Help with relationship with professor

[pigou]

It's always true that some students will get more support from an adviser than others. This could be because the faculty has more personal interests in common, thinks their research is more promising, shares a hometown, went to the same undergrad, thinks they're cute, or likes their sense of humor.

Human relationships are complex and there will always be complicated power dynamics. If you let that stop you from having friends (or romantic relationships), life will be pretty lonely.

If you're worried that you're getting an undeservedly good evaluation, you're genuinely worrying about the wrong thing. Spend your time thinking about who will write the strongest applications and how you can strengthen it further before it comes time to apply. Ask all your advisers to use informal channels, if any, to help you get the positions you want most. Otherwise, you're handicapping yourself at a time when doing so will have the biggest (and worst) consequences for your career.

Be glad that you had a deep friendship like this in graduate school. That kind of emotional support is often hard to find and immensely useful. Don't spend your time and energy thinking about what others' nefarious motivations might be. You'll only drive yourself crazy and there's no upside to it.

[ziplock]

This thread has been genuinely interesting, in part because it illustrates the tremendously complicated and fraught nature of academic relationships.  How did our world get so byzantine and inhuman?  Or maybe it always was...

None of us can know what this relationship really is unless we know Ziplock and her friend / paramour / good-idea / bad-idea / mentor / colleague / letter-writer personally----and then we'd need to know them pretty well. 

If Ziplock is genuine and not a brilliant troll (forgive me Ziplock if you are for real) it is not impossible that her mentor is in the midst of some unusual but viable conflict:

***i.e. he is in love with Ziplock and knows that any romantic overtures will end the relationship;
***he truly wants to try romance but, because of whatever hang-up, cannot force himself to make the first move;
***he just wants a friend and, for whatever reason, he is immune to the typical older-white-male-gaze-ID reaction we expect.  Are you sure, Ziplock, that your friend likes girls?

If the mentor is just a friend and ultimately just wants friendship, I would expect him to do a "group thing" sometime such as "Hey, Prof. Mellon and Prof. Dinglehoffer and I are gonna catch a flick, want to tag along?" Incorporating one's platonic friends into an existing friend group is fairly common.  Or perhaps he understands the optics and avoids other faculty when in the company of Ziplock outside of the beer-and-pizza bashes.

Ziplock, does your friend have other friends he regularly hangs with or are you perhaps filling a loneliness void somehow?

1) Definitely not a troll!

2) I often invite him to join me and my friends (including students in the program) as a group. He comes for all 30% of the time quite happily: BBQs, hockey and football nights etc.

3) He has actually never invited me to join his friends. I believe he genuinely has some because he has turned down the invites 70% of the time because he has other plans and he has mentioned several repeating characters. I have, however, met his ex-wife whom he is on good terms with and his 3 adult sons.

4) As far as I know, he's heterosexual, but of course it is possible he is in the closet or hasn't quite accepted it himself?

To be honest, it would be so weird if the speculations here about him being in love with / likes me are true. Which man would play friend for THREE YEARS with a woman he likes without even hinting that there's interest? We've never even hugged and I bear hug all my friends who want hugs regardless of gender!

[ziplock]

I am somewhat gobsmacked that these issues haven't occurred to the OP, and of course very unimpressed that these issues haven't occurred to the prof in question, or that if they have, he's put them aside in favor of his own desire to be bill-paying pals with women lower in the hierarchy.  I even wonder if this is a troll, the situation is so obviously egregious.  Whether or no, for all who are tempted into similar relationships, there are the warning bells, there are the red flags.

Not a troll! Really not a troll!

I am honest when I say the issue didn't occur to me until recently when I sat down to think who I would ask for letters for my postdoc. I asked my friends for their advice and those I asked all named him. My brothers named him as well. To be fair, most of my friends are first gen like myself, so we could all have missed something quite obvious to everyone else.

I'm glad I asked this question here even if 2 people now think I'm a troll! This ref letter thing has been eating at me because it suddenly occured to me when I started thinking about ref letters that the optics might look very bad. I see this man as a prof, mentor, colleague and friend I value and respect and he seems to see the same in me. But this thread shows quite clearly others might not see it that way and it can look very bad.

I really want to cry right now because I am so conflicted and confused.

[spork]

As my wife says, stop acting like a woman. Get strong letters of support from your supervisors who know your work. Apply for postdocs. The rest is irrelevant.

[marwyn]

It's always true that some students will get more support from an adviser than others. This could be because the faculty has more personal interests in common, thinks their research is more promising, shares a hometown, went to the same undergrad, thinks they're cute, or likes their sense of humor.

Human relationships are complex and there will always be complicated power dynamics. If you let that stop you from having friends (or romantic relationships), life will be pretty lonely.

If you're worried that you're getting an undeservedly good evaluation, you're genuinely worrying about the wrong thing. Spend your time thinking about who will write the strongest applications and how you can strengthen it further before it comes time to apply. Ask all your advisers to use informal channels, if any, to help you get the positions you want most. Otherwise, you're handicapping yourself at a time when doing so will have the biggest (and worst) consequences for your career.

Be glad that you had a deep friendship like this in graduate school. That kind of emotional support is often hard to find and immensely useful. Don't spend your time and energy thinking about what others' nefarious motivations might be. You'll only drive yourself crazy and there's no upside to it.

I think this is a good point.

Ziplock, you definitely should not blame yourself for it. There is no reason to do it. As you see forumites are divided here. Furthermore, only you and that prof have an accurate overview of what's going on and how it looks like, and we don't. We can only share our thoughts having all the information you give us. All that was written here just tells you that there could be some potential conflicts or risks in such situations. However, you seem to have been aware of this all the time. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't ask about it.

[larryc]

I think that you are over-analyzing this and that this would be an excellent third letter.

[nescafe]

I think that you are over-analyzing this and that this would be an excellent third letter.

I basically agree. Despite the turns this thread has taken, I don't think there is any issue with asking this person for a letter of recommendation.

[Wahoo Redux]

I have a very close relationship with my mentor at my current job.  We take long bubble baths together and discuss my teaching in intimate detail.  Afterwards we rub each other down with oil while talking about the department, our families, lives, and Greco-Roman wrestling.  We eat chocolate-dipped strawberries, play chess, cuddle in a soft feather bed, model underwear, slow-dance to Barry White songs, talk about our families and lives some more, watch pornographic videos, do some more oil wrestling, and then I fall asleep on hu's shoulder.  In the morning hu brings me orange slices on a little red plate. 

Sometimes I call and ask hu what hu is wearing.  Sometimes hu and I exchange pictures of fruit and writing  implements on our cellphones.   And sometimes I write hu a sonnet.

But there is nothing romantic or even sexual about the relationship.  We are just friends.  I sometimes worry that there might be some sublimated attraction between us, but then I realize how silly that idea is between professional colleagues. 

I also worry a bit about the optics.  But then again, I think we worry a bit too much about normal human interactions in academia.  So sad that we have become so paranoid about our fellow academics, people who naturally share interests and professional experiences with us.  Perhaps we all need psilocybin therapy. 

[eigen]

I have a very close relationship with my mentor at my current job.  We take long bubble baths together and discuss my teaching in intimate detail.  Afterwards we rub each other down with oil while talking about the department, our families, lives, and Greco-Roman wrestling.  We eat chocolate-dipped strawberries, play chess, cuddle in a soft feather bed, model underwear, slow-dance to Barry White songs, talk about our families and lives some more, watch pornographic videos, do some more oil wrestling, and then I fall asleep on hu's shoulder.  In the morning hu brings me orange slices on a little red plate. 

Sometimes I call and ask hu what hu is wearing.  Sometimes hu and I exchange pictures of fruit and writing  implements on our cellphones.   And sometimes I write hu a sonnet.

But there is nothing romantic or even sexual about the relationship.  We are just friends.  I sometimes worry that there might be some sublimated attraction between us, but then I realize how silly that idea is between professional colleagues. 

I also worry a bit about the optics.  But then again, I think we worry a bit too much about normal human interactions in academia.  So sad that we have become so paranoid about our fellow academics, people who naturally share interests and professional experiences with us.  Perhaps we all need psilocybin therapy.

I can honestly see no reasonable purpose for this other than mocking the OP.

And this type of reaction is exactly why we have an OP "overthinking" something that they shouldn't.

[ziplock]

I have a very close relationship with my mentor at my current job.  We take long bubble baths together and discuss my teaching in intimate detail.  Afterwards we rub each other down with oil while talking about the department, our families, lives, and Greco-Roman wrestling.  We eat chocolate-dipped strawberries, play chess, cuddle in a soft feather bed, model underwear, slow-dance to Barry White songs, talk about our families and lives some more, watch pornographic videos, do some more oil wrestling, and then I fall asleep on hu's shoulder.  In the morning hu brings me orange slices on a little red plate. 

Sometimes I call and ask hu what hu is wearing.  Sometimes hu and I exchange pictures of fruit and writing  implements on our cellphones.   And sometimes I write hu a sonnet.

But there is nothing romantic or even sexual about the relationship.  We are just friends.  I sometimes worry that there might be some sublimated attraction between us, but then I realize how silly that idea is between professional colleagues. 

I also worry a bit about the optics.  But then again, I think we worry a bit too much about normal human interactions in academia.  So sad that we have become so paranoid about our fellow academics, people who naturally share interests and professional experiences with us.  Perhaps we all need psilocybin therapy.

I think your psilocybin provider is definitely making a lot of money off of you because you're on a beautiful trip.

[ziplock]

As for everyone else, thanks for your input. It's been very much helpful to me.

[clean]

I have a very close relationship with my mentor at my current job.  We take long bubble baths together and discuss my teaching in intimate detail.  Afterwards we rub each other down with oil while
,,,
  Perhaps we all need psilocybin therapy.

BOOOO

If you can not say something nice or at least helpful, say nothing at all.

[Wahoo Redux]

Sorry folks, I'm not buying this one any more. 

At first I did, but then we had long conversations lying at opposite ends of the couch and sailing around the harbor...and no, I can't say sure what we have here, but I have a very hard time believing the stories anymore.  I think someone jumped the shark.

I suspect we have more than one troll on the boards (one with a specific agenda, one for fun), not just on this thread but on others, which is fine with me, but let's not pretend either.

[eigen]

Sorry folks, I'm not buying this one any more. 

At first I did, but then we had long conversations lying at opposite ends of the couch and sailing around the harbor...and no, I can't say sure what we have here, but I have a very hard time believing the stories anymore.  I think someone jumped the shark.

I suspect we have more than one troll on the boards (one with a specific agenda, one for fun), not just on this thread but on others, which is fine with me, but let's not pretend either.

Honestly, the only one I'm seeing troll here is you.

[Hegemony]

I thought Wahoo's post was pretty funny.