Humdinger

While earning my PhD in a traditional engineering field, I taught undergraduate courses - mine and sometimes my advisor's - alongside performing research. So I had practically no time to date. But my constant need for companionship (preferably "romantic and intellectual companionship in one package") during my infrequent free times pushed me to try to find a fellow grad student I could date. Big mistake!!! My first relationship with another grad student (a girl in the same building but in a different sub-discipline) quickly turned into a huge mess. Weeks earlier apparently, she had opted to 'modify' her degree to make it multidisciplinary and part of the requirements - we realized very late - was for her to take my course which is usually only taken by seniors or new grad students switching over. I was both amused and displeased. To prepare us for the awkwardness and help keep things professional, I suggested we suspend the relationship before the following semester's classes were due to start and then continue when classes ended. My advisor (a married female professor) would playfully lambaste me for this "heartless" decision when I gave her my side of the story much later. In her words, I should have known the girl would feel scorned. Anyway, this girl made my life a mess when I began teaching her. She would talk rudely to me in class to the amazement of other students or literally toss her completed assignments at me as if seeking to provoke a reaction/confrontation where she could publicly reveal that we had had something. I felt vulnerable and miserable. Until my advisor intervened and threatened to report to her advisor. By this time, many of our mutual female friends had stopped talking to me. In hindsight, I think she reacted like that either because the pickings for female grad students were slimmer than for males. Or perhaps she assumed my suggested temporary 'separation' was a guise for a breakup. Also, what she saw as scorn, I saw as maintaining my hard-earned graduate funding by preventing any rumors about dating my student because despite my youthfulness and gregarious nature, my career was first. From then until I graduated, I did not so much as ogle at a female student anywhere near engineering. Lesson learned: Dating a fellow grad student isn't so bad. Provided your paths do not cross in ways that create conflicting interests for both of you. And as long as each one of you is mature enough to temporarily give the other some space when there is a good reason to.