Students like to flirt with professors, especially during office hours. It's harmless, insincere, and flattering to those of us who have annual physicals. But when students want attention, I often turn a blind eye. I have a reputation for being a misanthrope when it comes to student social events and sit with a quasi scowl until I excuse myself from the proceedings. I met my last serious challenge at a department dinner for majors, and even though he was interested in me, I was clueless.

He signed up for a seminar I was teaching, and other professors who knew that the student was gay asked what I thought of him. They were all pretty convinced he was the smartest student in the department, and he was awkwardly gay in the most adorable way. I started to warm up, pay attention, and feel some sympathy for him. We began an unspoken ritual where he would show up at my office before class and ask me if I wanted a cup of coffee. We would then walk to the café together, chat about nothing, and then walk to class together. I could tell he was nervous, and I thought that made him even more adorable. We slowly graduated to the occasional lunch, and I thought our conversations were more like mentoring sessions — the sympathetic gay professor coaching the young student in queer matters.

Then one day he sprung it on me: he couldn't go with me and a group of students on an overnight trip because it would just be too difficult; his interests in me were not just academic. I was impressed with how direct and honest he was, and I told him I understood but that nothing could happen between us, and I wasn't interested in him anyway because he was too young and I didn't want to settle down. He took it well, but I sensed it was tough on him. About a month later, he invited me to lunch and asked if I was sure I wasn't interested in having a relationship. It was painful, and my advice to him at the time was to hang out with more gay people; I told him (thinking back to my own experience in the '80s) to experiment and shop around, have more experience before he thought about settling into a relationship.

Nice advice, especially for the 1980s, but graduation came, he became legal, and I was surprised, truly, to realize that one needs to be careful about these things. Love was happening. It is still happening several years later. There is an age difference, to be sure, but no power or authority issues. He seduced me, but now we're partners.

Teachers and students have been falling in love forever. If you're just looking to bed your professor, you might have a good shot, but remember that it could easily get messy and it might also be terrifying for him — unless you want to ruin his career, you need to take your diploma before you take off your clothes. If you're a professor, remember how awkward it will feel when you walk across campus and see that guy (now clothed) with his schoolmates, talking and turning their heads to look at you. A student might be easy and tempting, but he could also develop a very painful crush on you, and you need to be responsible for the collateral damage. The bottom line is this: think, respect each other, don't use stupid clichéd excuses, and don't fuck anyone crazier than you. Oh, and if you're in graduate school, all bets are off.

Professor X is an actual professor.

(c) 2012 by Lindy West, Dan Savage, Christpher Frizzelle, and Bethany Jean Clement. Reprinted from How to Be a Person with permission from Sasquatch Books.