately he had to get remarried to do it. ; – / . . . [ yes Jeremy an emoticon.])
“an introvert that needs people”
“a misanthropic extrovert”
oh wait, i just read that high school people part.
originally i didn’t want high school people. but that turned out to be one of the funnest things about FB. all these HS people.
And Dave let me tell you this. Your electronic profile, your LIFE, is SO much more interesting than probably anyone you went to high school with, you should confirm every one of those people.
They’ll all end up thinking, “Goddamn! Dave turned out really cool!”
BROOKLYN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I highly suggest a spring-cleaning of FB friends. I did it one evening after a beer or two, silently and painlessly detached myself from a bunch of my unnecessary social encumbrances. Felt great!
BTW, that first paragraph or two are so eerie. Are you sure I didn’t sneak into your brain and write them?
I hate talking on the phone, so I happily welcomed the spread of email
I like talking on the phone in theory — want desparately to chat with my friends and family, to bask in the glow of relating to people. But in practice it never seems to work out that way — instead of chatting it’s all about the dangling conversation and superficial sighs… E-mail and to a lesser extent, electronic chat, seems to have really improved my abilities to relate to people. I haven’t signed up for Facebook yet, will probably give in and go along at some point. Is it anything like twitter? Because I don’t really get Twitter, haven’t found it very useful yet.
Here’s something worth listening to regarding facebook and those old gradeschool pals: http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_726_Facebook.mp3/view
At least you don’t have to worry about your students–former and current–wanting to be your Facebook friends. Steph tells me that I should probably ignore the requests, but I have a hard time not responding in some way to at least say sorry, no.
And, btw, because of texting, I almost never talk on the phone anymore. Happily so.
Yeah, glad I quit teaching before Facebook got going. As for texting, I’m sure that once I get an iphone I’ll be fine with it; using a regular phone, it takes a type of cognitive effort that I find extremely annoying.
The link in 5 looks interesting; will listen when I get a chance.
TMK: Facebook has a feature that’s a lot like Twitter, kinda Twitter Light, actually. It’s helped me see the point of Twitter, although I don’t do it myself. (Twitter? I hardly know her!) Facebook has a bunch of other features that are similarly diverting. If a large percentage of your IRL friends are on it, it can be helpful for planning events and such.
I agree with Lane. That fundamental concept of Facebook– the option of accept or ignore? It’s really easy to ignore people. Most of the time, people send out friend requests in a whim because you’re an acquaintance. That whim doesn’t have them waiting breathlessly to see if you’ve friended them; most of the time, they’ve forgotten they even sent you an acknowledgment unless you accept. If you do end up accepting, it’s with the same shrug that they sent the friend request. If you ignore them, they don’t get a notification of any kind. It happens, it’s silent, and it’s often unnoticed.
All in all, Facebook is a casual thing. It’s not like they’re going to mad at you for an eternity if you don’t want to add them to your social network. Facebook is a tool to keep track of just the people you want to keep track of.
Bave Dee.
cute, but . . . useless.
you pop up twice in the top ten of your google. there are other . . . people out there with your name.
but none of them play the MONOME!
Wait a second- you didn’t think Faces of Death was hilarious? Oh wait, I didn’t either!
Great post, lots of interesting thoughts, especially the 9th grade judgement.
9: I have my reasons.
11. i have no doubt
“IRL” = “In Real Life”? Is this Facebook lingo?
Not on Facebook yet, for many of the reasons you cite here. These are moral dilemmas I feel better avoiding.
I am, however, posting this from my iPhone (as I wait to be called for jury duty). Bave: get iPhone! Is good.
13: “IRL” predates Facebook by a number of years.
Guess I’m a newb.
n00b
Dave, I was one of the first people to join FB and, regrettably, learned my share of lessons about privacy and friendships. But as I played with it, I realized that FB is a very convoluted tool and has many options. I have a lot of very religious friends on FB from my university times. I believe that I am grown up enough to express my opinions and, if they don’t like it, I suppose, they have never been my friends to begin with. I do, however, use all of the options on FB and got so good at it that with the amazing variety of friends, each one only sees the side of me that I want them to see. I do get a lot of internet people out of nowhere and never accept their invitation. Best bet is to never “let it all hang out.”
6: Jeremy, it’s kind of sad that you see your students as non-people. Because of the same age-bracket and intellectual interests, I met many teachers at OCC and, believe it or not, many of them are on my networks, some are so close that we call each other and hang out all the time. Because you and Swells are my ex-teachers, I got on TGW and I met some amazing and talented people here, who are now my friends, whom I personally met, had a great time with, and looking forward to seeing again. I find your perspective of labeling people solely based on whether they happen to take your class a bit strange. I am positive, NOT all of your students (ex or current) are dying to add you as a friend. The bottom line is like with all friendships – whether this person intellectually compatible or interesting to talk to and not their academic brush up with you at any given point of time. That’s just my opinion; correct me, if I’m wrong.
yeah, I joined FB not too long ago and now it’s a huge time suck. I guess this means that I’m finally part of a clique, which is totally lame, but still, I c-c-c-an’t s-s-s-stop. Talkin’ bout my g-g-g-generation.
p.s., I agree with Kate the Great, I don’t ever notice if people ignore my friend requests, so it’s no biggie. And when old high school or college friends contact me or vice versa, the interchange tends to only last a couple of catch-up emails, and then it’s done, which is fine with me.
Natasha, I’m sorry that you interpreted my comment that way. “Non-people”? I’m not sure why my comment would suggest that. Unless you’re inferring that I must think everyone who I don’t add as a friend on Facebook is a non-person? Of course I don’t think that, but the truth is, most students are not my friends, no matter how much I might like or respect them. I’m connected with two former students on FB–both actual friends. Actually, I was moreso reacting to the awkwardness of it all, of having to respond or ignore or whatever. Plus, I still feel a certain amount of embarrassment at even having a FB profile. (And who said all my students want to be connected to me via FB? I was referring to the dozen or so requests I’ve gotten, admittedly not “all” of my students).
so we agree, ignoring is totally painless, and completely within the bounds of polite behavior.
LET THE WORD GO FORTH!
good.
Kate, I ignored your dad and he asked for an explanation, and then I ignored your brother, who did not.
“Plus, I still feel a certain amount of embarrassment at even having a FB profile.”
It is kind of weird.
“What are you doing right now . . .”
like . . . who really cares? . . .
I have to defend Jeremy here–he and I have both learned the hard way that we are forced, not by our own choice, to keep very clear boundaries between students and ourselves. We have both made the mistake of thinking that there didn’t need to be such strong boundaries, and we have both been threatened, resented, and publicly insulted by students who felt that any breach of that boundary that wasn’t completely followed through with a full friendship was a breach of our professional etiquette and responsibility as educators as well. As a result we have both had to define very specific guidelines that apply to students we have had, even students we love and really trust and want to befriend, because we have both been badly hurt by how this has backfired. To say that he or I interpret them as “non-people” based on his above comment is really unfair and not reading his intent at all.
Seeming a little related: Blogger and sociologist Kristina Barnett has written a thesis about how people build social networks in the blogosphere — http://txstate.academia.edu/KristinaBarnett/Papers/88679/Community-In-The-Blogosphere–The-Social-Construction-of-Textual-Community
@4
I have actually really been digging Twitter lately. Its pretty cool.
I totally get why a teacher would want to keep his / her private life private from students. That was the default position pre-social-networking, anyway — I certainly didn’t know what my teachers did in their private lives, and it would have been considered weird and possibly improper if they spent a lot of time telling me. In fact, the only professor that DID want to share his private life with me was trying to seduce me, as was his habit with undergrads. Not that he’s representative, but still.
It’s not labeling anyone a “non-person” to choose to keep them as a professional, rather than personal, contact.
Interesting distinction to try to make: is putting up a Facebook page like listing yourself in a telephone directory, or more like putting out a calling card to the entire community? Neither is a perfect analogy, but it might merit some thought.
natasha,
i think that the fact jeremy mentioned that he felt conflicted enough about students requests for facebook friendships that he was compelled to write them back to say “sorry, no” suggests that thinking of those students as “non-people” was not even on his radar.
if you reread your comment, does it not seem hostile?
correct me if i’m wrong.
Trixie, I’ve been writing a response to this for a while. I’ve been in and out of my office. I did not have a chance to post it before any of your guys’ comments, but you’ll probably understand what I mean when you read it. If you can, I’d like for all of you guys to answer this. I’ll post it in a few seconds. My response, in all honesty, does not reflect the ramming comments which came after and was solely based on Jeremy’s response. And yes, I agree, my comment would be considered hostile, if I did not respond to this further.
so i just friended a mission person. fortunately the recent FB redesign, last Friday, caused me to rethink my Wall, which is a very carefully considered . . . sort of scrapbook thing. I kind of went silly for the last couple of months, which was fun, but potentially offensive.
So anyway, I didn’t like how it looked after the reformatting, so I took it all down. This was this guys second request. I guess that does feel a little rude. Ignoring twice.
It’s like, “OK you really DO want to catch up.”
Here we go.
Jeremy, I am sorry, I misunderstood your comment. It is certainly weird and unnecessary to accept students, just for the mere reason that not everyone, essentially, wants to be your friend and wishes you well, but possibly wants to befriend you to get a good grade, or gossip, or what have you. Also, what LP said. The word “non-people” was inferred from, “Steph tells me that I should probably ignore the requests…” because I think that many of those students see you as a mentor and, like you are suspecting, probably more so than others, deserve an explanation, rather than silence. It was also inferred from some previous posts by the both of you guys. I would never mean to hurt you or Steph and again, I’m sorry.
Steph, Jeremy needs no defense, because no one is attacking, also because he perfectly explained my question in his comment. I absolutely agree, that there need to be boundaries; but I think that if you have been hurt by students before, (just like if you’ve been hurt by classmates, friends, or ex-partners) should not necessary provide a rule of treating that entire group the same. I took your class almost 7 years ago and Jeremy’s almost 4. For the longest time, I have not considered you both my teachers, but rather TGW friends or co-bloggers — whatever you want to call this. I am not 18 years old and very well understand the boundaries of friendships; in fact, I’m very decorous and humble about my relationships with people. I also cherish everyone. Does it mean I should be profiled as your student? (I stuck to TGW, because you impressed me so many years ago and inspired me to write) Does it mean that you should never talk to me again because of that standard of the boundary that you drew? Don’t you think that the rule then inappropriately proliferates? What do you guys think?
Dave, I’m laughing about those first few paragraphs–I hate talking on the phone, too. Even when someone I adores calls me I’m about 80% likely to just let it go to voicemail. You know what it is with social media and me? I love hearing my own voice so much better than hearing anyone else’s.
I say this half-jokingly, of course.
Actually, what I love about Twitter is that you can have a conversation with a friend, but each statement must be very brief and it doesn’t take place over the phone. Perfect!
I also hate hostile and confrontation.
In Steph’s defense, she thought it kinder to just ignore friend requests rather than come up with some awkward response…
yeah, but then, I could never help discussing it with the student afterwards (if it was someone I still saw) to apologize and explain why I can’t add him or her, so I don’t know what is more awkward. It’s all awkward.
unfortunately I’m on a quick break from class and then leaving town immediately for a few days, so can’t respond fully at the moment, but Natasha, I do take your point that of course not everyone should be treated “the same” (and also, sometimes the 18-y-os are the least problematic of all, so it’s not about age). I too have some people I consider friends, real friends, who started out as students, and tho my past bad experiences have made me more cautious and build a bigger wall, they have not completely succeeded in making me keep everyone at a huge distance (and sometimes that still bites me). If I considered students to be “non-people,” my god, then why would I be devoting my life to them? And so many of them share so many of my interests and passions that it feels only natural to want to be friends with them (real friends, not FB). Still, huge worlds of hurt from crossing this line have made me pretty wary, sadly.
By the way, I am still so tickled by the last paragraph of this post about the Faces of Death guy. And I agree with Scott in that I feel like everything you wrote here, Dave, you sucked out of my consciousness. I could not agree more and have had every one of these dilemmas!
Steph, I am still feeling “pretty wary, sadly “about this whole thing. I send an e-mail to J. about some other questions I had for you (I could not contact you via TGW and deleted yours and J’s e-mails long time ego) and still hoping to hear a response on this. I hope you have a wonderful trip.
Much love,
N.
Natasha, I read the whole thread. I tend to agree with your position, and also understand the complexity of different people’s need for more strict boundaries in their connections. It seems to me that only weak people need to insist on artificial relational boundaries outside of the strictly professional sphere.
The only professor that I ever learned from is someone who I could call up and chat with right now, someone who would not feel the need for these boundaries, who is interested in me as a person.
That said, I am almost always disappointed by my efforts to cultivate dialogical encounters with people over time, and am admittedly a misanthrope who uses Facebook in precisely the same way the author describes, as a narcissistic voyeur, an internet flanneur, keeping people at bay through a distancing and intimate medium – so what do I know . .
But what I would say is that this medium encourages people to disconnect from the emotional reality on the other side of the screen, and be easily hurtful by saying too much, too frankly – this professor seems to have done that, but I am certain, having tapped into your intellectual and other charm, that this would not have been intended toward you; otherwise, just write the guy off as an insecure dick, which he suspiciously seems to be.
Wow. There was a lot to read here.
Jeremy and Stephanie: I think you’re right to have boundaries. If a student Googles your names, a plethora of your personal information is immediately at their disposal. Those are things that you can’t control, so why not try to create some control over something like Facebook? I DO think that there are some students that you both must have where you feel a true connection with them. From what I have read here, I would want to befriend you both in a heartbeat, and I’m sure your students see the same great qualities I do and feel the same way. So sometimes you have to risk the bad things for the good. If there is a true connection, I say that Facebook friends is a good first step to a regular friendship. It’s personal, but not over-the-top.
37: Wait, am I the insecure dick? (He asked, insecurely… and somewhat dickishly.)
only weak people need to insist on artificial relational boundaries outside of the strictly professional sphere.
Have you just not had many relationships (broadly construed — friendships, acquaintanceships, etc.) or have you simply been oblivious to the host of problems that can come up?
The student/teacher relationship is a peculiar one, something of a hothouse flower, and in my experience and the experience of teacher friends of mine has a lot in common with the client/therapist relationship. A transference arises from student to teacher that’s almost erotic, and sometimes becomes explicitly erotic. This can be difficult for student and teacher, regardless of age (although it’s tougher when the student is younger and less aware of their own emotional reactions, I think). And the intense relationship usually vanishes when the course ends.
The intensity of the relationship isn’t a bad thing; in fact, good teachers are better at creating this intensity than mediocre teachers and use it to get their students to learn. But teachers also learn, usually through experience, that the power of this relationship has to be controlled and managed, because things can get out of hand and people can get hurt — even if the damage is only to the student’s ability to learn from the teacher. Some students are trouble; some teachers are trouble; some combinations of otherwise perfectly normal teachers and students are trouble.
Many of us have had the good fortune to meet teachers who became mentors in some way, whom we can just call up and chat with, and that’s great — but it’s unfair to expect teachers to be that open to all their students.
speaking as someone that teaches, at a crazy art school no less.
NOT friending your students seems like the only reasonable thing to do. and you owe them NO explanation.
just hit ignore and be done with it.
Jeremy just gets in trouble cause he gets too many peppers on that rate your professors thingy. They want to be his “friend” too! (Oh . . . Professor Zitter . . . !)
(THAT website is weird. My goofy students seem to wacked out, and too distracted by New York to engage in that thing. That would really scare me.)
39: yes.
a. I hardly ever log on to Facebook.
b. I have accepted all of my students’ friend requests except for one of them. I have my reasons.
c. I had fewer reservations adding my students to my friends list than I did my department chair, but he got added too.
d. My students invite me to parties. I never attend, but sometimes I look at the photos of my glazed, baked and pickled students at these parties. It is hard not to… sort of telling yourself that you aren’t going to look at the accident that has the freeway backed up, but once you get to the front of the line, you look anyway.
e. I mentioned this one day in class when a student asked if I ever get party invites. The class laughed at the car accident comparison, and then I got a bunch of friend requests from the other students. Note to self — don’t mention Facebook in class.
f. In the early days of my Facebook effort, I signed up for some addon that had me rank the relative ‘hotness’ of my friends. I thought it was pretty fun and funny.
g. Now Facebook keeps sending me emails telling me that my ‘hotness’ rating has dropped a place. STFU FB!
h. My j’hotness’ rating keeps dropping as I add more students, which has thus far been the most compelling reason to add no more students. But I keep adding them all the same.
i. I have yet to send a single tweet.
j. I have yet to post a single GoodReads book report.
k. I send maybe 10 text messages a year.
l. Watching the evolution of these technologies, and noting my non-participation in most of them, is like charting my progress toward full middle age/old man status. This is especially true as I watch my ‘hotness’ rating fall off the charts.
m. I really need to get over this ‘hotness’ thing.
n. Oh, and there are days that pass when I forget to check my email.
o. Which is not so much a sign that I am getting old so much as it indicates that I am in danger of becoming one of those people with stacks of magazines and lots of cats.
p. Do other people have stacks of unread New Yorkers?
q. Still, I have no cats.
Dave, your point is well taken – transference can occur in any range of relationship, the teacher-student one being an obvious candidate, agreed; however, Facebook is not exactly the medium in which one f*** one’s client though, unless, of course, they add a webcam feature, which would be rather nice I think.
That said, I personally have found it rather easy to hide in plain sight and am comfortable with high levels of personal transparency – effective mirroring of the other facilitates growth, if properly guided and, as you suggest – but why should this gifting toward those we encounter be restricted to a classroom?
A deep humanism, in my view, should guide all of our encounters – I try to see those who cross my path as a gift, a kind of responsibility. The great humanists, notably the Buddha, have perfected this art.
Certainly, there are limits to mutuality, even in the therapeutic relationship, but an authentic life, it seems to me, should allow for diaogical encounters that present and should have the strength to sustain these to a positive conclusion, healthy boundaries notwithstanding.
Interesting how someone who’s so jargony (and authentically?) thoughtful throws around such a layperson’s term: “dick.” Chip on your shoulder?
43> yes, i have stacks of unread new yorkers and ny reveiw of books, i’m feeling very old now, thanks!
45. mere provocation, mere provocation – the only jargon that us useful is jargon that which is received.
I have found that “dick” and “f***” are very useful to this end ;-)
I just hapen to think it’s useful to check one’s shoulders for chips. Regarding this point, I’m sure the Buddha would agree.
Heaven knows I have about fifteen or sixteen up there.
48. agreed. don’t know of any relevant chip, just supporting a friend
This is going to sound rude, and I don’t mean it to, but I’m not sure I want to take cues on social interaction from someone who describes himself as “almost always disappointed by my efforts to cultivate dialogical encounters with people over time… admittedly a misanthrope who uses Facebook in precisely the same way the author describes, as a narcissistic voyeur, an internet flanneur, keeping people at bay through a distancing and intimate medium.”
Also, “dialogical encounters” = “talking,” right? Just checking.
50. Rude is fine, so long as it is directed toward me – I think you did not finish the paragraph above that you cite, which concluded with “so what do I know” as a caveat – “dialogical encounters” refers to a movement in psychoanalytic theory / theology that originates with Buber’s _I and Thou_. Also, it is always possible these comments were diffusive on my part, authentic in their objective but truthfully imprecise.
wow, what a great egghead catfight.
great post dave!
and mr. furgenennnsteein. age really is a matter of mental outlook. stay young! keep up! embrace texting!
dirk diggler would!
51: so what do you know indeed.
forgive me, but i can’t see what if anything is motivating you besides some chips you have yet to recognize.
also, i am grateful that our interaction is buffered by the WWW. maybe others are too. this might be part of your failed ability to cultivate dialogical encounters with human beings. way to be a humanist.
oh i just love the dark side of the internet. not really knowing who anyone is. not quite connecting with what people are saying. the general confusion and the use of words like “dialogical”
it’s all so “diabolical” and paranoid and nixonian and stanley kubrickesque!
wade, who the hell are you!
and even worse, ginny tonick (!) who the hell R U!?!
“in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” – andy warhol
“i wish i were a machine.” – andy warhol
andy would have fu**in’ LOVED the internet!
Lane,
I went to school with Wade 15 years ago. He does not have any “chips on his shoulders,” in fact, he has a degree in Philosophy, which he got in France. He’s fluent in a few languages and has traveled the world, so he’s definitely not insecure. He has a great taste in wine and can carry a wonderful conversation in person just as much as he can on the internet. His first comment was just a general opinion on relationships, which was not directed at Jeremy or anyone else. I don’t know why everyone got into this huge fight
Wow, the Internet is a scary place. Here I am writing under a pseudonym, and some other person steals my fake identity in comment #53. Get your own pseudonym, dude!
Natasha, Wade may well not be insecure, but his comments in this thread certainly make it sound like he is. I suppose that is the tricky thing about the Internet and email — it’s sometimes hard to get a sense of what someone is really saying based on quick posts. For example, your initial comment did seem hostile, though you apparently didn’t mean for it to.
Also, as an aside, being fluent in a few languages and traveling the world doesn’t indicate that a person isn’t insecure.
(singing): pleeease don’t stand soo close too mee.
sorry, just thought this thread deserved an 80s song.
does wade love fava beans and a nice chianti and white linen suits?
He’s fluent in a few languages and has traveled the world, so he’s definitely not insecure.
Does not compute
(Speaking for myself I am highly insecure without being fluent in more than one language or a world traveller; but I don’t see what relationship these attributes bear to one another.)
57: GT, Yes, you are right. For me, it has something to do with the language too: when I speak Russian, I’m the biggest push over.
As far as all the other comments about hotness and the peppers, well, first of all, we all encounter weird proposals from people on the street, at a store, and on the internet every day and all of us have a fare share of peppers or the equivalent thereof on our networks. Culturally, to me, it just seems like a very weird thing – sexually liking your teacher is almost like liking your Dad or your Mom in that way, gross. That’s probably the biggest difference.
Where I come from, it’s almost a duty to be there for you students. I now understand it. I’m also very very tired from all the debates. I’m going to make some dinner and go to sleep now.
FIN
59. yes. insecurity and discriminating tastes are often confused.
59 b. but i do prefer brain fried, separate from my fava beans – to each her own I suppose . . .
So here’s A White Bear writing about why she doesn’t mind adding her students on Facebook after the semester ends.