An Ode To Humiliation

     What is the most awkward position you have ever been in with a teacher? Did you accidentally call your second grade teacher “mommy” once? How about that one time when the teacher farted in front of the whole class and nobody knew whether or not it was okay to laugh? Or maybe there was a time when you spotted your teacher in the supermarket and attempted to avoid him, but somehow ended up having to make painful small talk anyway. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. I’ll admit that those things have happened to me as well, on more than one occasion. But those are far from the most awkward moments I have ever had with a teacher. My most awkward moment came while sitting in my creative writing professor’s office this past semester as he read my poem about sex out loud.

     In my defense, I did not know he was going to read the poem right there and then in front of me, nor did I realize he was going to do it out loud. If I had known either of those things, I surely would have either edited the poem dramatically or turned in a different one entirely. Unfortunately, I was not well informed and turned in a poem about bumping uglies. Let me be more specific about this poem’s subject matter. It wasn’t really about sex, at least, not entirely. I wrote it in a foggy stupor right after I woke up one Sunday morning. You see, I tend to have extremely interesting dreams and one of those dreams had just been about one of my best friends getting married and going on her honeymoon. Now, don’t ask me why I was present on my friend’s honeymoon; I have no idea. Just know that in my dream I didn’t actually see any of the sex occurring, it was just pretty obvious that that’s what they were doing in their room, considering that they were on their honeymoon and all.

     When I woke up I could vividly remember this dream and it kind of freaked me out. I love my friend and all, but I would really prefer not to know as much about her sex life as I had in that dream. Being somewhat confused by what I had just experienced, I decided a poem was the perfect way to express my feelings. After all, poetry is supposed to be some great medium that allows the mind and soul to wander freely or something. If you believe poetry to be as noble an art as that, then I apologize for the very existence of this post which is all about how I high jacked the said noble art for something as ignoble as me feeling squeamish about my friend having sex.

     Had my poem solely been about two people having sex, the meeting with my professor really would not have been so bad. I would have been able to hope that he interpreted the poem as some deep, brooding thought on the nature of the human body. Instead, he chose to dwell upon the one line that made my face turn red. By the time he got three lines into the poem, he knew exactly what it was about and the atmosphere in that little room changed from friendly to ‘oh shit, how do we pretend that this isn’t as incredibly uncomfortable as it really is?’. In my professor’s defense, he was as mature as he possibly could have been about the whole thing. Most professors probably would have skipped over the poem entirely. The position we were in, male professor and female student in a little tiny office all alone, made things that much worse. But he was not going to skip over that poem. He is a lover of poetry at heart and was determined to discuss all of his student’s poems, even when they were as wildly inappropriate as I felt mine was.

So, this whole position sounds pretty awkward to begin with. But just wait; if you can believe it, it gets worse. Remember that one line that I mentioned before? The one that I said made my face turn red? Well it went something like this: “My friend has gone where I have never been, she has entered a realm that I will never know” (please keep in mind that I was only half awake when I wrote this and I was trying to be profoundly moody and deep). See, what I meant by that line was that my friend had just slept with this guy who I never would, seeing as he was now married to her and all. Of course, in my dream I knew that he could always just choose to cheat on my friend with me, but even my dream self seems to have had a strong sense of right and wrong and felt as though sleeping with my friend’s husband would be wrong somehow.

Upon reading that line this is what my professor had to say: “I don’t believe that. Trust me, I’ve been there. Don’t worry, it’ll happen”. You see, he thought I was lamenting my virginity, feeling as though sex would never ever come my way. As encouraging as it is to know that my professor has confidence in my ability to get laid, I would have preferred that he hadn’t said anything at all. After that there was no way to ignore the intense level of awkward in the room and throughout the rest of our meeting we pretty much avoided direct eye contact. As I exited the building all I could do was hold my hand over my eyes and shake my head from sheer humiliation. I decided that, at the very least, it had been an interesting poem and I now had a hilarious story to share with my friends.