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Dear Breakup Girl,

I wrote to you recently about my crush on my much older singing teacher (22 year age gap -- he's 52; I'm 30). You sensibly advised me to leave it as a crush because he was in a messy relationship and had a bad relationship history. This I was prepared to do, as it sounded like good advice.

But that was before my last class, when I discovered that my crush appears to be reciprocated.

I went for my lesson and out of the clear blue sky he said, "Jill thinks we're having an affair." (Jill's his partner, who sang with me in the "Messiah," and is slightly frosty towards me, which I always thought was because she suspected I fancied him and not the other way around.) I think he said this to see how I'd react. I don't think I'm reading into this. It looks to me like he wanted me to infer that he was attracted to me. Why say it otherwise? Unfortunately, instead of laughing or saying, "How ridiculous," I said, "Really?" and played with my earring, a very girly, flirtatious gesture that is not part of my usual repertoire. He said that she found me threatening because I was very bright and questioning and she's not. (How she knows this I don't know, as I've hardly spoken to her. Maybe he talks about me?)

He explained that when she rang once during our lesson and he replied, "Yes, she's still here," she had accused him of boffing me. I knew at the time that something was up because he went outside and spent ages saying to her, "What's wrong?" (Y'see, we chat so much that the class often goes on 30 minutes longer than it's supposed to.) He said that he enjoyed "our time together" (not that he enjoyed "teaching" me, which is an important distinction) and that he liked the way I was very feisty, "in your face," and kind of ditzy.

He then went on to tell me about this close friendship he had with a woman who lives in the next town who has the same personality type as me and whom he's had to stop seeing because Jill's jealous. He says it's an intellectual friendship, and he needs that because he doesn't get any stimulating conversation at home.

Personally, I think he's fooling himself if he thinks this kind of intimate discussion is OK with a female friend, but I didn't think of saying it at the time. I mean, if you have intellectual discussions about "Life, the Universe, and Everything," you can't help but show your emotions, right? He's assuming Jill feels intellectually threatened, whereas I think it's emotional. I asked him how he could stay with someone who didn't intellectually stimulate him, and he said he was lazy and weak and that he did once almost leave her for someone with whom he fell in love in Japan who had "the same personality type" (i.e. the same as me and the woman in the next town). He then told me that this woman asked him to leave Jill and come to America with her. She was much younger than he (35), but the age gap didn't bother him and the only thing that stopped them was that she wanted kids and he's already had his family with his two previous wives. (Did I tell you he has two previous wives, not one?)

Am I crazy to think he fancies me? And if he doesn't, then why does he tell me that I have XYZ qualities which he finds attractive and, in the next breath, that he once fell in love with someone with those qualities? Whose (comparatively) very young age wasn't a problem? In the end, he asked me to go through some of the French in "Carmen" with him and asked me to sing it for him. I don't have the music, so I had to stand beside him and look over his shoulder to look in. When I left, I went to give him a kiss on the cheek and, whether he moved or I misjudged, it ended up being half on the lips.

What am I going to do? I mean, I fancy him like mad, and if he ever makes a move, I'm afraid I'll be putty in his hands, but he has two failed marriages and a failing partnership behind him and doesn't want kids. I really want to keep going to him because he's a great singing teacher, but do you think I should ignore this or ask him to be more straight with me? I feel like asking him out for a coffee to have a chat on neutral (and public) turf. Is that a good idea? If you can cast any light on this or tell me what to do, I would be very grateful. I really want to keep going to him for lessons, but I don't know how to handle our (seemingly mutual) attraction. It's not that he's creeping me out, taking advantage, or being repulsive; it's that I'm in serious danger of reciprocating if he ever makes a move, and, well, I've never seen myself as someone's mistress.

--Moonstruck Mezzo

Dear Moonstruck,

I just want you to know that I'm listening to Carmen right now, in your honor.

But let me tell you, Moonstruck, I'm not sure we have to go back over every line of the libretto to see whether or not he fancies you. It's pretty clear to me that oh yes, if he makes a move, you will reciprocate. The real question is: would that mean you've drawn the damning Ace of Spades?

Actually, I don't know. We, unlike Carmen's cards, cannot predict the future with certainty. We can hear unresolved chords in his past -- yet can only speculate that they'd settle, in your life, into a bitter tonic. And in your first letter, all I could point to for sure was what you had already -- big chords, high notes, exaltation, a splendid teacher -- and what you thus also had at stake. Warnings hereby issued. Curtain, intermission.

But hey, isn't Breakup Diva always the one telling everyone, when it comes to love, to not worry right now about how it all turns out? To give up the clipped, bitter Mamet and belt? To stop setting sparse stages? To plunge back into battle, song unstaunched by a death wound? To do the Habanera in taverns, just for effect?

So, Moonstruck: a more-than-half-on-the-lips kiss may, indeed, crescendo -- much like your fave oeuvre -- into a fabulous and grand and overwrought and perhaps even doomed affair. Which is exactly why people eat this stuff up. I've turned over the cards; yet the choice, truly, is still yours.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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