He doesn't seem to know how old he is either. One recent post described him as in his late 30's, another as 41.

Dude! Let me help you out with the poseur thing! Successful men (and women) don't HAVE to talk about all their stuff, their money, their presence at New Porsche Beach. They do not feel a huge rage when someone doesn't agree with them; they're used to it and don't care. They do not waste eons saying the same thing over and over to people they will never meet. They think about productivity and new ideas, not how they can stick the knife in some friendly person's back and twist it hard. They also can write coherent paragraphs; that stream-of-consciousness-bile-factory stuff might have turned heads once but it's stale now. You remember that really coherent, reasonable post you once wrote? No, I don't remember either. If you're going to present this rich successful facade, try to make it believeable.

And you might keep in mind if you are interested in women that a huge turn-off for most women (trying vainly to return to real thread material) is a man who hates women. I don't think that's just me. Also you might want to hide the gay male porn collection; you know, the collection that provided you the picture you posted in the Big Love letters?

A lot of women on the other hand who have posted here sound like really interesting people who I would enjoy having over for drinks. We would tell stories, laugh and have a great time. And we would never once mention NNG.

You do realize that it is ironic that a person who constantly accuses anonymous strangers of being fat, who tells people who disagrees with him that they should commit suicide, and obsesses over fat people's toilet procedures is calling the LW a nutjob?

I had assumed with my last post that you understood the term "ironic" but from the extreme non sequitur nature of your subsequent post, I see that I was mistaken. In the interest of facilitating your self-portrayal as a successful man, I would like to suggest that you employ any of the fine dictionaries online to look up "ironic" and possibly "non sequitur", "subsequent" and "facilitating". After that, you may wish to use a thesaurus to find terms other than "hen" as it is a very dated term that I find quite amusing and tells one more about the user than the object of use. May I suggest "goddess"? Now that I think of it, you may also wish to find a substitute for "nutjob" for the same reasons.

Always happy to help.

Many people would consider that last post an insult, possiby resulting from NNG looking up the word "ironic" and finding that it is NOT a synonym for "metallic". However, I see it for the compliment it is, via the joy of logic (NNG, you should probably look up "logic" now since I'm certain you're unfamiliar with it).

"More than a few bricks shy of a load"=disagreeing with NNG

(evidence: NNG's insults are prompted by real, implied or imagined disagreement)

Therefore: A full load of bricks =agreement with NNG, and thus similarity to NNG

Therefore: A full load of bricks=having a tenuous grasp on reality (pause while NNG looks up "tenous", possibly also "reality")

(evidence: unknown person's bodies are described to them, inability to keep on topic in a discussion, sweeping generalizations about women and other groups)

Therefore: A full load of bricks=having a cruel, heartless disposition

(evidence in abundance)

Therefore: A full load of bricks=having some, um, strange obsessions that Freud would term evidence of an anal fixation

(evidence in abundance, mostly in Big Love thread)

Therefore: A full load of bricks=an extreme case of narcissism

(determination to turn every discussion into a platform for NNG's bizarre worldview, frequent claims about money, house, etc)

We conclude that a full load of bricks is the last thing any of us would want, therefore my perceived brick shortage is a great compliment and I am duly touched. This on top of his confirming my prediction a few days ago! I cannot tell you how much this means to me, NNG. Tonight while I'm eating my usual snack of 2 lbs of raw cookie dough washed down with maple syrup, butter running down my chin, I will be thinking only of you.

I'm still here but have decided to confine retorts to NNG to the Tennis column where the woman knows she will leave her husband but somehow hasn't. Don't want to spread myself too thin and all relevant points are being addressed here anyway.

Carry on.

As was pointed out, the teacher is probably 22 or 23 and the young man is 18; not THAT much of an age difference. She didn't become involved with him until he graduated. The attraction was mutual. She must have only taught him for a semester or maybe a year; it's not like she'd been his teacher since 7th grade. And if it's in a small town, there may be few men that are prospective dating partners, so it's natural that she'd been drawn to someone she knows and whose company she enjoys.

This seems to me to not be shameful or unethical but more along the lines of a bad idea (maybe). Usually there is a significant difference between maturity at 18 and 22; the fact that she was his teacher may have set him up for some hero worship that doesn't translate well into a long-term relationship. Neither of these may be the case here, though. There are going to be people who gossip that the relationship began before graduation.

I say to the LW: stop beating yourself up. Encourage the young man to go to college and if the attraction is still present in a couple of years, go for it. If they were to eventually marry, the original circumstances would soon just become a funny story they could tell their children.