By Megan Guerrero & Tomas Palmieri
For students, dating and relationships are often a more important element of high school than their education. We asked teachers to share some of their best, embarrassing, and unfortunate experiences in the realm of romance. Just like us, teachers have their own personal lives, stories, and even dating experiences.
Social studies teacher Ronald Korb
“On the first date with my now wife, we went out for sushi and apparently in my attempt to be all manly and masculine, I managed to give myself two big splinters in my fingers from the chopsticks. That’s definitely not the best first impression, so it was kind of stupid and typical and my kind of luck, but she dealt. Now we have been married for seven years.”
Social studies teacher Lara Willig
“My husband and I loved going to this specific Chinese restaurant in the valley about six or seven years ago. As we were driving by, we noticed that the apartment building right next door was on fire, meaning that the restaurant’s parking lot was on fire. While the fire department was putting out the fire in the parking lot, we just parked our car and went inside and enjoyed our food even though there was a fire right next door.”
Social studies teacher Stacy Netzley
“When I was a freshman and my now husband was a sophomore, we dated and went to the winter dance. For Valentine’s Day, he left a card in my locker that had Snoopy on it and said, ‘If you won’t be my valentine, don’t open the card,’ but the card didn’t open. Look, it was 1990. I freaked out and because it was 1990 I called my mother on the payphone at school and asked her to get me a card so I could give him one. After giving him the card we went to the Valentine’s dance together.”
English teacher Joshua Mandell
“On our third date we went hiking with her dog, but there were multiple signs that said no dogs. She told me everything would be okay, but people began to yell at us for having a dog. We went to another trail that allowed dogs on a leash, except she didn’t use a leash, and her dog ended up getting kicked by a horse. The sheriff then yelled at us. On our ride home, she started telling me about these crazy conspiracy theories. At that point I just wanted to jump out of the car and then we weren’t going to the direction of my house. Instead, she said that she needed to do some shopping. After that, I finally called an Uber and escaped.”
Social studies teacher Eric Adair
“I was a senior at UC San Diego. After political science, there was a girl in my class that I wanted to get to know so I invited her to the pub. We were ordering drinks and I thought I was being all cool and brought the pitcher over. I poured her a glass and as I grabbed it the drink ended up spilling all over her, and she was absolutely drenched. There was no second date.”
Science teacher Erica Brauer
“I was working at a restaurant when this guy asked me out. He decided to order some chicken wings, and I’m a vegetarian. It’s already uncomfortable watching someone eat chicken wings as a vegetarian, but to add to it he attempted to seductively lick the sauce off of his fingers. Again, I’m a vegetarian. I didn’t order anything because I wasn’t hungry, but when we were leaving he made sure that he ‘got the bill.’ My friends told me after that he actually asked their waitress out while on the date with me, so it was just a disaster of epic scale.”
The Plaid Press 