Sorry if this is lengthy but I want to explain the situation fully.
I have a very good RCUK funded PhD student just into his second year.
In March, he split up from his long-term girlfriend. The day after she told him it was over, he came in for a pre-arranged supervision. He was heartbroken, cried and the meeting turned into more of a therapy session than supervision. I didn't mind at all.
After that he became a bit more needy with supervision. That was okay but I mentioned it to him in a friendly way. He said his personal issues had knocked his confidence and made him question why he was even in the UK doing a PhD any more. The plan had been for them both to come to the UK (from EU countries) and do their PhDs. Now he's here alone. So, that was all understandable.
Then on a few occasions I'd mentioned workshops/events that I was going to and when I arrived I'd find he was there even though it was irrelevant to his work. After these workshop/events, he'd make a point of coming to find me to travel back to the department/city together. I, again, put this down to him being a bit needy and also procrastinating because he had a big review to write!
A couple of weeks ago, we were at the same conference. The conference was in the city I grew up in so I met up with an old friend who's gay (relevant) and a party animal. After the conference dinner, a group of us delegates (about 15 people, mix of PhDs, postdocs, lecturers and SLs) went out to a club. My gay, party animal old friend met us there.
At the club, me and my old friend were dancing the way only fag hags and gay men can (dirty dancing, grinding basically). A couple of times my PhD student also started dancing with me like this which I felt really uncomfortable with so I laughed it off and walked away.
We were all pissed that night by my PhD student was more drunk than the rest of us. At one point he told he he thought I was really sexy, that he'd fancied me for ages and when we arrived back at the hotel he tried following me to my room and I had to work quite hard to persuade him he wasn't coming in.
I should say that this clubbing with PhD students isn't atypical in my discipline or at this particular conference. The group I was out with had a few PhD/supervisors. I also don't think I overstepped the boundary in offering him support when his relationship broke down. Okay, grinding with a friend in a club with my PhD student wasn't my best show but this conference is well known for being a hot bed of debauchery so others have done much worse (not that that's an excuse).
He's been back home for a couple of weeks but is due in for supervision on Friday. I'm a bit apprehensive about him coming in. He's hurting from his relationship breakdown and is on the rebound. I've been kind to him and he's attached himself to that.
Do I mention that I feel things have become murky and that we need to reset some boundaries? Or do I leave it and assume he'll get over his heartbreak and move on from whatever weird crush he has on me?
Sorry for the long post. I feel really conflicted about it all and there's no-one in my department to really speak to about it.
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Problems with a PhD student- personal not academic
31 replies
GameOldBirdz · 05/10/2016 14:38
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