That's not really my area....but.....

Many advice columnists attempt to carve out a niche for themselves (saving money, love, raising children, race relations...even Carolyn used to cater to the 30-and-under set), but the most famous boutique advice columnist is, no doubt, Miss Manners. She's also the only one whose readers seem to understand and obey her emphasis on polite society rather than internal anguish and family dilemmas (or maybe she just has highly attentive editors). Nevertheless, even she can't escape the occasional query about (young) (forbidden) love:

Dear Miss Manners: I love science. The year before I made sure that those were the only kinds of classes that I was going to get and I did get my classes, only to end up falling for the teacher teaching one of my classes, Biology 2.

He is six years older than me, and he seems to be the ideal man for any girl. I fall in deeper as the days go by, but I understand that there can be nothing between us, that it is impossible because he and I have our separate lives and goals, we are going in opposite directions. I know that what I feel is fake, I know that it’s a crush, but I doubt it because crushes don’t last a whole year, and when I am with him I’m really happy.

Is it really OK for me to feel this way about my teacher? I would like to have your opinion.

Gentle Reader: This letter is one that Miss Manners should not consider. From the etiquette point of view, how you feel is your business as long as you behave yourself.

But heck, lovelorn advisers often presume to dispense etiquette advice. No doubt Miss Manners’ advice to the lovelorn will be of the same quality.

You cannot, of course, embarrass your teacher—and probably endanger his job—by flirting with him. But as you love science, it would seem reasonable of you to become a biologist. If you work really hard at it and win the Nobel Prize and return to campus to tell this teacher that you owe it all to him, Miss Manners promises that he will find you irresistible. Presuming that by that time, he has not acquired a wife and six children.

(snarfle). Thanks Miss Manners!

P.S. FWIW, I can't help but think this this crush started long before this semester's Bio 2 course...the letter's tone and vocabulary (teacher vs. professor) make me think it was written by a high schooler. And in what high school can you take ONLY science classes? That's certainly not typical, and while it perhaps can be finagled, such a feat would take the blind persistence of unrequited love, not just a fondness for the subject (which would, no doubt, be tempered by an understanding that higher level math education is also necessary in this field). I'm not sure the writer of this letter is being entirely honest about his/her predicament. Then again, when it comes to sticky predicaments, who is?

Romancing the Crone?

Sorry I've been MIA this week....I've been tired and borderline sick, and mostly catching up on sleep and forgetting to do assignments. Unfortunately, the blog was the first thing to go. Anyway, as a little "thank you" for sticking around, we have an extra special letter today from this week's Dear Prudence:

Dear Prudence,
I am a college student in my early 20s and have been married for three years to my wonderful husband. My problem is that I've got a huge crush on Michael Douglas, who is in his 60s. I watch his movies every day! At first my hubby just laughed it off and said he had crushes on celebrities, too, but now he's irritated because I insist on him watching these movies with me and discussing Michael Douglas' personal life all the time. I am not a stalker or anything. I am not writing him fan letters—though I've considered it. I have had mad celebrity crushes before, but this is the first since I've been with my husband. It feels like I am cheating and pushing my hubby away to watch movies that are older than I am. Please help!

—Cheating With the Movies

Wow....she says she's had "mad celebrity crushes" before, and I can't help but wonder when, and on whom, and how long they tend to last. It seems like it would take more than, say, 3 years to accumulate the complete works of Michael Douglas (unless she's just using Netflix). While of course it's natural to have crushes at any time in your life (though perhaps less natural when the object of your affection is decaying by the day....we'll return to this in a minute) there's clearly something wrong if it's affecting her life this much. Which she knows, or she wouldn't be writing in. I wonder if she's obsessive in other areas of her life, as well, and if this speaks more to a personality quirk of hers, than to any special allure that Michael Douglas has. Prudence, as always, is right on the money:

Dear Cheating,
I just saw the preview for Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, a Matthew McConaughey movie in which Michael Douglas appears as Uncle Wayne, a dead playboy. If the movie is as awful as the trailer—and since it stars Matthew McConaughey, I have every confidence it will be—sitting through multiple screenings just might be the kind of shock therapy you need. Also helpful would be to Google "Michael Douglas facelift" and see your dreamboat with his incisions oozing. If that doesn't do it, get the HBO series Flight of the Conchords, about a failed rock duo, and pay particular attention to the character Mel. She is the pair's crazed fan who forces her husband to accompany her as she stalks them. She's what you don't want to become. For that matter, you don't want to end up one bunny shy of the Glenn Close character in Fatal Attraction. Having fantasies about a celebrity has got to be a nearly universal experience. (When I was walking through a lobby in Los Angeles and literally bumped into my first big crush, Sean Connery, my knees buckled.) But once you get past the stage of taping pictures of the Jonas Brothers on your wall, you're supposed to be able to understand this is a limited, private indulgence that you don't subject your patient husband to on a nightly basis. If you were bingeing on potato chips, you'd keep them out of your pantry. So get rid of the Michael Douglas oeuvre, and start doing things with your husband (besides going to the movies) that make you appreciate the young man you have for real.

—Prudie

Cheers to Prudie for loving Sean Connery, knowing the Flight of the Conchords, mocking the Jonas Brothers and their fans, and revering the power of google image search. Speaking of which....you know you were going to look, so I've saved you the trouble:
Hmmm...actually, not as bad as I expected. Doubt it would be intense enough to derail a crush as serious as this one.