It may be because I have a family full o' them.
Or that my boyfriend is studying to be one.
Or because they made for the best characters in Harry Potter.
But, I love the romance of professors.
It's an interesting dynamic: this person serves as a mentor, even as aspiration - even if you don't like them, they're inherently interesting and you take their learned words as gold, yet there's also this impenetrable distance and formality.
I literally get lost in class thinking over the details of their lives: what their spouses are like or whether they're deliberately single, how many languages they speak, the thought process behind the outfits they put together, if they've ever watched anything on Bravo!, their opinions on politics and religion - forget the forced objectivity but what they really think, their child-rearing philosophy, what sparked their interest in the given topic, what they think I should do with my life, what did they have for lunch, how hard it is to adapt to societal norms, how their house is decorated, did they subsist off ramen noodles during all those years in school, do they end the day defeated, etc.
Forget the bio stacked with degrees and published papers, instead I cling to the little details that offer insight into the greater backstory I'm building: a suggestion that yoga classes might help with finals stress, penchants for tropical ties/thick-lensed glasses/nude hose, the traveling coffee cup they cling to, the huge diamond ring, a passing mention of a past experience in Bhutan, the framed photographs in the office, the cartoon taped to the door, etc. - all fair game for romancing their profession.
