I had a ‘moment’ with my daughter’s primary school teacher – should I ask him out?

I can't stop thinking and fantasising about my 10-year-old daughter’s teacher. Photo / Getty Images

Dear A&E,

I’ve got a crush on my 10-year-old daughter’s teacher. I am pretty sure that we both felt a weird, intense moment at the summer fair and I can’t stop thinking about it and fantasising about him. I have been single for seven years and rarely feel this kind of spark. I am now both dreading and longing for the start of next term. How should I play this?

– Crushing

Dear Crushing,

Without wanting to crush your crush, we should perhaps acknowledge that weird, intense moments can happen quite often if we are open to them. This is not necessarily Cupid’s arrow. We live in our own heads a lot; we are held hostage by screens; we work more and more at home, alone. So when we do raise our heads and meet someone’s eye, it can feel penetratingly powerful.

There is a theory that many people, the moment they meet someone new, idly or intensely wonder what it would be like to have sex with that person. Base. Basic. However you frame it, it is an essentially animal instinct. Of course, one never really has any idea if the other person is thinking or feeling similarly, so it is treacherous territory emotionally, socially and legally, we can end up humiliated, tickled, insulted, satisfied, flattered, furious, scared, arrested… oh, the rainbow of the psychosexual impulse. Safe to say that humans are constantly glitching and surging. Sometimes it means nothing. Sometimes it means everything.

You have been single since your daughter was three. You dealt with a small, demanding child alone (at least some of the time – we don’t know the details of your situation). Soon she will be more independent: she will organise her own play dates and you will find yourself with a bit more time and emotional space. Perhaps some part of you anticipates the wondrous if painful shift that is about to happen. Is it possible that you felt this weird intensity because part of you is ready to open your eyes and see what the world might have to offer? And what you might have to offer the world?

That moment you experienced with your daughter’s teacher might be a proper thing. Equally, it might not be much of a thing. But, right now, we can be sure that it is a dangerous thing with the potential to ignite all manner of disruptions. It would be a miracle if this was actually love’s young dream and you pulled it off with everyone’s dignity (and job) intact. We won’t mention the effect it could have on your child because we don’t need to.

But you have a crush and crushes are joyfully silly. They are not agonising unrequited love. They are butterflies and rainbows. Six weeks – the length of the school holiday – is a long time in crush terms. Try not to over-indulge your fantasies and let yourself sink into obsession. Be aware of the power of automatic thinking – when you get trapped in a loop of repetitive thought that unhelpfully serves to reinforce itself until it feels like inescapable reality. Have some discipline around this. Some people deal with anxiety by enforcing a “worry window” whereby they allow themselves, say, 10 minutes a day to roll around in every worst case scenario and then re-enter their lives. Consider a “crush window”: 10 minutes a day of fantasy and then back to real life.

See friends. Anchor yourself. Remind yourself who you are. Try things. Divert yourself. Look around. Talk to new people. We’re not going to lecture you about dating apps, because for every person who finds them an amusing potential solution, there is another who finds them a torture. Say yes to invitations. Start to flex that muscle. See how it makes you feel. And don’t allow your teacher-crush to get in the way of anything.

How to play it next term? Smile. That’s it. Smiles are irreproachable. Don’t just smile at him; smile at everyone. You will inevitably see some of the world smile back. This is not about him. This is about your next chapter. It can be oddly intimidating to smile at strangers, but it’s a good start as you begin to recognise that all sorts of opportunities are out there. It may also be worth remembering that teachers – like surgeons – can seem hot when, under any other circumstances, you would feel no such flutter. That blend of authority and care is a heady thing.

Your daughter is entering her final year of primary school and so, next July, all bets will be off. If your intense moment turns out to be the opening line of your love story with this teacher (unlikely, but possible) then it can be acted on next summer. We strongly – almost sternly – advise you against even considering him as a possibility until then, by which time it will probably have blown over. Take this little episode as a heartening sign that, even though you rarely feel a spark, you did. And you will again. Welcome back, Crushing.