Teachers and Love (memoir)

Will was not the first or the last teacher with whom I "fell in love."

My first crush was Mrs. W., my fourth grade teacher.  I stayed after class talking and cleaning erasers.  After I went on to fifth and sixth grade, I kept hanging out with her after school. When we moved to Massol Ave. I found out she lived close about a half mile away and I started riding my bike to her house and hanging out.  I have no idea what we talked about.  The relationship ended after she invited me to go with her and her husband on a trip to Hawaii the summer after sixth grade and it didn't turn out the way anyone expected.

Why did she invite me?  I have no idea.  Were they trying to figure out if they wanted kids?  Did she think I was way more competent at life than I seemed to be?  Anyway, it turned out badly.  I wound up breaking a glass bowl by putting it on the stove and flattening a water toy by taking it into a rocky ocean.  I did not know how to care for myself, foodwise or friendwise.  I guess they thought I'd meet kids in the neighborhood and play, but when she and her husband were out of the house, I just watched television.  

And why did my parents let me go?  I have no idea about this, either.  For most of my youth (and well into middle age) I didn't think much about what other people were thinking.

That first big crush and its resulting sad fallout was moderately predictive of some of my future teacher-crushes.

I fell in love again in 6th grade, this time with my first male teacher, Bob Tetzlaff.  Once again, I would often stay after school to talk and help clean up.  I got so bonded to him that up through 8th grade, I would return to Daves Avenue on occasion to see him after school.  He was handsome, passionate, and funny.  Mr. T taught us about American problems in South America, sharing with us his experiences as a bicycle racer when he went to the PanAmerican games.  He also read to us selections from The Ugly American because he didn't want any of us to become one.  I continued to admire him until his death in 2012.

In high school, I experienced myself "falling in love" with at least three more teachers.  In college, I fell in love with Will but also with a few others.

So let's look at this phenomenon.  Why did I fall for teachers over and over again?  And what exactly do I mean by "falling in love?"

Let's take the second question first.

What I experienced in youth as "falling in love" meant:

1. a rise in pleasure when around the other person
2. the sense that the other person understood me
3. a warmth in my chest
4. a feeling that I understood the other person better than anyone else in the room
5. a feeling that I, myself had value because the other liked me
6. a desire to do things for the other person
7. a physical need for the other person (desire to touch and be touched, not necessarily sexual)

It's quite possible that all these infatuations were my brain's way of managing depression.  Being "in love" was a high that released dopamine into my system, a system which by 10th grade was considering suicide. Infatuation was a defense against self-hatred.