I Swear I’m Not In Love With My Lit Professor

I hate the idea of admiration. It’s such a cop-out.

Saying, “I admire them” is such an unemotional, adult way of relating to someone.

Admiration literally means, “respect and warm approval.”

That is not how I would describe my feelings for most people in my life, but for the drama, I’m gonna talk about my Junior year lit professor. I do not “warmly approve” of him. That is a whole fact.

But still, I don’t want to write my phone number on the back of a scantron and wink when I turn it in. So I feel inclined to say I admire him.

Admiration is platonic and easy on the mind.

I don’t want him, so it must be admiration, right? It must be respect and warm approval?

I dunno, seems kinda vanilla to me.

When we grow up, we learn that in order to keep ourselves safe, we must hold logic in one hand, and certainty in the other. These are the tools we use to define our experience–to make it safe for us to be human in a world of other humans.

When we use logic, and require certainty to relate to others, we give complex feelings simple names. We lose the intricacy of this wild human experience, and instead choose something cyborgal. I made up that word. Cool, huh?

When we decide what we’re feeling is “admiration”, often, we are simplifying how it feels to be drawn to someone.

In simplifying our feelings, we put distance between “us” and “them”. this make things clean and logical and safe.

We push away interesting, childlike intrigue because it cannot be easily named. We cannot consult the dictionary of logical human relations–we cannot easily categorize this feeling in a respectable, platonic box.

That wouldn’t be safe or normal or easy to dismiss.

How dare we be drawn to someone in a nonsexual way, without being unemotionally impressed by their accomplishments? No, no. If I don’t want them, I must just admire them.

Dude. No.

Maybe we are, and stay with me here, just drawn to them. Maybe we are intrigued. Maybe the way they speak is interesting and different and maybe its exciting when we see them.

Why do we have to categorize allure? Why do we have to define interest?

Why does it have to be Love, Lust, or Admiration?

There is nothing wrong with my lit professor, he is a respectable man who one could easily “warmly approve of”, sure. But the reason I’m writing this isn’t because that’s all I feel.

This is important so pay real close attention–I don’t want him, and I don’t want his life.

I don’t revere him–Jesus, he isn’t like, the second coming. I just like to be around him, to listen to him speak, to see him get excited about things that are important.

Why do I have to hold so tightly to logic? Why do I have to ask certainty to define what it is I feel?

Why do I have to want you, or want to be you?

Why can’t I just listen to you speak, because there you are in front of me, and it is making me feel something different. I don’t need to call it admiration. I don’t need to call it desire, either.

I don’t love my lit professor, guys. But the point is, if you say you admire someone, you may be doing yourself a disservice.

Life is weird–feelings are weirder, and not everything has to have a name.

But I’ve got one for you, dear reader.

Spectacular. Isn’t that just such cheese?

Whatever. I love you.

good night.