My professor is behaving weirdly and i feel unsafe. What should i do? I am panicking
Im a college freshman. In my university, every student is given an academic advisor, randomly assigned at first then we have to find another later when we declare our major.
I took one course of a professor and sometimes I chat with him after class. I just thought that he is a very friendly person. I let my guard down because he is 55, and he has 2 kids and a wife. I thought he was just a friendly person. That’s it. Once, I offered to bring his stuff back to his room because he was holding heavy stuff and we talked and I felt like he was a good guy. He suggested I should switch my advisor to him. So i agreed.
Because every beginning of a semester students have to advisors regarding their schedule and such and I just changed my advisor, I wrote an email asking him about the procedure. A few week before, I wrote an email asking him if it is ok when I dyed my hair because, where I live, having colored hair is a bad thing for scholarship interview. So in this email, other than the advising procedure, I also told him I wanted to show him my hair because it faded into blonde which I thought looked weird. I felt like I have made a big blunder here. I just wrote it because he knew about the hair thing already. I never thought he took it as some romantic hint or something.
He wrote me back an email asking me if I was free. I thought he meant for advisor meeting so I said yes.
- i said yes and went to his office. When I first walked in he immediately touched my hair and said “its so blonde” and then took my hand and put it to his face to show me he shaved his beard. I felt uncomfortable but I felt like I could not protest (I am Asian and this is in a university in Asia. So the hierarchy is strong and I did not felt like I could reject). I asked him about the advisory thing. He said it is not the time yet and today is just hanging out with me. So i felt like he tricked me a bit into meeting him for nothing. Instead of sitting on the normal desk he said I should sit on his sofa.
when we talked he gave me head pats or touch my hair. Due to past C-PTSD and trauma, I lack awareness of surroundings and the ability to react fast so I just accepted such and said nothing. I was ambivalent, but then due to past conversation and the knowledge that he had wife and children, I just thought he was being friendly.
He said should download Telegram to text him instead because the way I wrote email for him was inappropriate. He said I couldnt tell him about my hair like that and the way I use the react emoji on email is also inappropriate. I told him I was sorry because I did not know about etiquette and procedure. I am from a different country, and I am a freshman so I do not know that it is inappropriate, especially when I saw that we have good relationship as teacher-student already. He said the the emojis i send are also problematic so i should have telegram to text him without being controlled. But i noticed another PE teacher of mine send emojis to me too without problems
He insisted I download it. Apparently he wanted that because he could delete messages on Telegram. He was cautious because recently a professor was fired for texting a student outside of work.
it was at 12:00 so he asked if it is ok we have lunch somewhere else. I said yes because I thought it was normal to do it. I heard my senpai having dinner/lunch with her professor already. But at that time I didnt think that was because she went with a group of student not alone. I felt comfortable by my thought back then so we went for a noodle shop.
then he asked if I wanted ice cream in the park. We went through a park and he said “this is like a play date” or “today i have nothing and im going on a date with a student”. Or when i met my friend at the park while i was with him he asked me “would you say that you are hanging out with your boyfriend”. He also touched my har in the park once but decided to recoil his hand. I think because it was in public so he was afraid. I did not know what to say so I said nothing.
When we got back to the university again, I told him i dont want to bother him because he bought me ice cream and ramen. He said “you owe me. I said “im sorry.” He said “You owe me affection”. I didnt say anything to that. Then I went back home.
I didn’t realize what happen until the friend I met in the park asked me “So I saw you cycling with a professor…” and she kept asking “have you ever taken his class”. I felt like she thought it was unusual. Then I realized all of these are unusual.
I am starting to panic. I felt like I have made a terrible mistake when I changed him to my advisor. At least I have to tolerate him for one more year until I change to another advisor. I have a history of being groomed when I was in high school by a 25 year old guy. Then in my first month in college a 32 year old guy tried to asked me out too (I was 18). But this is the worst thing ever. He is now my advisor. He is loved and trusted in my school. And he knows so many things about procedure that I do not know. And I am terribly naive to the point I do not know what is appropriate or not.
What should I do? Please please give me advices. I am so scared now. I do not want him to hurt me in the future. If I was groomed by this professor I do not think I could survive another trauma.