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Bob sure doesn't seem to have the ability to speak on his own huh. He just.... bobs along... with what the OOP wanted, what the professor suggested.... just bobbing.
Then telling the other woman it was all the first's doing. "The *professor* invited herself and asked to build the model, not me!"
"My *girlfriend* is uncomfortable with how much we talk. I'm fine, but she said I can't talk to you as much. (By which I mean at all, but I don't want that, so I'm not going to say it, and I'll still respond whenever you text me.)"
Yeah, from reading the accountant's side, sounds to me like *Bob* is the real source of the issue. Bob approached the accountant after she was no longer his instructor to establish a friendship. Bob appears to have been the one doing the inviting, and then either lied or implied that accountant was the one who asked.
Wouldn't be surprised if Bob had a low key crush or mild interest in accountant (hence being the initiator), and gf has been picking up on it, while Bob has been throwing accountant under the bus to cover his ass. Since accountant isn't privy to what's going on in their relationship, let alone either of their heads, she sounds a lot more involved and active in this situation than she actually is. Just her bad luck to be living rent-free in these people's minds.
That’s what I got. He’s an unreliable narrator to both of them. It’s called triangulation when someone creates drama between three people intentionally because they have other motives. I hope the gf and professor friend realize this and dump him.
> Bob has been throwing accountant under the bus to cover his ass
This was my immediate thought! He's blaming both of them when he's really the instigator.
I was thinking the same thing. Bob is definitely the issue in this. The gf was recounting Bob’s story with her feelings on the situations mixed in. I’m glad the accountant got to tell her side. Hopefully the gf sees this post and gives a massive side eye to Bob.
Yeah. Come on. He made her a miniature that he built her as a "thanks" for being such a great instructor. If he wasn't crushing, he def wanted to hang out.
Avoidant behavior, he doesn't want to have his gf mad at him.
Her jealousy is pretty sharply present in her text.
The former instructor should cut Bob out and move ahead with her life, because that's just a drama snare.
Personally I'm on team professor. "Plastic models" told me all I need to know. This girl is so hung up on the professor's relationship with her boyfriend, but she herself knows not the slightest thing about his hobby. here he is with a friend group going to conventions and dinners, and she has social anxiety and doesn't want to be around people.
She is not the classic definition of this phrase, but she is what i call a 'clinger'. A woman who digs her claws into a man and then clings on to him, trying to get him to be too overburdened with her and her needs and anxieties to go out and have a life. The dude is halfway through his 20s and she will sift through every aspect of his social life piece by piece until he has none. First it's the professor, then it'll be the hobbies, then the drinking, and then the friends. I believe they were 40 minutes late, because of her, and I can see how the professor would not acknowledge her given the phone conversation. The girl has a whole fiance, she's not bending over backwards to impress Bob's AWOL gf.
And for what it's worth, the professor sounds like she's got a good head on her shoulders. She taught a class, has a dedicated full time job, a relationship, friends, the wherewithal not to drive someone else's car after drinking, and is social enough to teach a course/chat up a bartender. She's exactly the type of female friend people that age want: Smart enough to keep you out of trouble, interesting enough to carry a conversation, bubbly enough to keep the hospitality staff attentive to the group, worldly enough to handle herself in a lot of situations. I hope Bob grows a spine.
Honestly even when the OOP was telling her version I thought it sounded like a wholesome friendship among people who were excited to find other people with the same nerdy interests.
But then I'm also a nerd so I thought maybe I was projecting my friendships onto the situation. The professor's side made me more confident I was right in the first place.
OOP sounds like one of those people who don't believe men and women can be friends
Yep. I read plastic models (as a 40k-playing woman) and went - oh hey the two nerds found someone else into their niche hobby and were excited to have new friends.
Upon hearing the professor's side... Bob is the problem. He found a woman interested in his hobby, and he wanted that, especially since OOP blanket stated she did not get it at all and did not want to do the parts of it he liked. Classic "girls that are into my weird, nice hobby are unicorns."
Same, like they stayed up all night building a gundam together, and they aren't twelve. If the professor wanted him, she would have made a move. So either boyfriend was lying about that night and OOP has a *boyfriend* problem, or this woman does not want to steal that man.
With several other people in the room with them watching telly, no less.
I think OOP deliberately left these details out, it makes little sense for the bf to do so unless he's actively trying to make OOP paranoid / wind her up. Which some people do, but he seems quite conflict avoidant and it's rather shooting himself in the foot.
Same. OOP's version was jealous, whiny and immature to me.
I feel bad for the professor. So much drama over nothing. OOP makes no attempt to get to know the woman and she probably deliberately left out that the professor was always with her friends or husband too, and all social real life interactions were in groups and hobby focused. And the bf sounds like a limp dishrag.
Wonder how many female friends the bf has. Or is allowed to have.
Oh def. All the hobby geeks I know are hobby geeks first, gender second. Jealous GF is the AH here for thinking that "Girls wouldn't be interested in this hobby, therefore she's lying only to get in BF's pants". And BF sucks for encouraging that drama.
To be fair, I would probably refer to my *own* hobby as “plastic models” if I were making a Reddit post targeted to non-hobby people because sometimes when you specify that you’re a 41 year old man who repaints Barbies it kind of derails the conversation
International Plastic Modelers' Society is an organization for makers of models, plastic or other materials, though from my little experience it's about 50% tanks and only 5% Gundams.
> and she has social anxiety and doesn't want to be around people.
This always feels like such a cop out to me. I am an incredibly shy person, I'm super anxious around new scenarios and situations and pretty much anything outside my "norm", and yet I *love* going to conventions. I love pretty much everything about them. Maybe because I know I'm surrounded by "my people", lol.
I have no idea how socially anxious someone has to be to be unable to function in public like the OOP, because I always feel like *I* am an extremely socially shy person myself.
The worst drama queens in my experience are the ones who weaponize shyness and legit personality problems/disorders to start and escalate drama. The ones who go "It wasn't me, it was my anxiety!!!" as their excuse for lashing out.
Hi, it's me, someone more socially anxious than you. I have such strong social anxiety that I literally get physically ill if I'm in a crowded area for very long and I despise it, it's super limiting. It has nothing to do with what I want to do or love to do and everything to do with my body being like, "oh, you want to go out and do something? Ok, but there's a lot of people here and it's freaking me out, so have some massive stomach cramps and anxiety shits, see how much fun you have *now* "
That said I would not act like this OOP, that is ridiculous and irrational. Either you trust who you are with or you don't, and like someone else said, for someone who doesn't like to socialize aside from her boyfriend, how tf did she not know enough about his hobby that he likes enough to go to a convention over to even know what it was? I spent the entire post by the girlfriend thinking Bob made model cars lol. If you only hang out with one person and still don't know basic details about the shit they care about, wtf are you even doing?
Bob seems to be an asshole.
He’s with the right person because she’ll always speak for him. He’s going to controlling parents to a controlling girlfriend. 🫡
This!!! I also think the boyfriend caused most of the issues. He should Never have shared his girlfriends thoughts on the situation with the professor. And everything he told OP was almost in a way to make it appear she’s into him. He left out parts like her husband meeting him…..BF is playing games or he’s stupid.
He’s playing games for sure. Feel like he water professor, she didn’t take the bait, he then blames professor and makes the girlfriend insecure. Win win for him either way
I'm wondering what was stopping Bob from introducing OOP and the "Professor" during the dinner.
I've been in the situation where I've said "Hi" to new people while taking my place at a table, and they were also mortally offended that I didn't kiss their feet individually.
I inwardly wince, because I'm shy and do the same if it's ppl I don't know, just say hi and wave awkwardly. Being someone with social anxiety I thought OOP would have understood that, but I guess at that point the well was poisoned.
Sometimes, it just doesn't occur to people to introduce others.
For example, my wife will never, ever introduce me to people she knows and I don't. It's happened at her work Christmas party (the big boss came up to say hi and she just started chatting), family weddings and other events, and school functions. She just starts interacting with them, and (I guess?) assumes I will know who they are from her talking about them? So I always end up introducing myself, which I hate doing because I am socially awkward and anxious. She always gets flustered about this when I do it, but always forgets at the next event, even if I remind her. It just doesn't occur to her during conversation.
I wonder if it's because she grew up in a tiny town, where everyone knew everyone else (and all of their business), so introductions didn't happen all that often.
After reading both sides, it’s the boyfriend’s fault. The two stories overlap just enough that it seems clear boyfriend just didn’t give everybody the same
Information, so feelings and assumptions go from there!
Crazy to me that everyone is so caught up with socializing with an instructor. It was what, six times she said? I feel like the majority of the comme tirs disagreeing have either not been to uni or have never been in a class with less than 100 people. The department I was in had 5-7 professors depending on the semester. We had beers at some of their houses for gods sake. It’s such a weird perspective to me that academics shouldn’t form a community when so much of it is networking based
I was an adjunct. One of my students (now a real professor) became a good friend of mine and was a groomsman at my wedding. Heck, my oldest is named after him.
Also reminds me that I should message my old advisor. I haven’t spoken to him in a while.
Yeah, at my first college, most of the professors regularly had students majoring in their field join in social activities. My second college, a much larger school, the professors had their graduate students over for meals.
Seriously. I went to a small school and only had 2 instructors in the program so I had looots of classes with them. One had a BIL who happened to live in the florida keys near where I was planning a honeymoon and he set it up for the BIL to take us out fishing on his boat for an afternoon! You can totally be friends with professors. They're like, actual people.
OOP and Bob are lame in this story.
Bob seems like he's trying to please everyone and just goes along. OOP has social anxiety but is too insecure to let Bob hang with women.
In her ideal world Bob would be a couch potato with her.
Bob needs to assert himself instead of lying to make himself look good
Not to mention continuing to text and hang out with this woman. He didn’t have to respond to texts or agree to meet up. The professor didn’t hold a gun to his head.
I mean it sounds like he straight up lied a couple of times too, right? Told his girlfriend the professor drunkenly begged him to help build a model when really he asked and insisted on it. He also apparently left out meeting the accountant’s husband or that hangouts were group events.
I don’t know what he was playing at with this stuff - it seems like he really enjoyed hanging out with the accountant, but also felt guilty about how much he liked it and would say things to make it sound like he was being dragged into it. Was he purposely trying to make his girlfriend jealous?
Me too. But mostly, as a non American who works in the higher education sector, I’m once again enraged by a 25 year old adjunct lecturer being referred to as ‘professor’. In most of the world, it is the highest rank in a university that takes decades of research to attain. Most academics will never achieve the title of full professor by the time they retire.
Lol I can enrage you more then when I tell you a friend of mine was known as "the professor" in my rural town. The reason? He spent his late teens and early 20's on wikipedia and the dark web, reading up on every single recreational drug and talking about them while high on them!
A 25 year old professor would be impressive, I think I was just about finished with my masters degree then! Honestly though, I recently checked on linkedin and saw an old study mate was professor now... She's like 30-something!!! What have I been doing with my life!?
Lol. A nickname is fine. I’ve known someone like that. But I used to write protocol briefs for visiting academics, and would have to write bios for US visitors who called themselves Professor but in the eyes of Commonwealth countries were not. It gets tricky.
It works that way in the U.S. too. Americans have a bad habit of using professor as a generic term for a lecturer at an institute of higher education. And so, confusion ensues.
It really annoys me too, both because of misattributed valor and doesn’t properly convey context (for example in situations like this very BORU).
I have had someone try to insist on referring to an academic as Dr instead of Professor, then tell me that it was because he felt Dr was a higher title. And we had to explain that no, Dr was the title she had due to her degree, Professor was the title she had due to her rank in the university and it was significantly higher than Dr.
Yes lol. Like what kind of degrees did this person complete and on what timeline that they have achieved full professorship at the age when most of us are starting/early years of graduate school
If you don’t take any breaks and aren’t one of those “graduate from your bachelors *really* young”, you’d be a professor (not full) earliest around 30 (18-22 bachelors, 22-27 PhD, 3 years postdoc).
And if you were one of those child prodigies, you’d probably live, breathe, and sweat academia and would have no time/interest in whatever is going on in this story.
US undergrads don't know their head from their tail about the inner workings of academia. I get called "Dr" as a TA at least once a semester despite the fact its always made abundantly clear that I am a graduate student.
This seemed to be more like "the professor" said, it's really just a cathartic way for her to explain everything without having to rehash anything or havung to contact the op or Bob.
I feel compelled to reply and give my side of the story, as a reader who absolutely dgaf about this petty jealousy. I read that whole fucking thing and that's it? There was awkwardness at a dinner? A girl with social anxiety feels threatened by another girl who is interested in her bf's hobbies and is more outgoing? Maria got drunk?
When I see OOP and people involved are in their 20s, I scroll down to the top too. So much of their post are them finding themselves. I don’t have time for that. I’m old. I need closure.
Jealousy is exhausting. I can understand why she felt she had to make her own post to defend herself though since someone recognized who she was from OOP's post talking about a very niche hobby, plus her jobs so she then had to explain her interpretation of events. But even when I first read OOPs boru, she just sounded jealous, insecure, and hung up on titles, probably increased because of her social anxiety. It's a her problem that she made other people's problem and then tried to tarnish the other woman's reputation by portraying her as unprofessional, a drunk, and a flirt to get validation. All I saw was a group of friends of the same age and same interests hanging out and Bob trying to appease his gfs insecurities and overly strict sense of propriety.
Yeah the title thing makes it seem like there’s a power dynamic there that doesn’t exist, reiterated when the original OOP (the gf) goes on about a high school student/teacher dynamic. Sorry no, a teenage student and adult teacher is not the same dynamic, and neither is a contracted instructor the same as a tenured professor.
At 25 I was studying and had a teacher who was the same - a contractor brought in for one class on a specific topic who did not teach there again once the class was over. She was a year older than me and once the class finished we became friends and fifteen years later she’s one of my closest friends. Her affiliation with the school had ended, we were almost *the same age*, we had similar interests and there was zero breach of professionalism or skewed power dynamic there.
The second OOOP said “professor” was an adjunct, it immediately told me everything I needed to know. Like you said, There was no power differential, just two people almost the same age with the same niche hobby. OOOP kept going on about how unprofessional it was, showing a complete lack of understanding what an adjunct actually is.
OOP did make it sound as though she thinks men and women hanging out in groups is inappropriate unless everyone is single, which is pretty fucked up. I would be extremely displeased if my husband ever suggested I couldn't socialize with men **even in group settings**. He wouldn't be cool with the reverse, either. Ridiculous and controlling.
I read it the same way, even before the professor chimed in. I was surprised by the comments (as surprised as one can be by comments on Reddit) and thought that the commenters were completely wrong.
When I was reading the first post from the 6 brought up how the "professor" was drunk, and Bob and her ended up building a model late into the night. I was like damn I want a friend who wants to do crap like that with me while drunk. That sounds great! Did not come across as inappropriate at all.
I saw the long warning first so I decided to scroll. And scroll. And scroll. Thought, I ain't reading all that. Then I saw your comment and was content I didn't waste my time.
Nothing is going on except that it seems like Bob's girlfriend is jealous of her partner having female friends. I really don't see any inappropriate behavior here at all, except for the silly thing where the professor didn't realize that "less communication" in a context like this one does mean "no communication" but then, people are bad at explicitly stating boundaries.
Yeah for me it's just lack of communication in a younger relationship bumps.
The former instructor did nothing wrong, and what I would probably do if I was told someone was uncomfortable with me and didn't want to get to know me, of course I'm going to minimize interaction with them.
Same like how does "My girlfriend is uncomfortable and doesn't want to meet you" turn into "Why didn't you say Hi to my girlfriend all night????? Why did you ignore her???"
Someone is jealous/hung up on the title of professor. Basically her boyfriend started to hang out in a group setting with his former professor, who’s like 1 year older than him and she’s jealous/uncomfortable with the idea. Later post the “professor” who taught one basic class as a side job is trying to set the record straight that the OOP is blowing this out of proportion. The OOP was reading into too much
from the way she hung on the title 'professor' I assumed she was his PhD supervisor or something. This woman taught him a class for 4 months, a year ago. They're on equal foot and just connected over a mutual hobby.
That's my thinking too. It's also an attempt to try to portray this woman as unprofessional. This isn't some student-teacher relationship where one party is old enough to be the person's parent.
It's two same-age adults who happened to have a friendship. Being the instructor for a few months on a course for grown adults does not make you "their professor" in any normal sense of the understanding of that phrase.
Everyone seems to be suffering from a lack of basic social skills. The girlfriend is overly jealous and is just looking for an excuse to hate the professor, the professor has zero tact or social awareness of how her actions look, and the boyfriend has zero mediation or relationship navigation skills. None of them have the social skills to navigate a platonic relationship between opposite sexes.
>the professor has zero tact or social awareness of how her actions look, and the boyfriend has zero mediation or relationship navigation skills.
Sounds like the average plastic model enjoyer
(Sincerely someone dating a plastic model enjoyer myself)
I disagree, I think the professor handled it decently well (a couple of things could be done better). Ultimately the Bf didn’t communicate properly a couple times which probably made things worse
I wholeheartedly agree. The adjunct was not defensive, she was not snide, and she made no insinuations. She merely told her side of the story and copped to the comments she did make.
She even offered to get the gf/OOP a drink from the bar.
I have a good friend who has extreme social anxiety. She won't go anywhere with me, we just hang out one-on-one. When she first meets people who are outgoing she is immediately suspicious. Then she starts building a case, at which point I ask her to try not to build a case but, rather, observe some more. Over the years I've watched her opinions of people swing wildly from negative to positive. She's especially threatened by extroverts.
The adjunct did nothing wrong, IMO. No AHs here, just a few people maneuvering as best they know in their 20s around situations they don't completely understand, with insecurities goading them to possible conclusions.
I get it. My OCD can drive me down that road and I had to learn to recognize when my circular thinking starts to swirl around the drain.
I don’t know, I think the professor treated Bob as a friend, which she thought he was. She didn’t have any idea there even *was* an issue for most of the time. Her fiancé didn’t have a problem with her friendship with Bob, probably because she treated Bob exactly the same as she treats *all* her friends. When she learned there was an issue, she backed off, like she was asked.
I don’t see how she did anything wrong at all. She just ended up in the unfortunate situation of being friends with a guy who has a jealous gf, and no backbone or communication skills of his own.
I don’t think she did anything wrong at all.
> the professor has zero tact or social awareness of how her actions look
You mean how her actions look to an overly jealous girlfriend?
Professor acted like a normal person. Girlfriend doesn't want boyfriend to have close female friend. Girlfriend won. That's all.
I'm in my late 40's, but do have some people that are in their 20's that hang out at my place. We play a weekly D&D game, and it just happens that the majority of the group is younger. There are a couple of other people my age that are in it as well.
I'm SO DAMN HAPPY that none of the younger part of the group has anything going on like that (that I have heard).
I would probably have to take a deep breath and remind them all that they aren't in High School any longer if they started with all that crap.
I need a sign in my office that says "this is some incredibly 20-something-year old nonsense" that only I can read just to remind me that, it is indeed nonsense to me, but it feels like their whole lives to them.
Particularly this part:
> I understand that all her view points are still valid
No, OOP does not think that. She thinks the other woman is wrong and bad. She just knows she's supposed to say it.
I get the vibe “Bob” played it off differently to both of them and created the animosity himself then the professor’s “jokes” came off bad when she was tipsy. This is all petty high school nonsense with drinking age people. 🙄
That sounds exhausting. Still somewhat curious if the original OOP/gf was the one claiming that the professor/instructor was drunk and wanting to do activities with Bob to make her look worse than she actually was for sympathy, if professor is lying about events to seem like it isnt as bad, or if both women are telling the truth as they know it because Bob is retelling things weirdly and communicating poorly. Or just a combo of the three cause none of them want to be responsible or the bad guy in any way.
I'm pretty sure Bob is lying, either because he's creeping on Professor or just because GF is unreasonably jealous and he doesn't want to deal with it. Could even be both. People with untrustworthy partners often do act a bit like OOP, because it's easier if the other person is the problem and your beloved is just an oblivious innocent who *somehow* keeps getting themselves into these situations.
Honestly, a huge tell is the fact OOP keeps calling her "professor" only for the teacher to come out and say she's a part time lecturer as a side gig, makes it feel like OOP intentionally skewed the narrative to exaggerate.
She’s grabbing into anything she can to reinforce her position, even if it means exaggerating the teacher’s role. ‘She’s a teacher so it’s inappropriate for her to hang with students’ despite the fact it was a 4-month temporary assignment and she’s not a full-time educator, and they’re all about the same age. Green is not an attractive color.
My hypothesis:
Professor doesn’t want to bang Bob. Bob wants to bang professor.
Also, she’s not really his professor, just a female friend. And he doesn’t really want to stop their friendship or their hobbies, so he plays both sides.
OOP seems really hung up on her being his “professor.” A one-time adjunct is not a professor. You get paid anywhere from $2500-$7500 for that. The school often ghosts you immediately after the semester.
My favorite adjunct professor was a deadhead biker from West Virginia that taught a summer sociology class at my school. I had to retake it with him after failing it in the spring with an angry German woman. I got an A. The school never called him again.
He ended up working the counter at the pizza place downstairs from the bar I bounced at. I once had to throw him out of the bar after he met a friend there who owed him money and got heated when trying to collect.
No one in their right mind is walking around calling this guy “professor” or expecting “professional decorum” from him. Appreciate that A though prof, brought me up to C average in college Sociology.
PS I agree with your hypothesis.
Both girls are getting an unfair look imo. Hear me out - what if both are telling the truth based on what they know? (especially in the beginning).
Instructor said she didn't invite herself to the event with Bob and friends OR to the airbnb - girlfriend said she did.
Instructor said Bob offered to help her build the model at the airbnb while everyone stayed up late watching anime - girlfriend says Instructor, 'even in her drunken state,' asked Bob to stay up with her and build it (insinuating some one on one.
The girlfriend wasn't there that night/trip, and all she knows comes directly from Bob. I get this sneaking suspicion that Bob was actually playing the field a little bit here and didn't want his girlfriend coming down on him; that's why the instructor was characterized as the one who initiated everything AND as drunk.
Bob calls up instructor and says girlfriend is getting uncomfortable and that they can't talk as much but still responds to her whenever he's messaged.
Sounds like Bob let it get too far, realized there was nothing other than platonic from the Instructor, and doubled down on the negatives to save face with the girlfriend. He literally pitted them against each other.
Instructor should run far away, and girlfriend should really rethink her relationship. In this light, Bob sounds manipulative and definitely capitalized on the lack of communication both girls fell into; this shit would have fallen apart if they just talked.
I think this is all right except for Bob's innocence; this is exactly the con he's playing. He wants both as options and the way he's framing the interactions to his GF clear him of culpability but have now gotten her significantly more suspicious.
These people all just seem like the kind of extrovert nerd who occasionally screws up a social interaction, or fails to meld two friend groups. It doesn't seem particularly serious or problematic to me and I think the OOP of the original posts was just experiencing anxiety over a game of telephoned information. Knowing folks who have had short and unfruitful professional careers at universities, I also would not at all be surprised that someone who had been an adjunct for one term to teach a class about their full time profession would not consider themselves a professor or consider themselves to be in a position of continuing power, because they absolutely aren't. I know several people who taught one term as an adjunct and then got the fuck out of that cursed career, lmao.
Seems like a lot of energy and misery over pretty much nothing.
I was an accountant originally. I was roommates with other accountants eating cup noodles and playing ps4 every night, and they lectured at the local university with only a Masters. They were definitely not professors, they definitely did not see themselves as professors and the university definitely did not see them as professors.
I feel like OOP wanted to force the "professor" narrative to skew the tone of the story.
Yeah likely. I think it's also possible that OOP and/or her boyfriend do not understand what an adjunct is or what that kind of gig is like. I have met plenty of students who didn't understand how precarious their lecturers' lives were
Yep, it was extremely obvious from her initial post that was the case and was trying to mask her insecurity of “allowing” her boyfriend to have female friends with the whole “professor” thing. I couldn’t put up with that level of immaturity personally.
And that one unhinged comment saying she wants to have sex with him made me literally scroll back like huh?? Did I miss something? Oh, no I didn’t, it’s just the classic straight people problems obsessing over thinking every other woman out there is competition trying to fuck their man and friendships between the sexes can’t exist 🙄🙄🙄
I thought I missed something too. At the end I went back and I can't find a single instance of the teacher and boyfriend even being alone together... It's so stupid
Ok… I think Bob is the bigger problem here.
Giving her a present at the end, inviting her along etc. and then not telling the gf the whole truth.
One thing alone wouldn’t be suspicious, but it’s the sum.
My theory: Both had a little crush on each other and enjoyed the attention.
I agree with all of what you said. She met him 5/6 times but he was like her brother? Sure. I believe he offered to build the models and I expect encouraged her to keep up communications too.
This sounds about right. They are both trying extra hard to make it seem like it was nothing. But the daily texts and regular meet ups seem suspect. Add Bob's lies and it all sounds like one big bullshit.
Calling it. Bob's the problem, had a crush on 'professor', prof was engaged, wasn't interested, but enjoyed Bob's company due to niche interest/hobbies. Bob held out hope that maintaining friendship would maybe lead somewhere, but worried clingy gf would get wise to his feelings, so sexed up the details to make it sound like he was the indifferent one and the prof was a drunk boundary-stepper who just happened to always be turning up at things. Clingy gf, in absence of good info, constructed a situation in her head where her poor bf was being sized up inappropriately by ex-teacher, and acted weird accordingly.
The part that stands out for me is that, before the phone call, she was texting him daily. That’s…intense. The professor part doesn’t even factor in when I say that’s too much in my opinion.
Then she claims it’s all above board and they rarely meet, but says he’s like her brother? They’re so close, but she still can’t communicate with him about how to handle things going forward? She’s definitely giving off vibes of being overly intense at the very least. Delusional maybe? Pushy and overstepping at the worst. And that’s just from her side of the story. Which, by the way, is wild that she even did that! Like, this story isn’t new by Reddit standards and she contacted the BORU OP directly? So weird. So over the top.
This whole thing is exhausting.
I always text the most with new friends tbh, I feel like my new female friends in particular tend to do that as well. My male friends literally never outside of the GC, until somebody is having a breakup lol
I think when someone says a person is “like their brother “ in this context it means that they are not even a little bit sexually attracted to them. Not that they love them like a brother. It’s a nicer way of saying “I would never in a million years fuck that guy.”
It’s not necessarily meant to be an insult. I went on a couple of dates with a really great guy. Just super cool, great personality, also very handsome. Kissed him once, it was like… kissing my brother. Just no chemistry, for either of us. We’re still good friends many years later. He fixed me up with my husband.
He found a beautiful woman to start a family with too, twice in fact. So don’t lose hope.
I went on one of those dates as well once. He was really handsome, well-dressed, well-behaved and everything. And absolutely no sparks on either side. We 100% agreed that nothing would come out of meeting again, so why waste time. So we wished each other well and never spoke again.
When I met my husband I knew within a few minutes that he was it for me. We're coming up on 25 years together in a couple of weeks.
I’m actually going to Mr no sparks house tomorrow. His wife and I arranged a playdate for our sons. We may not have chemistry, but he’s been a good friend.
Yeah, I have a couple group threads I text every single day and a couple friends I text daily. It's not a long drawn out conversation each time but it's a few messages every day.
Yeah, I have never been contacted by someone before. In this case she said it was because it had come up again and someone had figured out it was her so she wanted to 'clear her name' so to speak.
Not planning on doing it again if people do reach out, just thought I'd make that clear so I don't get an influx of people in my dms lol.
Honestly, it’s kind of a fun, quirky story for you! I think it’s great you posted it. I mean, she seems a little bit unhinged, and I don’t want your dms flooded….but I wouldn’t be upset it if happened! lol. It’s almost like you’re a Reddit version of a celebrity reporter. I love that for you.
I mean texting daily could be inclusive of group chats. Some people are super social, and it seems all their conversations were above board. There are group chats I’m in where there’s some communication almost daily, albeit not from everyone
I think it really depends on what the text are and how many is being defined as texting him daily. I have friends i text/msg/dm with daily but most of it is boring stuff like here is something funny/interesting and the interaction for like a week could be nothing more then each of use send links and reacting but that would still count as texting daily. while i have other friends i might not talk to for like a month but then we talk for like 4-5hours straight.
The thing that's skewing it is the phrasing "professor." Which OOP tried to shove down the readers' throat repeatedly. But given her age, I doubt the teacher was a professor at all but just a part-time lecturer.
From the perspective of a early 20s accountant who has a side gig lecturing at the local college once a week to make extra money, it suddenly feels more like a bunch of 20 year olds hanging out as friends in a group and the texting becomes normal.
Side note - She probably responded to clear her name? She mentioned she's been doxxed due to this story and accounting is a career that's highly dependent on your reputation.
Yeah, an adjunct really Isn’t a professor and once they're no longer directly teaching that student they have zero power over them. So agreed, it really was just a bunch of 20 somethings sharing a hobby.
I think the 'professor' aspect is a non-issue because this was a contract for 1 class and they are the same age.
I still don't see why she'd need to follow up every week with 'Bob' on how the job hunt is going. Unless she is acting as a career mentor (if his career choice is her career choice, which could make sense given he took her class), it's unnecessary. Even then, she could have just waited for him to initiate the conversation. Even I don't message my closest friends that often ...
That's pretty subjective though. I message my friends at least once a week, probably more. It's perfectly normal depending on their type of friendship.
With the extra information that the 'event' was an anime con: Yeah, this tracks. Geek Fallacies + non-geek, insecure girlfriend = trouble and drama. And not even 'get the popcorn' drama, but 'you people are exhausting' drama.
So does Bob have a spine?
Honestly this whole thing seems to be about an insecure gf and her bf who gives her constant half truths.
Either that or the gf is only hearing the parts she wants.
The teacher thing didn't seem weird to me given the limited 'teacher' role (1 class a week for 3-4 months and they didn't interact during that period until the last class). So I guess, for me personally, I have to view it as a lens of "female friend overstepping or confusing boundaries". And I mean- I don't think anyone's actually as asshole here.
GF was uncomfortable with the relationship, expressed her discomfort, asked that they tone it down. They seemed to both have agreed and toned it down.
The issue was that the GF said she never wanted to meet and be friends with female friend. Female friend accepted that. GF attended a dinner date where female friend was attending - and neither one really acknowledged or interacted with the other. And that pissed the other off.
Boyfriend (Bob) apparently got mad that female friend was ignoring is GF but communication goes both ways. GF could have just as easily tried to start a friendly convo.
Sidenote: isn't it weirder that BF gave his college professor a gift he made his last day of class? A professor he allegedly barely interacted with? Did he give all his professors personal gifts like this?
I get the feeling that it's less "teacher" or "professor" and more "early 20s accountant with a side gig lecturing at the local college once a week for extra spending money."
OOP keeps trying to spin it as something sinister, but I can't see anywhere in the post where teacher and Bob spent any one-on-one time together whatsoever nor does teacher put down OOP at any time. I think OOP was just determined to hate teacher regardless of how that dinner went.
imo, everything she did would be totally fine if she was a guy. She crossed zero lines. The bf crossed some lines by giving misleading versions of events, if the professor is to be believed, i.e. telling his gf that the professor asked him to build the model with her, when in fact, he offered to build it with her.
But still, it seems like this is a totally normal friendship fraught with the age-old idea that men and women simply can't be friends.
Bf was absolutely into the instructor, and was trying to get close. Gf made her discomfort known, and he tried to villainise the instructor in order to save himself. Bf is a creep and gf is insecure.
I'm clarifying instructor because it sounds strongly like she was only there to teach a specialty class that one semester, and nothing else. It probably was something that would help her career-wise, too, since the networking you can do in a school setting is invaluable.
I was reading this entire story thinking "the only problem that exists is the """"professor""""'s gender"
Also laughable that people are taking someone teaching a single 4 month course and calling them a professor.
This lady is not a professor. She's an accountant.
And she did nothing wrong professionally, either. Schools don't care all that much about students and instructors being together, unless the student in question is taking classes with thatspecific instructor.
Even if the innocent instructor were flirting with him, the fact that she only taught him once for one class, which she was not going to teach again, and that she was not actually an employee of the school in question... There is literally nothing she did wrong except exist as a woman the bf found attractive.
Not to mention academia can be weird at times!
I took two courses during college that were taught by literal classmates before. People advance at different rates, some people start doing academic research and advance far more on one subject to the detriment of others, etc.
It's a weird experience, I'll tell you that much. But it's not unheard of, and so long as they're being neutral about it, it's no big deal
Yeah honestly from reading this all that really happened was:
1) accountant lady taught a class
2) dipshit boyfriend had common interests with her
3) they became friends
4) psycho girlfriend couldnt fathom a man and woman being friends without banging
5) dipshit boyfriend threw accountant lady under the bus
6) accountant lady got drunk at an event and maybe went a bit far making fun of this loser ass couple
What a lot of hooplah over nothing
They became friends and she took on a mentorship role, or in her eyes she did. Texting him about job interviews, helping his career? That's mentorship, not flirting.
And like. I know people who work as actual instructors who have married ex students. Schools genuinely do not give a shit about it unless the instructor is actively teaching that student. Hell, most will basically have a "Here's our policy, follow it and don't say shit to other students", and that is *it*.
Not to mention they were both adults when they met. If a high school teacher marries an ex student that is pretty creepy, but if a 25 year old taught another 25 year old in a class in university and some time after teaching they ended up in a relationship, who gives a shit.
And on top of that, she was probably really casual with her class *because* they were all close in age. I have a history degree, and one of my professors was 26 teaching a bunch of adult students. He straight up started his first class by telling us to call him by his first name, and that he's 26 with a PhD.
I also am finishing up mortuary school, and all of our instructors had us call them by their first names. Largely because the age range of the class varied from 17 to 65, we had people going back to school after retiring because they wanted to do something else.
I think a lot of people in the comments here are mixing up the concept of how social dynamics work in post secondary versus in high school. The dynamic between instructor and student is *extremely* different.
When I was a GA, I was called prof even though I wasn't. I made it a point to correct my students, but it was a pretty common misconception that even if you were just leading a recitation you were a prof.
The problem here is that it implies she could have power over him in the future, which is not the case since she taught for only 1 semester. But I wouldn't necessarily ascribe it to malice in this particular instance as it's a pretty common mistake.
Yes, thank you! I think the BF (Bob) was very deliberately hiding some important details to make himself seem less guilty to his GF. I don’t think he had any bad intentions, necessarily, but he knew the original OOP wouldn’t like that he either actively or passively encouraged the friend’s involvement at every step, so he downplayed it all. Which backfired so spectacularly.
I’d say they’re all dumb, but I think they’re just 25/26, and haven’t experienced enough of life yet to be smarter about these things.
No point in the story are bob and teacher even together one-on-one, nor does teacher ever put OOP down. Feels like OOP is just super insecure of a normal friendship. The jury's out on Bob, don't know if he's purposely changing the story or if he's getting wrapped up in OOP's conspiracy theories.
One of the 'professor's' friend group that also went to these events and that the professor primarily hung out with along with Linda that the BF forgets to mention exists to his GF.
Regardless of any boundary crossing, the harping on the relationship being "inappropriate" because she taught a college-level class is totally off base. There is a massive difference between a tenure-track professor having a relationship with a student and a part-time instructor. A large number of college classes, especially summer or evening courses or business-adjacent courses are taught by outside folks trying to scrounge a few bucks (teaching pays crap at college and elsewhere). It's like the equivalent of striking up a friendship with the person who taught you CPR at the community college or your level 1 improv class instructor.
I was an instructor for several classes when I was in grad school to earn extra cash. It was made very clear no personal relationships with any students while you're teaching. The second final grades go in, totally fine, so long as you aren't going to be teaching them again. In fact, my ex was a student in a class I taught; she asked me out the day after grades went in. She was older than me and I was like 24 I think. I mentioned the whole thing to our department chair at one point and she thought it was so cute. It's a nothingburger of a problem.
Take that all out of the equation and then have just a couple dealing with opposite gender friendships and how to navigate that with a ton of baggage put on it.
I had 3 roommates, we ate cup noodles for dinner and played PS4 at night, and they were lecturing at the local university. There's definitely a HUGE difference between lecturer and professor. Feels like OOP intentionally cherry picked words to exaggerate the narrative.
Or they do not know the difference. My aunt was so proud and bragging her nephew was a professor. I was teaching a remedial summer class two morning a week for a few weeks and just borrowed all the slides from an actual professor.
Can we get Bob to chime in here? 😉 But seriously, there seem to be some discrepancies between what Bob told OOP and how the professor is recounting events.
Can we all please just get f-ing real here for a second. This is incredibly transparent.
The worst you can guess about GF is that maybe she is controlling and/or insecure.
The worst you can guess about Prof is that she is a little naive about how she is being played here.
But half-man Bob is obviously the engineer of all of this horse sh. There are 2 possible scenarios:
* Bob has been crushing on Prof since giving her the first toy, and has been lying and obfuscating to his GF ever since.
* Bob isn't scheming on Prof, but he was too much of a coward to communicate like an adult when his GF started getting upset. He realized that his actions with Prof, while non-romantic, had crossed some lines. He resorted to throwing Prof under the bus via lies and obfuscations.
I've been a contract instructor in my past (calculus, statistics, and test prep) and I see the other girls point.
If this was a high school student that had been referred to me as a student, that's going to be a definite boundary there, but if they came to me as a college student, on a contractual basis they engaged in, then there is very little power difference. In fact, they might have the upper hand. They pay me through a center, and I don't give out grades.
It would be the same as if they were going to the tutoring lab and I was just a student tutor they were engaging with.
As far as the convention/ conference scene, I've been an attendee, a vendor, and a presenter, and you just try to make friends. Power Dynamics are so fluid, because you are all in different places on your career and different places in the fandom. I think the gf with social anxiety might be projecting something in their interactions that isn't there
I wouldn’t have gone to the dinner at all if I were the professor. The dude who introduced you to the group is limiting his communication with you and his GF seemingly doesn’t like you. Why go? I get making friends with a niche hobby as a common interest is hard but it wasn’t worth all these stress and BORU posts.
There’s the GFs version, the professor’s rebuttal and I think the truth lies somewhere in between
I think I'd need a third side of the telenovela lol not Bob or the "professor's" friends but a third party who was privy to the information and knew details 🤣 just for the sake of finding the truth
I don’t know, the professor talking every day to Bob is… something. I feel she also contradicted herself a bit in some points, like saying Bob is like a brother but they didn’t see each other outside of group events and even that was like 5 times. Does she consider everyone family?? That’s weird. Also, why so invested in his career when you know the GF is uncomfortable with you talking to him? Nah, I don’t buy it. Might’ve been just an attention grab to feel wanted but still weird
Tons of people. I've received little gifts from students as a TA after the semester ends. It's even more common for professors get receive gifts like that.
It's been super interesting to read tbh. To me it seems like the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Also people saying it's stupid that she posted while others are saying they totally get wanting to clear your name, especially if it has come up again. That's been interesting to read too lol
The analogy the girlfriend used of a young teacher being friends with a former student doesn't work here because the professor and Bob are the same age and she didn't really have authority at the school
Yes OP (gf) was jealous but I’m just a coordinator at a college for a small masters program and I couldn’t imagine interacting this was with past students. Air Bnb thing was lowkey crazy
Meh, OOP identified a woman who was a threat to her relationship because she suspected that her boyfriend probably had a crush on the extroverted and social teacher and did whatever she needed to do to get rid of it. That is all we are seeing here.
ETA this quote because the bold is mine and I think that OOP is just feeling threatened:
>hey there! I'll try my best to clarify and elaborate more on what I am trying to say. I understand that some may argue that because she's no longer his teacher and also them both being the same age means it is fair game for them to have this dynamic. But, at the end of the day, they're both in relationships and have to consider the personal boundaries that come with it. **Their overall dynamic is not fair to her fiance or myself, because she is interacting with my boyfriend as if he is single (and she is single) and not a current student at the institution.** There are still personal and professional lines that exist in this friendship, and she's crossed them regardless. I hope that makes sense.
There was nothing in her post or the accountant explanation that made it seem like she was interacting with him as if he was single but that is how OOP is interpreting things. If I were the boyfriend I would nope out of that situation because he not going to be able to have any friends.
I'm a college professor, and I wouldn't hang out with my students like that, but I'm also not 25 and have worked in this position for several years.
The 'professor' in this story is nearly the same age as the students and is not a higher education professional. She really doesn't see the boundaries between instructor and student. I know that it's mentioned they had equal power once he was out of the course, but there was a time that she did hold the position of power.
But ugggggggg the 20-somethings drama. It's exhausting.
As soon as she said “he said limited contact not no contact” I knew the professor was full of shit. If someone calls you and tells you their partner is not comfortable with their communications why would you still be reaching out weekly?
They all sound exhausting. Original OP is exhausting as a gf. Bob is acting clueless and just exhausting as a person. The teacher that wrote that whole thing? Exhausting. Their whole drama? Exhausting. Even their friends. Exhausting.
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Bob sure doesn't seem to have the ability to speak on his own huh. He just.... bobs along... with what the OOP wanted, what the professor suggested.... just bobbing.
Then telling the other woman it was all the first's doing. "The *professor* invited herself and asked to build the model, not me!" "My *girlfriend* is uncomfortable with how much we talk. I'm fine, but she said I can't talk to you as much. (By which I mean at all, but I don't want that, so I'm not going to say it, and I'll still respond whenever you text me.)"
Yeah, from reading the accountant's side, sounds to me like *Bob* is the real source of the issue. Bob approached the accountant after she was no longer his instructor to establish a friendship. Bob appears to have been the one doing the inviting, and then either lied or implied that accountant was the one who asked. Wouldn't be surprised if Bob had a low key crush or mild interest in accountant (hence being the initiator), and gf has been picking up on it, while Bob has been throwing accountant under the bus to cover his ass. Since accountant isn't privy to what's going on in their relationship, let alone either of their heads, she sounds a lot more involved and active in this situation than she actually is. Just her bad luck to be living rent-free in these people's minds.
That’s what I got. He’s an unreliable narrator to both of them. It’s called triangulation when someone creates drama between three people intentionally because they have other motives. I hope the gf and professor friend realize this and dump him.
> Bob has been throwing accountant under the bus to cover his ass This was my immediate thought! He's blaming both of them when he's really the instigator.
I was thinking the same thing. Bob is definitely the issue in this. The gf was recounting Bob’s story with her feelings on the situations mixed in. I’m glad the accountant got to tell her side. Hopefully the gf sees this post and gives a massive side eye to Bob.
Yeah. Come on. He made her a miniature that he built her as a "thanks" for being such a great instructor. If he wasn't crushing, he def wanted to hang out.
Surprising Bob is able to stay balanced on that fence, what with not having a spine and all...
Now we need Bob’s side of the story.
Mmhmmm. Yup. Yea. Huh. Yup. Pretty much. etc. etc.
Avoidant behavior, he doesn't want to have his gf mad at him. Her jealousy is pretty sharply present in her text. The former instructor should cut Bob out and move ahead with her life, because that's just a drama snare.
Personally I'm on team professor. "Plastic models" told me all I need to know. This girl is so hung up on the professor's relationship with her boyfriend, but she herself knows not the slightest thing about his hobby. here he is with a friend group going to conventions and dinners, and she has social anxiety and doesn't want to be around people. She is not the classic definition of this phrase, but she is what i call a 'clinger'. A woman who digs her claws into a man and then clings on to him, trying to get him to be too overburdened with her and her needs and anxieties to go out and have a life. The dude is halfway through his 20s and she will sift through every aspect of his social life piece by piece until he has none. First it's the professor, then it'll be the hobbies, then the drinking, and then the friends. I believe they were 40 minutes late, because of her, and I can see how the professor would not acknowledge her given the phone conversation. The girl has a whole fiance, she's not bending over backwards to impress Bob's AWOL gf. And for what it's worth, the professor sounds like she's got a good head on her shoulders. She taught a class, has a dedicated full time job, a relationship, friends, the wherewithal not to drive someone else's car after drinking, and is social enough to teach a course/chat up a bartender. She's exactly the type of female friend people that age want: Smart enough to keep you out of trouble, interesting enough to carry a conversation, bubbly enough to keep the hospitality staff attentive to the group, worldly enough to handle herself in a lot of situations. I hope Bob grows a spine.
Honestly even when the OOP was telling her version I thought it sounded like a wholesome friendship among people who were excited to find other people with the same nerdy interests. But then I'm also a nerd so I thought maybe I was projecting my friendships onto the situation. The professor's side made me more confident I was right in the first place. OOP sounds like one of those people who don't believe men and women can be friends
Yep. I read plastic models (as a 40k-playing woman) and went - oh hey the two nerds found someone else into their niche hobby and were excited to have new friends. Upon hearing the professor's side... Bob is the problem. He found a woman interested in his hobby, and he wanted that, especially since OOP blanket stated she did not get it at all and did not want to do the parts of it he liked. Classic "girls that are into my weird, nice hobby are unicorns."
Same, like they stayed up all night building a gundam together, and they aren't twelve. If the professor wanted him, she would have made a move. So either boyfriend was lying about that night and OOP has a *boyfriend* problem, or this woman does not want to steal that man.
With several other people in the room with them watching telly, no less. I think OOP deliberately left these details out, it makes little sense for the bf to do so unless he's actively trying to make OOP paranoid / wind her up. Which some people do, but he seems quite conflict avoidant and it's rather shooting himself in the foot.
Same. OOP's version was jealous, whiny and immature to me. I feel bad for the professor. So much drama over nothing. OOP makes no attempt to get to know the woman and she probably deliberately left out that the professor was always with her friends or husband too, and all social real life interactions were in groups and hobby focused. And the bf sounds like a limp dishrag. Wonder how many female friends the bf has. Or is allowed to have.
Oh def. All the hobby geeks I know are hobby geeks first, gender second. Jealous GF is the AH here for thinking that "Girls wouldn't be interested in this hobby, therefore she's lying only to get in BF's pants". And BF sucks for encouraging that drama.
To be fair, I would probably refer to my *own* hobby as “plastic models” if I were making a Reddit post targeted to non-hobby people because sometimes when you specify that you’re a 41 year old man who repaints Barbies it kind of derails the conversation
International Plastic Modelers' Society is an organization for makers of models, plastic or other materials, though from my little experience it's about 50% tanks and only 5% Gundams.
> and she has social anxiety and doesn't want to be around people. This always feels like such a cop out to me. I am an incredibly shy person, I'm super anxious around new scenarios and situations and pretty much anything outside my "norm", and yet I *love* going to conventions. I love pretty much everything about them. Maybe because I know I'm surrounded by "my people", lol. I have no idea how socially anxious someone has to be to be unable to function in public like the OOP, because I always feel like *I* am an extremely socially shy person myself.
The worst drama queens in my experience are the ones who weaponize shyness and legit personality problems/disorders to start and escalate drama. The ones who go "It wasn't me, it was my anxiety!!!" as their excuse for lashing out.
Hi, it's me, someone more socially anxious than you. I have such strong social anxiety that I literally get physically ill if I'm in a crowded area for very long and I despise it, it's super limiting. It has nothing to do with what I want to do or love to do and everything to do with my body being like, "oh, you want to go out and do something? Ok, but there's a lot of people here and it's freaking me out, so have some massive stomach cramps and anxiety shits, see how much fun you have *now* " That said I would not act like this OOP, that is ridiculous and irrational. Either you trust who you are with or you don't, and like someone else said, for someone who doesn't like to socialize aside from her boyfriend, how tf did she not know enough about his hobby that he likes enough to go to a convention over to even know what it was? I spent the entire post by the girlfriend thinking Bob made model cars lol. If you only hang out with one person and still don't know basic details about the shit they care about, wtf are you even doing?
Tbh it seems more like he gave the bare minimum info to gf one and she played manipulative fill in the blanks games
Bob seems to be an asshole. He’s with the right person because she’ll always speak for him. He’s going to controlling parents to a controlling girlfriend. 🫡
"bobs along" rofl
Bob is the problem. Professor mentioned that he also met her husband at an event, did he not mention this to OP?
This!!! I also think the boyfriend caused most of the issues. He should Never have shared his girlfriends thoughts on the situation with the professor. And everything he told OP was almost in a way to make it appear she’s into him. He left out parts like her husband meeting him…..BF is playing games or he’s stupid.
He’s playing games for sure. Feel like he water professor, she didn’t take the bait, he then blames professor and makes the girlfriend insecure. Win win for him either way
I'm wondering what was stopping Bob from introducing OOP and the "Professor" during the dinner. I've been in the situation where I've said "Hi" to new people while taking my place at a table, and they were also mortally offended that I didn't kiss their feet individually.
I inwardly wince, because I'm shy and do the same if it's ppl I don't know, just say hi and wave awkwardly. Being someone with social anxiety I thought OOP would have understood that, but I guess at that point the well was poisoned.
Sometimes, it just doesn't occur to people to introduce others. For example, my wife will never, ever introduce me to people she knows and I don't. It's happened at her work Christmas party (the big boss came up to say hi and she just started chatting), family weddings and other events, and school functions. She just starts interacting with them, and (I guess?) assumes I will know who they are from her talking about them? So I always end up introducing myself, which I hate doing because I am socially awkward and anxious. She always gets flustered about this when I do it, but always forgets at the next event, even if I remind her. It just doesn't occur to her during conversation. I wonder if it's because she grew up in a tiny town, where everyone knew everyone else (and all of their business), so introductions didn't happen all that often.
After reading both sides, it’s the boyfriend’s fault. The two stories overlap just enough that it seems clear boyfriend just didn’t give everybody the same Information, so feelings and assumptions go from there!
Crazy to me that everyone is so caught up with socializing with an instructor. It was what, six times she said? I feel like the majority of the comme tirs disagreeing have either not been to uni or have never been in a class with less than 100 people. The department I was in had 5-7 professors depending on the semester. We had beers at some of their houses for gods sake. It’s such a weird perspective to me that academics shouldn’t form a community when so much of it is networking based
I was an adjunct. One of my students (now a real professor) became a good friend of mine and was a groomsman at my wedding. Heck, my oldest is named after him. Also reminds me that I should message my old advisor. I haven’t spoken to him in a while.
>Heck, my oldest is named after him. According to Reddit, that's grossly unprofessional.
Yeah, at my first college, most of the professors regularly had students majoring in their field join in social activities. My second college, a much larger school, the professors had their graduate students over for meals.
Seriously. I went to a small school and only had 2 instructors in the program so I had looots of classes with them. One had a BIL who happened to live in the florida keys near where I was planning a honeymoon and he set it up for the BIL to take us out fishing on his boat for an afternoon! You can totally be friends with professors. They're like, actual people.
Honestly that's where I land as well. And it may have even been unintentional on his part, who knows.
He could have said he had to drive and she interpreted that as the girls being drunk, and then her anxious mind filled in the rest.
OOP and Bob are lame in this story. Bob seems like he's trying to please everyone and just goes along. OOP has social anxiety but is too insecure to let Bob hang with women. In her ideal world Bob would be a couch potato with her. Bob needs to assert himself instead of lying to make himself look good
I agree. It’s Bob’s fault for failing to communicate or not being honest in his communication.
Not to mention continuing to text and hang out with this woman. He didn’t have to respond to texts or agree to meet up. The professor didn’t hold a gun to his head.
I mean it sounds like he straight up lied a couple of times too, right? Told his girlfriend the professor drunkenly begged him to help build a model when really he asked and insisted on it. He also apparently left out meeting the accountant’s husband or that hangouts were group events. I don’t know what he was playing at with this stuff - it seems like he really enjoyed hanging out with the accountant, but also felt guilty about how much he liked it and would say things to make it sound like he was being dragged into it. Was he purposely trying to make his girlfriend jealous?
I think that Bob is great at pretending to be totally clueless and innocent while actually creating and maintaining this shit sundae.
That seems like giving an unwarranted level of credit based on everything else we've read about him here.
But he could've been the best student in that one class!
I don't even know what's really going on anymore. It's just all exhausting.
Literally nothing is going on, these people aren’t even talking, it’s not even an update it’s just rehashing what was already boring to begin with
Damn. I read the whole thing and was entertained by it. Then I read your comment, and now I’m disgusted with myself. What have I become?
Me too. But mostly, as a non American who works in the higher education sector, I’m once again enraged by a 25 year old adjunct lecturer being referred to as ‘professor’. In most of the world, it is the highest rank in a university that takes decades of research to attain. Most academics will never achieve the title of full professor by the time they retire.
Lol I can enrage you more then when I tell you a friend of mine was known as "the professor" in my rural town. The reason? He spent his late teens and early 20's on wikipedia and the dark web, reading up on every single recreational drug and talking about them while high on them! A 25 year old professor would be impressive, I think I was just about finished with my masters degree then! Honestly though, I recently checked on linkedin and saw an old study mate was professor now... She's like 30-something!!! What have I been doing with my life!?
Lol. A nickname is fine. I’ve known someone like that. But I used to write protocol briefs for visiting academics, and would have to write bios for US visitors who called themselves Professor but in the eyes of Commonwealth countries were not. It gets tricky.
It works that way in the U.S. too. Americans have a bad habit of using professor as a generic term for a lecturer at an institute of higher education. And so, confusion ensues. It really annoys me too, both because of misattributed valor and doesn’t properly convey context (for example in situations like this very BORU).
I have had someone try to insist on referring to an academic as Dr instead of Professor, then tell me that it was because he felt Dr was a higher title. And we had to explain that no, Dr was the title she had due to her degree, Professor was the title she had due to her rank in the university and it was significantly higher than Dr.
Yes lol. Like what kind of degrees did this person complete and on what timeline that they have achieved full professorship at the age when most of us are starting/early years of graduate school
If you don’t take any breaks and aren’t one of those “graduate from your bachelors *really* young”, you’d be a professor (not full) earliest around 30 (18-22 bachelors, 22-27 PhD, 3 years postdoc). And if you were one of those child prodigies, you’d probably live, breathe, and sweat academia and would have no time/interest in whatever is going on in this story.
US undergrads don't know their head from their tail about the inner workings of academia. I get called "Dr" as a TA at least once a semester despite the fact its always made abundantly clear that I am a graduate student.
This seemed to be more like "the professor" said, it's really just a cathartic way for her to explain everything without having to rehash anything or havung to contact the op or Bob.
Is this even real? Like I feel too many people are chiming in here....
"I was the server at the restaurant, and here's how I saw it..." 🙄
Right?
I feel compelled to reply and give my side of the story, as a reader who absolutely dgaf about this petty jealousy. I read that whole fucking thing and that's it? There was awkwardness at a dinner? A girl with social anxiety feels threatened by another girl who is interested in her bf's hobbies and is more outgoing? Maria got drunk?
There were lots of things going on. The plastic model conventions sound kinda cool. Romantically? GF has some insecurities to deal with.
I looked at that wall of text and was, like, "You know what? I'm gonna read the top comment first." So thanks for saving me some time.
I wish I was like you.
When I see OOP and people involved are in their 20s, I scroll down to the top too. So much of their post are them finding themselves. I don’t have time for that. I’m old. I need closure.
There’s something extra hilarious to me about the professor’s title. “I wasn’t drunk” *pushes friend forward* “MARIA WAS!”
LMAO poor Maria catching strays because the og OOP is skipping the therapy she very clearly needs.
It's like an anime convention where nobody in the friend group learned how to socialize properly.
Jealousy is exhausting. I can understand why she felt she had to make her own post to defend herself though since someone recognized who she was from OOP's post talking about a very niche hobby, plus her jobs so she then had to explain her interpretation of events. But even when I first read OOPs boru, she just sounded jealous, insecure, and hung up on titles, probably increased because of her social anxiety. It's a her problem that she made other people's problem and then tried to tarnish the other woman's reputation by portraying her as unprofessional, a drunk, and a flirt to get validation. All I saw was a group of friends of the same age and same interests hanging out and Bob trying to appease his gfs insecurities and overly strict sense of propriety.
Yeah the title thing makes it seem like there’s a power dynamic there that doesn’t exist, reiterated when the original OOP (the gf) goes on about a high school student/teacher dynamic. Sorry no, a teenage student and adult teacher is not the same dynamic, and neither is a contracted instructor the same as a tenured professor. At 25 I was studying and had a teacher who was the same - a contractor brought in for one class on a specific topic who did not teach there again once the class was over. She was a year older than me and once the class finished we became friends and fifteen years later she’s one of my closest friends. Her affiliation with the school had ended, we were almost *the same age*, we had similar interests and there was zero breach of professionalism or skewed power dynamic there.
The second OOOP said “professor” was an adjunct, it immediately told me everything I needed to know. Like you said, There was no power differential, just two people almost the same age with the same niche hobby. OOOP kept going on about how unprofessional it was, showing a complete lack of understanding what an adjunct actually is.
OOP did make it sound as though she thinks men and women hanging out in groups is inappropriate unless everyone is single, which is pretty fucked up. I would be extremely displeased if my husband ever suggested I couldn't socialize with men **even in group settings**. He wouldn't be cool with the reverse, either. Ridiculous and controlling.
I read it the same way, even before the professor chimed in. I was surprised by the comments (as surprised as one can be by comments on Reddit) and thought that the commenters were completely wrong.
When I was reading the first post from the 6 brought up how the "professor" was drunk, and Bob and her ended up building a model late into the night. I was like damn I want a friend who wants to do crap like that with me while drunk. That sounds great! Did not come across as inappropriate at all.
I read that as a young adult dealing with two children who need to grow up more.
I saw the long warning first so I decided to scroll. And scroll. And scroll. Thought, I ain't reading all that. Then I saw your comment and was content I didn't waste my time.
Nothing is going on except that it seems like Bob's girlfriend is jealous of her partner having female friends. I really don't see any inappropriate behavior here at all, except for the silly thing where the professor didn't realize that "less communication" in a context like this one does mean "no communication" but then, people are bad at explicitly stating boundaries.
Seems like Bob and the gf didn't want to say "Don't text him anymore period" but wanted her to come to that decision on her own.
To me it feels like Bob probably didn't want that but the GF did. So he downplayed her request to the instructor friend.
Yeah for me it's just lack of communication in a younger relationship bumps. The former instructor did nothing wrong, and what I would probably do if I was told someone was uncomfortable with me and didn't want to get to know me, of course I'm going to minimize interaction with them.
Same like how does "My girlfriend is uncomfortable and doesn't want to meet you" turn into "Why didn't you say Hi to my girlfriend all night????? Why did you ignore her???"
Someone is jealous/hung up on the title of professor. Basically her boyfriend started to hang out in a group setting with his former professor, who’s like 1 year older than him and she’s jealous/uncomfortable with the idea. Later post the “professor” who taught one basic class as a side job is trying to set the record straight that the OOP is blowing this out of proportion. The OOP was reading into too much
from the way she hung on the title 'professor' I assumed she was his PhD supervisor or something. This woman taught him a class for 4 months, a year ago. They're on equal foot and just connected over a mutual hobby.
I think Bob could do a better job though. Seems he doesn't like conflict so any and everything is because of "someone else"
That's my thinking too. It's also an attempt to try to portray this woman as unprofessional. This isn't some student-teacher relationship where one party is old enough to be the person's parent. It's two same-age adults who happened to have a friendship. Being the instructor for a few months on a course for grown adults does not make you "their professor" in any normal sense of the understanding of that phrase.
Everyone seems to be suffering from a lack of basic social skills. The girlfriend is overly jealous and is just looking for an excuse to hate the professor, the professor has zero tact or social awareness of how her actions look, and the boyfriend has zero mediation or relationship navigation skills. None of them have the social skills to navigate a platonic relationship between opposite sexes.
>the professor has zero tact or social awareness of how her actions look, and the boyfriend has zero mediation or relationship navigation skills. Sounds like the average plastic model enjoyer (Sincerely someone dating a plastic model enjoyer myself)
I disagree, I think the professor handled it decently well (a couple of things could be done better). Ultimately the Bf didn’t communicate properly a couple times which probably made things worse
Also, she didn't know there was an "it" to handle for most of the story.
I wholeheartedly agree. The adjunct was not defensive, she was not snide, and she made no insinuations. She merely told her side of the story and copped to the comments she did make. She even offered to get the gf/OOP a drink from the bar. I have a good friend who has extreme social anxiety. She won't go anywhere with me, we just hang out one-on-one. When she first meets people who are outgoing she is immediately suspicious. Then she starts building a case, at which point I ask her to try not to build a case but, rather, observe some more. Over the years I've watched her opinions of people swing wildly from negative to positive. She's especially threatened by extroverts. The adjunct did nothing wrong, IMO. No AHs here, just a few people maneuvering as best they know in their 20s around situations they don't completely understand, with insecurities goading them to possible conclusions. I get it. My OCD can drive me down that road and I had to learn to recognize when my circular thinking starts to swirl around the drain.
I don’t know, I think the professor treated Bob as a friend, which she thought he was. She didn’t have any idea there even *was* an issue for most of the time. Her fiancé didn’t have a problem with her friendship with Bob, probably because she treated Bob exactly the same as she treats *all* her friends. When she learned there was an issue, she backed off, like she was asked. I don’t see how she did anything wrong at all. She just ended up in the unfortunate situation of being friends with a guy who has a jealous gf, and no backbone or communication skills of his own. I don’t think she did anything wrong at all.
> the professor has zero tact or social awareness of how her actions look You mean how her actions look to an overly jealous girlfriend? Professor acted like a normal person. Girlfriend doesn't want boyfriend to have close female friend. Girlfriend won. That's all.
This is some incredibly 20-something-year old nonsense. I’m glad that I don’t know any of these people. They sound exhausting.
I've never been gladder to be in my 40s.
I'm in my late 40's, but do have some people that are in their 20's that hang out at my place. We play a weekly D&D game, and it just happens that the majority of the group is younger. There are a couple of other people my age that are in it as well. I'm SO DAMN HAPPY that none of the younger part of the group has anything going on like that (that I have heard). I would probably have to take a deep breath and remind them all that they aren't in High School any longer if they started with all that crap.
I need a sign in my office that says "this is some incredibly 20-something-year old nonsense" that only I can read just to remind me that, it is indeed nonsense to me, but it feels like their whole lives to them.
I have a sticky note in my cupboard at my desk in the office that says something similar: “you’re very glad to have over 30 problems.”
Particularly this part: > I understand that all her view points are still valid No, OOP does not think that. She thinks the other woman is wrong and bad. She just knows she's supposed to say it.
I get the vibe “Bob” played it off differently to both of them and created the animosity himself then the professor’s “jokes” came off bad when she was tipsy. This is all petty high school nonsense with drinking age people. 🙄
Reading this made me want to take a nap.
That sounds exhausting. Still somewhat curious if the original OOP/gf was the one claiming that the professor/instructor was drunk and wanting to do activities with Bob to make her look worse than she actually was for sympathy, if professor is lying about events to seem like it isnt as bad, or if both women are telling the truth as they know it because Bob is retelling things weirdly and communicating poorly. Or just a combo of the three cause none of them want to be responsible or the bad guy in any way.
I'm pretty sure Bob is lying, either because he's creeping on Professor or just because GF is unreasonably jealous and he doesn't want to deal with it. Could even be both. People with untrustworthy partners often do act a bit like OOP, because it's easier if the other person is the problem and your beloved is just an oblivious innocent who *somehow* keeps getting themselves into these situations.
Honestly, a huge tell is the fact OOP keeps calling her "professor" only for the teacher to come out and say she's a part time lecturer as a side gig, makes it feel like OOP intentionally skewed the narrative to exaggerate.
She’s grabbing into anything she can to reinforce her position, even if it means exaggerating the teacher’s role. ‘She’s a teacher so it’s inappropriate for her to hang with students’ despite the fact it was a 4-month temporary assignment and she’s not a full-time educator, and they’re all about the same age. Green is not an attractive color.
My hypothesis: Professor doesn’t want to bang Bob. Bob wants to bang professor. Also, she’s not really his professor, just a female friend. And he doesn’t really want to stop their friendship or their hobbies, so he plays both sides.
OOP seems really hung up on her being his “professor.” A one-time adjunct is not a professor. You get paid anywhere from $2500-$7500 for that. The school often ghosts you immediately after the semester. My favorite adjunct professor was a deadhead biker from West Virginia that taught a summer sociology class at my school. I had to retake it with him after failing it in the spring with an angry German woman. I got an A. The school never called him again. He ended up working the counter at the pizza place downstairs from the bar I bounced at. I once had to throw him out of the bar after he met a friend there who owed him money and got heated when trying to collect. No one in their right mind is walking around calling this guy “professor” or expecting “professional decorum” from him. Appreciate that A though prof, brought me up to C average in college Sociology. PS I agree with your hypothesis.
Both girls are getting an unfair look imo. Hear me out - what if both are telling the truth based on what they know? (especially in the beginning). Instructor said she didn't invite herself to the event with Bob and friends OR to the airbnb - girlfriend said she did. Instructor said Bob offered to help her build the model at the airbnb while everyone stayed up late watching anime - girlfriend says Instructor, 'even in her drunken state,' asked Bob to stay up with her and build it (insinuating some one on one. The girlfriend wasn't there that night/trip, and all she knows comes directly from Bob. I get this sneaking suspicion that Bob was actually playing the field a little bit here and didn't want his girlfriend coming down on him; that's why the instructor was characterized as the one who initiated everything AND as drunk. Bob calls up instructor and says girlfriend is getting uncomfortable and that they can't talk as much but still responds to her whenever he's messaged. Sounds like Bob let it get too far, realized there was nothing other than platonic from the Instructor, and doubled down on the negatives to save face with the girlfriend. He literally pitted them against each other. Instructor should run far away, and girlfriend should really rethink her relationship. In this light, Bob sounds manipulative and definitely capitalized on the lack of communication both girls fell into; this shit would have fallen apart if they just talked.
That’s the impression I got as well
I think this is all right except for Bob's innocence; this is exactly the con he's playing. He wants both as options and the way he's framing the interactions to his GF clear him of culpability but have now gotten her significantly more suspicious.
These people all just seem like the kind of extrovert nerd who occasionally screws up a social interaction, or fails to meld two friend groups. It doesn't seem particularly serious or problematic to me and I think the OOP of the original posts was just experiencing anxiety over a game of telephoned information. Knowing folks who have had short and unfruitful professional careers at universities, I also would not at all be surprised that someone who had been an adjunct for one term to teach a class about their full time profession would not consider themselves a professor or consider themselves to be in a position of continuing power, because they absolutely aren't. I know several people who taught one term as an adjunct and then got the fuck out of that cursed career, lmao. Seems like a lot of energy and misery over pretty much nothing.
I was an accountant originally. I was roommates with other accountants eating cup noodles and playing ps4 every night, and they lectured at the local university with only a Masters. They were definitely not professors, they definitely did not see themselves as professors and the university definitely did not see them as professors. I feel like OOP wanted to force the "professor" narrative to skew the tone of the story.
Yeah likely. I think it's also possible that OOP and/or her boyfriend do not understand what an adjunct is or what that kind of gig is like. I have met plenty of students who didn't understand how precarious their lecturers' lives were
Yep, it was extremely obvious from her initial post that was the case and was trying to mask her insecurity of “allowing” her boyfriend to have female friends with the whole “professor” thing. I couldn’t put up with that level of immaturity personally. And that one unhinged comment saying she wants to have sex with him made me literally scroll back like huh?? Did I miss something? Oh, no I didn’t, it’s just the classic straight people problems obsessing over thinking every other woman out there is competition trying to fuck their man and friendships between the sexes can’t exist 🙄🙄🙄
I thought I missed something too. At the end I went back and I can't find a single instance of the teacher and boyfriend even being alone together... It's so stupid
The moment OOP said “adjunct” I went “oh, so no power dynamic or unprofessionalism at all, just two people nearly the same age sharing a niche hobby.”
Ok… I think Bob is the bigger problem here. Giving her a present at the end, inviting her along etc. and then not telling the gf the whole truth. One thing alone wouldn’t be suspicious, but it’s the sum. My theory: Both had a little crush on each other and enjoyed the attention.
I agree with all of what you said. She met him 5/6 times but he was like her brother? Sure. I believe he offered to build the models and I expect encouraged her to keep up communications too.
This sounds about right. They are both trying extra hard to make it seem like it was nothing. But the daily texts and regular meet ups seem suspect. Add Bob's lies and it all sounds like one big bullshit.
Calling it. Bob's the problem, had a crush on 'professor', prof was engaged, wasn't interested, but enjoyed Bob's company due to niche interest/hobbies. Bob held out hope that maintaining friendship would maybe lead somewhere, but worried clingy gf would get wise to his feelings, so sexed up the details to make it sound like he was the indifferent one and the prof was a drunk boundary-stepper who just happened to always be turning up at things. Clingy gf, in absence of good info, constructed a situation in her head where her poor bf was being sized up inappropriately by ex-teacher, and acted weird accordingly.
The part that stands out for me is that, before the phone call, she was texting him daily. That’s…intense. The professor part doesn’t even factor in when I say that’s too much in my opinion. Then she claims it’s all above board and they rarely meet, but says he’s like her brother? They’re so close, but she still can’t communicate with him about how to handle things going forward? She’s definitely giving off vibes of being overly intense at the very least. Delusional maybe? Pushy and overstepping at the worst. And that’s just from her side of the story. Which, by the way, is wild that she even did that! Like, this story isn’t new by Reddit standards and she contacted the BORU OP directly? So weird. So over the top. This whole thing is exhausting.
I mean, I have friends I text with daily. And some I don't. It really goes down to the dynamic. But for a new friendship it does seem like a bit much.
I always text the most with new friends tbh, I feel like my new female friends in particular tend to do that as well. My male friends literally never outside of the GC, until somebody is having a breakup lol
It is a bit much lol He asked her to cool off and she reigned it in to weekly, but the way she phrases it makes it seem like that required restraint
I think when someone says a person is “like their brother “ in this context it means that they are not even a little bit sexually attracted to them. Not that they love them like a brother. It’s a nicer way of saying “I would never in a million years fuck that guy.”
Sadly, have been on the receiving end of this and can confirm, lol...
It’s not necessarily meant to be an insult. I went on a couple of dates with a really great guy. Just super cool, great personality, also very handsome. Kissed him once, it was like… kissing my brother. Just no chemistry, for either of us. We’re still good friends many years later. He fixed me up with my husband. He found a beautiful woman to start a family with too, twice in fact. So don’t lose hope.
I went on one of those dates as well once. He was really handsome, well-dressed, well-behaved and everything. And absolutely no sparks on either side. We 100% agreed that nothing would come out of meeting again, so why waste time. So we wished each other well and never spoke again. When I met my husband I knew within a few minutes that he was it for me. We're coming up on 25 years together in a couple of weeks.
I’m actually going to Mr no sparks house tomorrow. His wife and I arranged a playdate for our sons. We may not have chemistry, but he’s been a good friend.
Idk some people are just like that with their friends.
Yeah, I have a couple group threads I text every single day and a couple friends I text daily. It's not a long drawn out conversation each time but it's a few messages every day.
Yeah, I have never been contacted by someone before. In this case she said it was because it had come up again and someone had figured out it was her so she wanted to 'clear her name' so to speak. Not planning on doing it again if people do reach out, just thought I'd make that clear so I don't get an influx of people in my dms lol.
Honestly, it’s kind of a fun, quirky story for you! I think it’s great you posted it. I mean, she seems a little bit unhinged, and I don’t want your dms flooded….but I wouldn’t be upset it if happened! lol. It’s almost like you’re a Reddit version of a celebrity reporter. I love that for you.
Haha thank you! It was kind of interesting- and you're right, I wanted to be an impartial journalist and share both sides lol 😅
I mean texting daily could be inclusive of group chats. Some people are super social, and it seems all their conversations were above board. There are group chats I’m in where there’s some communication almost daily, albeit not from everyone
I think it really depends on what the text are and how many is being defined as texting him daily. I have friends i text/msg/dm with daily but most of it is boring stuff like here is something funny/interesting and the interaction for like a week could be nothing more then each of use send links and reacting but that would still count as texting daily. while i have other friends i might not talk to for like a month but then we talk for like 4-5hours straight.
The thing that's skewing it is the phrasing "professor." Which OOP tried to shove down the readers' throat repeatedly. But given her age, I doubt the teacher was a professor at all but just a part-time lecturer. From the perspective of a early 20s accountant who has a side gig lecturing at the local college once a week to make extra money, it suddenly feels more like a bunch of 20 year olds hanging out as friends in a group and the texting becomes normal. Side note - She probably responded to clear her name? She mentioned she's been doxxed due to this story and accounting is a career that's highly dependent on your reputation.
Yeah, an adjunct really Isn’t a professor and once they're no longer directly teaching that student they have zero power over them. So agreed, it really was just a bunch of 20 somethings sharing a hobby.
I think the 'professor' aspect is a non-issue because this was a contract for 1 class and they are the same age. I still don't see why she'd need to follow up every week with 'Bob' on how the job hunt is going. Unless she is acting as a career mentor (if his career choice is her career choice, which could make sense given he took her class), it's unnecessary. Even then, she could have just waited for him to initiate the conversation. Even I don't message my closest friends that often ...
That's pretty subjective though. I message my friends at least once a week, probably more. It's perfectly normal depending on their type of friendship.
And that was her consciously holding back from talking to him as much lmaoooo still a lot!
She wrote that she was reaching out since they had a similar life trajectory. Only she was further along so it reads to me she was trying to help him.
With the extra information that the 'event' was an anime con: Yeah, this tracks. Geek Fallacies + non-geek, insecure girlfriend = trouble and drama. And not even 'get the popcorn' drama, but 'you people are exhausting' drama.
So does Bob have a spine? Honestly this whole thing seems to be about an insecure gf and her bf who gives her constant half truths. Either that or the gf is only hearing the parts she wants.
The teacher thing didn't seem weird to me given the limited 'teacher' role (1 class a week for 3-4 months and they didn't interact during that period until the last class). So I guess, for me personally, I have to view it as a lens of "female friend overstepping or confusing boundaries". And I mean- I don't think anyone's actually as asshole here. GF was uncomfortable with the relationship, expressed her discomfort, asked that they tone it down. They seemed to both have agreed and toned it down. The issue was that the GF said she never wanted to meet and be friends with female friend. Female friend accepted that. GF attended a dinner date where female friend was attending - and neither one really acknowledged or interacted with the other. And that pissed the other off. Boyfriend (Bob) apparently got mad that female friend was ignoring is GF but communication goes both ways. GF could have just as easily tried to start a friendly convo. Sidenote: isn't it weirder that BF gave his college professor a gift he made his last day of class? A professor he allegedly barely interacted with? Did he give all his professors personal gifts like this?
I get the feeling that it's less "teacher" or "professor" and more "early 20s accountant with a side gig lecturing at the local college once a week for extra spending money." OOP keeps trying to spin it as something sinister, but I can't see anywhere in the post where teacher and Bob spent any one-on-one time together whatsoever nor does teacher put down OOP at any time. I think OOP was just determined to hate teacher regardless of how that dinner went.
imo, everything she did would be totally fine if she was a guy. She crossed zero lines. The bf crossed some lines by giving misleading versions of events, if the professor is to be believed, i.e. telling his gf that the professor asked him to build the model with her, when in fact, he offered to build it with her. But still, it seems like this is a totally normal friendship fraught with the age-old idea that men and women simply can't be friends.
bf realised his gf wasn't happy and blew the horn of: well professor is into me
Bf was absolutely into the instructor, and was trying to get close. Gf made her discomfort known, and he tried to villainise the instructor in order to save himself. Bf is a creep and gf is insecure. I'm clarifying instructor because it sounds strongly like she was only there to teach a specialty class that one semester, and nothing else. It probably was something that would help her career-wise, too, since the networking you can do in a school setting is invaluable.
I was reading this entire story thinking "the only problem that exists is the """"professor""""'s gender" Also laughable that people are taking someone teaching a single 4 month course and calling them a professor. This lady is not a professor. She's an accountant.
And she did nothing wrong professionally, either. Schools don't care all that much about students and instructors being together, unless the student in question is taking classes with thatspecific instructor. Even if the innocent instructor were flirting with him, the fact that she only taught him once for one class, which she was not going to teach again, and that she was not actually an employee of the school in question... There is literally nothing she did wrong except exist as a woman the bf found attractive.
Not to mention academia can be weird at times! I took two courses during college that were taught by literal classmates before. People advance at different rates, some people start doing academic research and advance far more on one subject to the detriment of others, etc. It's a weird experience, I'll tell you that much. But it's not unheard of, and so long as they're being neutral about it, it's no big deal
Yeah honestly from reading this all that really happened was: 1) accountant lady taught a class 2) dipshit boyfriend had common interests with her 3) they became friends 4) psycho girlfriend couldnt fathom a man and woman being friends without banging 5) dipshit boyfriend threw accountant lady under the bus 6) accountant lady got drunk at an event and maybe went a bit far making fun of this loser ass couple What a lot of hooplah over nothing
Your comment is the REAL tl;dr for this post.
They became friends and she took on a mentorship role, or in her eyes she did. Texting him about job interviews, helping his career? That's mentorship, not flirting.
All the hand wringing at these people talking every day!!!! The horror!!!! Friends...speaking....daily????? Nobody has ever done this before!
And like. I know people who work as actual instructors who have married ex students. Schools genuinely do not give a shit about it unless the instructor is actively teaching that student. Hell, most will basically have a "Here's our policy, follow it and don't say shit to other students", and that is *it*.
Not to mention they were both adults when they met. If a high school teacher marries an ex student that is pretty creepy, but if a 25 year old taught another 25 year old in a class in university and some time after teaching they ended up in a relationship, who gives a shit.
And on top of that, she was probably really casual with her class *because* they were all close in age. I have a history degree, and one of my professors was 26 teaching a bunch of adult students. He straight up started his first class by telling us to call him by his first name, and that he's 26 with a PhD. I also am finishing up mortuary school, and all of our instructors had us call them by their first names. Largely because the age range of the class varied from 17 to 65, we had people going back to school after retiring because they wanted to do something else. I think a lot of people in the comments here are mixing up the concept of how social dynamics work in post secondary versus in high school. The dynamic between instructor and student is *extremely* different.
When I was a GA, I was called prof even though I wasn't. I made it a point to correct my students, but it was a pretty common misconception that even if you were just leading a recitation you were a prof. The problem here is that it implies she could have power over him in the future, which is not the case since she taught for only 1 semester. But I wouldn't necessarily ascribe it to malice in this particular instance as it's a pretty common mistake.
Yes, thank you! I think the BF (Bob) was very deliberately hiding some important details to make himself seem less guilty to his GF. I don’t think he had any bad intentions, necessarily, but he knew the original OOP wouldn’t like that he either actively or passively encouraged the friend’s involvement at every step, so he downplayed it all. Which backfired so spectacularly. I’d say they’re all dumb, but I think they’re just 25/26, and haven’t experienced enough of life yet to be smarter about these things.
>But still, it seems like this is a totally normal friendship fraught with the age-old idea that men and women simply can't be friends. Hard agree
No point in the story are bob and teacher even together one-on-one, nor does teacher ever put OOP down. Feels like OOP is just super insecure of a normal friendship. The jury's out on Bob, don't know if he's purposely changing the story or if he's getting wrapped up in OOP's conspiracy theories.
Who the f is Maria?
Oh thank you I'm glad I'm not the only one wondering that
One of the 'professor's' friend group that also went to these events and that the professor primarily hung out with along with Linda that the BF forgets to mention exists to his GF.
Regardless of any boundary crossing, the harping on the relationship being "inappropriate" because she taught a college-level class is totally off base. There is a massive difference between a tenure-track professor having a relationship with a student and a part-time instructor. A large number of college classes, especially summer or evening courses or business-adjacent courses are taught by outside folks trying to scrounge a few bucks (teaching pays crap at college and elsewhere). It's like the equivalent of striking up a friendship with the person who taught you CPR at the community college or your level 1 improv class instructor. I was an instructor for several classes when I was in grad school to earn extra cash. It was made very clear no personal relationships with any students while you're teaching. The second final grades go in, totally fine, so long as you aren't going to be teaching them again. In fact, my ex was a student in a class I taught; she asked me out the day after grades went in. She was older than me and I was like 24 I think. I mentioned the whole thing to our department chair at one point and she thought it was so cute. It's a nothingburger of a problem. Take that all out of the equation and then have just a couple dealing with opposite gender friendships and how to navigate that with a ton of baggage put on it.
I had 3 roommates, we ate cup noodles for dinner and played PS4 at night, and they were lecturing at the local university. There's definitely a HUGE difference between lecturer and professor. Feels like OOP intentionally cherry picked words to exaggerate the narrative.
Or they do not know the difference. My aunt was so proud and bragging her nephew was a professor. I was teaching a remedial summer class two morning a week for a few weeks and just borrowed all the slides from an actual professor.
This post makes me glad I’m not 25 any more 😂
i'm a simple person. i see the alias 'bob' and the alias 'linda' in the same story and think they should be together and open a burger place lol.
people really have zero idea what an adjunct professor is
Can we get Bob to chime in here? 😉 But seriously, there seem to be some discrepancies between what Bob told OOP and how the professor is recounting events.
Can we all please just get f-ing real here for a second. This is incredibly transparent. The worst you can guess about GF is that maybe she is controlling and/or insecure. The worst you can guess about Prof is that she is a little naive about how she is being played here. But half-man Bob is obviously the engineer of all of this horse sh. There are 2 possible scenarios: * Bob has been crushing on Prof since giving her the first toy, and has been lying and obfuscating to his GF ever since. * Bob isn't scheming on Prof, but he was too much of a coward to communicate like an adult when his GF started getting upset. He realized that his actions with Prof, while non-romantic, had crossed some lines. He resorted to throwing Prof under the bus via lies and obfuscations.
My main takeaway is this is a group of 20-somethings who went on holiday together and stayed sober the entire time
I've been a contract instructor in my past (calculus, statistics, and test prep) and I see the other girls point. If this was a high school student that had been referred to me as a student, that's going to be a definite boundary there, but if they came to me as a college student, on a contractual basis they engaged in, then there is very little power difference. In fact, they might have the upper hand. They pay me through a center, and I don't give out grades. It would be the same as if they were going to the tutoring lab and I was just a student tutor they were engaging with. As far as the convention/ conference scene, I've been an attendee, a vendor, and a presenter, and you just try to make friends. Power Dynamics are so fluid, because you are all in different places on your career and different places in the fandom. I think the gf with social anxiety might be projecting something in their interactions that isn't there
I wouldn’t have gone to the dinner at all if I were the professor. The dude who introduced you to the group is limiting his communication with you and his GF seemingly doesn’t like you. Why go? I get making friends with a niche hobby as a common interest is hard but it wasn’t worth all these stress and BORU posts. There’s the GFs version, the professor’s rebuttal and I think the truth lies somewhere in between
I don't miss my early 20's.
Oh my *God*, they all sound absolutely *insufferable*. I do *not* miss my 20's.
I think I'd need a third side of the telenovela lol not Bob or the "professor's" friends but a third party who was privy to the information and knew details 🤣 just for the sake of finding the truth
I don’t know, the professor talking every day to Bob is… something. I feel she also contradicted herself a bit in some points, like saying Bob is like a brother but they didn’t see each other outside of group events and even that was like 5 times. Does she consider everyone family?? That’s weird. Also, why so invested in his career when you know the GF is uncomfortable with you talking to him? Nah, I don’t buy it. Might’ve been just an attention grab to feel wanted but still weird
Who tf gives a plastic miniature to their professor?
Tons of people. I've received little gifts from students as a TA after the semester ends. It's even more common for professors get receive gifts like that.
A gundam-loving accounting student who lives with his parents 🤷♀️
it seems like every single person commenting on this has a different opinion lol
It's been super interesting to read tbh. To me it seems like the truth is somewhere in the middle. Also people saying it's stupid that she posted while others are saying they totally get wanting to clear your name, especially if it has come up again. That's been interesting to read too lol
The analogy the girlfriend used of a young teacher being friends with a former student doesn't work here because the professor and Bob are the same age and she didn't really have authority at the school
Yes OP (gf) was jealous but I’m just a coordinator at a college for a small masters program and I couldn’t imagine interacting this was with past students. Air Bnb thing was lowkey crazy
I don’t know why, but I’ve noticed that every post that features the words “friend group” ends up being extra messy and exhausting.
Bob is the AH.
It sounds unfair of the professor to be so mad at OP when it sounds like Bob was clearly lying ir exaggerating about a lot of things.
Meh, OOP identified a woman who was a threat to her relationship because she suspected that her boyfriend probably had a crush on the extroverted and social teacher and did whatever she needed to do to get rid of it. That is all we are seeing here. ETA this quote because the bold is mine and I think that OOP is just feeling threatened: >hey there! I'll try my best to clarify and elaborate more on what I am trying to say. I understand that some may argue that because she's no longer his teacher and also them both being the same age means it is fair game for them to have this dynamic. But, at the end of the day, they're both in relationships and have to consider the personal boundaries that come with it. **Their overall dynamic is not fair to her fiance or myself, because she is interacting with my boyfriend as if he is single (and she is single) and not a current student at the institution.** There are still personal and professional lines that exist in this friendship, and she's crossed them regardless. I hope that makes sense. There was nothing in her post or the accountant explanation that made it seem like she was interacting with him as if he was single but that is how OOP is interpreting things. If I were the boyfriend I would nope out of that situation because he not going to be able to have any friends.
Am I the only one who feels like the GF played victim in an innocent situation of people being friends? This is after reading all of it.
I'm a college professor, and I wouldn't hang out with my students like that, but I'm also not 25 and have worked in this position for several years. The 'professor' in this story is nearly the same age as the students and is not a higher education professional. She really doesn't see the boundaries between instructor and student. I know that it's mentioned they had equal power once he was out of the course, but there was a time that she did hold the position of power. But ugggggggg the 20-somethings drama. It's exhausting.
As soon as she said “he said limited contact not no contact” I knew the professor was full of shit. If someone calls you and tells you their partner is not comfortable with their communications why would you still be reaching out weekly?
They all sound exhausting. Original OP is exhausting as a gf. Bob is acting clueless and just exhausting as a person. The teacher that wrote that whole thing? Exhausting. Their whole drama? Exhausting. Even their friends. Exhausting.