cltwtb-blog

[cltwtb-blog]

I’m fully considering dropping out (or at least not studying and failing everything) to learn to play Gymnopédie on piano. it’s so nice. 

[cltwtb-blog]

Hi, I’m old.

I saw strange aeon’s video on the whole tc thing - obv she has a tumblr as well but i don’t know what it is, haha. Anyway, I’ll get to the point. 

To all the teens out there in love with your teachers - I’ve been there too. I understand how much it sucks. Obviously every situation is unique but the general theme is wanting somebody who isn’t allowed to want you back, even if they did. Which, to be clear, they probably don’t, If I were a teacher, I’d much rather have a wank and remain employed. 

I wanted to write this because I did feel like, wow, I don’t know her name, but Strange AEons’ reactions were, while not “wrong” per se - not entirely empathetic. 

The main thing I want to say is - even if it were to happen, you would both regret it; maybe not immediately, but you would. I never dated a teacher (boy did I want to), but my first boyfriend was 30 years my senior - I was 17 at the time. But hear me out.

The thing with relationships like that, is that (as SA said) you aren’t equals - no matter how much you think you are. And a teacher/student dynamic, while it can be hot af, is neither healthy nor fulfilling. At the risk of sounding condescending, as a graduate student in developmental neurology I can truly say that your brain isn’t developed in some really specific and nuanced ways - no matter what you’ve been through, you might have a lot of foresight but there is some inexplicable element of wherewithal that you really don’t get until your 20s (sometimes later).

(tl’dr this paragraph is neuroscience warning) (If you’re curious, your brain finishes sorting itself out from a caudal (near your neck) to rostral (above your eyes) direction - the frontal part of your brain (maturing in your 20s) is involved in complex executive function like empathy and planning. Your emotions, however, are a bit earlier to mature; so to put it (very) simply, emotional maturity is not the only factor in how “ready” or “right” you are/it is to have a relationship with such a massive social connotation attached to it.

(neuroscience over) 

Let me tell you my story. I met David when I was 16, having snuck into a nightclub. He was 47. I’d always been attracted exclusively to older guys; I was lucky in that it had never been a struggle or anything for me to accept that. But I digress. 

David, believing I was 18 (legal bar entry age here - also the age of consent is 16), was very charming and gentlemanly. He was here for work, he was married  (to a woman - she didn’t know he was gay) - he could easily have been a teacher. He wasn’t pushy, and I was there with friends, so nothing ended up happening that night. I’d given him my MSN (throwback!) and we talked on there the next day. We were both also avid gamers so we got to know each other over the next few months very well over a lot of Halo. 

We met in November, then he came back (he was a 3 hour flight away, a different country) the next February. Suffice to say we both disappeared for the weekend (i was still in the last year of high school - notably less interested in the teachers though, ha). I turned 17 that March, and in April, during a holiday, he came back and we disappeared again, this time for over a week. Keep in mind the whole time his wife believed he was at a conference. 

Over these months I became extremely lost in my (our) own little world. This wasn’t to do with the age so much but I did want to mention it because looking back I see I neglected a lot of my friends because I was obsessing over this one person whom I loved so deeply that truly nothing else mattered. By April I was heavily anorexic, and I thought as much about food (and not eating it) as i did of David. I wanted to be perfect for him.

I’ve just realised I’ve gone a bit off topic to the tc theme so I’ll skip ahead a bit. 

We end up together, and we couldn’t be happier (minus the crying and screaming phonecalls from his wife) (I know. Married men...) We have a place, he’s working the same job, after about half a year of adjusting and being in love I decide I’m going to start studying. 

The one line from this time that really reverberates in my mind was “I like my boys to look like boys”. It was funny, at first. I was a very feminine boy to start with, long and thin (still very anorexic - 6′2 and 53kg (don’t know what that is in lb sorry), with long blonde hair, armed with Maybelline dream matte mousse and some mascara. I wasn’t trans (was I? I was still figuring that out - but that’s another story), but I did enjoy playing with makeup on my self, a lot. 

David didn’t mind at first. But a subtle narrative began to arise over the later months. It was a narrative of “I’m the boss” on his part, and “I’m bored so I’m rebelling” on mine. It’s hard to describe so I can only really explain examples. 

When you’re a teen obsessed with someone, and you don’t really know what a relationship is, the boundaries can be a little grey. When you’re an adult and you’ve grown up in toxic/abusive/jealous relationships your whole life, you mightn’t know any different or better. While I cringe heavily to think about it now; we were both obsessed to the point we would read each other’s phones. I don’t know if it was trust or jealousy or what. But it was mutual - for a time. As the months progressed I grew weary of it. I’d never have cheated on him, and as the months passed I assumed he would never have cheated on me, so I lost interest in his phone. But he kept on checking mine. 

I didn’t have any friends there. We joined Grindr and had a profile for both of us, just looking for friends. We met a few people, they were alright, one in particular stood out to me. Cody was super cool, a runway model, super nice, etc. He invited me to parties a fair bit. I never went - at first I didn’t want to, because David was self-conscious (likely beingnearly 30 years older than everyone else there). But with time I did want to go, I was bored and there are only so many videogames one could play, and weed one could smoke, before one becomes restless. So I took Cody up on his offer. David was furious. He didn’t explicitly say no, but he emotionally made it very clear he did not approve. 

I don’t think it was intentional, there were so many aspects of out relationship that were unhealthy looking back now, but he was as oblivious to a lot of it as I. Was he just keeping me stoned 24/7 to fuck me? Was he emotionally blackmailing me when I tried to escape his control? Did he realise how much I loved him, how much I cared and would never have cheated on him? Did he consider how young I was, how I might have been a little naive or not ready to leave home to a new country with no friends and no plan? 

And I know you could easily say “Well it’s your life, you’re a fucking idiot for dropping out of high school (did I mention that?) and eloping with no plan” - and to that I would reply, yes, but love makes you an idiot with no plan. 

I hope I am getting across just how negative this became. Those are just a few examples but it started to feel like if I didn’t conform to his idea of “be a good boy (emphasis on “boy”), stay at home, relax” that I.. Well, I didn’t know. I still haven’t entirely resolved everything in my head and I’ve had a fair bit of baggage when it comes to relationships ever since.

A part of the lack of resolution was how David and I came to end. We were still ok afterwards and he told me later he had been suspecting something, but he came home early one day to find me doing a webcam show. I was exploring a few things I won’t mention here but suffice it to say David, in his absolute well-meaning vanillarity (it’s a word now ok cool) would have never been in to. Maybe he would have tried things for me, but I knew he would never actually be “into” it; maybe it was just in my head. Or maybe I’m just making excuses for him. Either way, more repression of a then-18 year old, still figuring out life and sex and gender etc. 

Whether it was out of a need for control (and not in a hot way) or just out of incompatibility, I would say the overarching theme of the latter days of our relationship was “suppression”. Looking back I feel like I was controlled, manipulated, repressed, emotionally abused - and it was entirely consentual. 

I just... I hope my story speaks for itself, I’m probably missing a lot as it was a while ago and it’s hard to think back to then, but please, tc community, have all the wet dreams you want, and maybe some of you will have a fuck, or a fling, but dear god do not expect to spend your life with someone who might not even be teaching you next year. It’s delusional. As kind and sexy and dominant and whatever the fuck you want that they are, it’s really not worth it. When it’s all over, you get left with three broken hearts (his, mine, wife), and enough baggage to sail around the world with - not to mention potential ruined careers, jail if you’re a minor, infamy (not the good kind), potentially debt for court fees, broken families, who knows. 

(names were changed btw)

[cltwtb-blog]

(for the record, I’m very disappointed that the capital Ts in my name didn’t translate)

[cltwtb-blog]

Err, hi.

I haven’t been on tumblr for about four years - even then I never got deeply into it. This is a new blog where I want to write my thoughts, I don’t know if many people will see it but maybe it can help somebody going through similar things I have/am. 

I’ll just add a bunch of hash tags here because that’s what you do right? If this is under a particular tag there’s probably a more relevant post on my blog somewhere.

How the fuck do you even find hash tags, sigh