Another Embarrassing Moment, Another Crush
I was in law school. In other words, I was grown ass woman. Indeed, I was a married woman. But there was one law professor who had most of the women swooning. I’ll call him Professor Silverstein. His area of expertise was criminal law. I had no real interest in criminal law at the time, yet I took extra classes in criminal procedure. So if you ever get arrested, call me. Or more importantly, ask to call me . . . it will preserve your rights and the cops have to leave you alone . . . but I digress.
George Clooney
Professor Silverstein was of medium height, well, that’s being generous, I think he was kinda short. He was older, of course, had salt and pepper hair parted on the side. It was always a little long and he often ran his hand through it to push it off his face. (I really wanted to do that for him.) He had a slim build and occasionally looked like he could use a shave. He had just a perfect smile, kind of like a George Clooney smile. Now of course Professor Silverstein was not as Hollywood attractive as George Clooney — c’mon, this is real life — but he had that Hollywood smile. Yes, yes, he did. Wait, what? I guess got distracted. Anyway, and he was so, so smart. Smart is sexy, very sexy. And he was funny. The whole class would be cracking up over the Fourth Amendment. If you’ve read the Fourth Amendment, you know that it isn’t funny at all. It’s all about searches and seizures and probable cause and such — but Professor Silverstein made it so freaking entertaining. Did I mention he had a sexy voice, too? Smooth, confident, but I digress . . . again. Anyway, Monday, Wednesday and Friday was like a trip to a strip bar. We could look, riveted, but we could not touch. The Professor was out of reach.
Sigh.
I sat front and center. My Law School Crush was on one side and my Law Professor Crush was directly in front of me. No wonder I was such a good student. Professor Silverstein taught in a relaxed socratic method, but not in a mean way. No, he was pleasant and cordial. People, well, women, we all wanted him to call on us, just so that he would say our names. I loved the way he said my name. Consequently, I was always prepared for class. Always.
Call on me, baby, call on me.
One day after his class a friend and I were walking together. We were being just plain silly. Having recently discovered that we shared the same crush on Professor Silverstein we would often discuss important issues after class like,
“Did you see him smiling today? He was so sexy. He is so cute.“
I’m not sure why my friend and I were upstairs near the offices, we must have had something administrative to take care of, but we walked the faculty halls giggling like teen girls talking about how cute we thought Professor Silverstein was.
Me: “Did you see him today?”
My Friend: “Oh my God, he’s so sexy.”
Me: “He said my name, did you hear it?”
My Friend: “Oh my God, you’re sooooo lucky . . . . ”
Grown women, acting like kids. We were just being over-the-top silly, messing around. Law School can be so serious, got lighten it up some, right?
Hanging on each others’ arms and still giggling, we rounded the corner and something caught our eyes.
We turned together and . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . .
There he was, that man with that smile, that Professor of Criminal Law, the man we had been ogling over and giggling about . . . and who had apparently been walking behind us for the entire length of the hallway leading to his office. Yup, yup. We didn’t notice because we were too busy giggling about how cute and sexy he is. And there he was, smiling . . . at us.
It was a double deer in headlights situation.
“Helloooo Ladies!” he said, like he was some mac daddy in a bar.
“Hi!” We replied in unison, with voices much too high for grown women in law school.
He kept smiling as he entered his office. He may have chuckled.
My friend and I just stood there, eyes wide, “OH MY GOD!!!!” — except we were whispering this time.
Just Me With . . . a crush on my professor and outted as a silly girl — thank God for anonymous grading.
My Law School Crush
Damn Facebook. I hate it. All the happy posts piss me off. Having photos of me (especially unflattering or ones that reveal my age) posted and tagged pisses me off. Having to connect with relatives I don’t usually talk to (sometimes) pisses me off. I mean now I have my mother asking me if I saw a cousin’s graduation pictures on Facebook? Ugh.
Then there’s the Ex, his fiancée, and their crap all over the net. Soon it’ll be his wedding pictures, complete with group pictures of my kids with the bride and groom and his and her family, all dolled up for his big day. Ugh.
And of course, there was the accidental discovery that my Ex’s fiancée and I dated the same guy, information gained via Facebook. See Mutual Friend, Part I and Mutual Friend, Part II.
Yeah, I’m kinda sick of Facebook.
But for professional and familial reasons, I keep my non-anonymous Facebook account. I do not link it to my Twitter or blog. I check into Facebook much less, rarely post, and took down all personal pictures. I check in primarily so that I can un-tag photos and respond to messages from the people who still insist on communicating with me via Facebook.
On my weekly check-in last week, I had a friend request from a law school colleague. The last time I talked to this woman years ago, she lit into me about some dispute regarding a club we belonged to, so I hung up on her. I don’t like to be yelled at.
Question: Why is she “friending” me on Facebook?
Answer: Because it’s Facebook.
I kept her dangling for a while, but since my account is so impersonal now, I thought, what the hell, I’ll accept her friend request. It might help in a future job search if she knows people.
Well, my connection to her led to seeing a profile of a man I had a secret crush on in law school. We’ll call him LawBoy.
LawBoy and I sat next to each other every day, front and center. He held my seat for me if I was running late. He was married, so was I. We studied together, some. Talked on breaks or in the library, just a little. I thought he was one of the nicest guys I’d met in a long time. Smart, funny, and so not full of himself. He was really down to earth, quite unlike many of my fellow law students. I used to love the way he smiled when talking about his wife. We didn’t hang out at night or anything. There was never anything inappropriate about our friendship. But I admit now that I was secretly holding the married lady’s crush on him.
Lucy always had a crush on Schroeder
A few years after law school, I ran into him in an office building where I was working. So we decided to have lunch, as lawyers do, just to catch up, see what our specialties were, if we could refer business . . . etc. He was always so attentive to my real love, music, as his father was also a musician, still gigging, even at his advanced age. LawBoy and I were both still married at this meeting, and now we had kids to talk about. It was quite an enjoyable lunch.
I don’t do alumni events, or lawyerly functions, and I haven’t worked downtown in a while — since all the madness (literally). So I hadn’t seen or heard from him since that lunch, years ago.
But when I accepted that woman’s friend request and viewed her page — there was LawBoy, on Facebook, a friend of a “friend.” He looked pretty much the same, still had that nice boyish smile. Now he’s a partner in a law firm. Not too shabby. More importantly, his relationship status is listed as . . . SEPARATED.
Whoa.
This time I sent the Friend Request. No message attached.
He accepted my request, immediately (she adds with a grin) and messaged that he was glad to reconnect, asked about my music and said that he hoped he could see me play sometime.
(Shhh. Don’t tell anybody, but I smiled and giggled a bit.)
LawBoy remembered me . . . and my music. Aw.
I responded in kind, telling him I’d let him know when things came up. (smiling still)
I perused (stalked) his profile a bit and saw that he seemed very active and well-rounded. He does go to the law related networking events that I avoid like the plague (but he’d have to, still being in practice and all) and is outdoorsy. Although I love to be outside, I’m not the rafting, hiking, marathoning, camping type. (But we can work that out . . . I digress . . . )
I have no plans or fantasizes of hooking up with my law school crush (well, maybe a few fantasizes, but no concrete plans). On paper, we are as different as night and day. I’m not even sure how comfortable he’d be dating outside of his race and religion.
Former Episcopalian Princess Charlotte at her Jewish Wedding, Sex and The City
But I could pull a Charlotte from Sex and the City . . . (“I’m Jew now” . . . ) yes? Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. A little. Whatever. It could happen.
Oh well. Odds are this will not be a fulfillment of a long-lost and unstated love between two law school buddies — like in the book and movie, “Something Borrowed.” No, romantic stories like that and me? — well, no.
“Something Borrowed “
Still, that one word on his profile, “Separated,” haunts me. I don’t state my relationship status on Facebook. It’s a personal policy of mine. And I doubt that he would have heard of my change in status from others since we don’t travel in the same circles, but . . . I’m not married anymore —- if anyone’s interested . . .
Regardless, I gotta say, it is nice to feel free, feel a crush and not be married this time, even if I never, ever do a thing about it.
Just Me With . . . my freedom, and still with a little crush on LawBoy, who is now separated. And, FYI, if he ever found this post, I would be completely mortified.
Just Me With . . . 