Title: Interracial friendship

By: tulip

I am a married 40 something white man that has taught for two years in a classroom beside a single mid 30's black woman with three boys. She is a dedicated teacher who was struggling with the administration and parents over the high expectations in her course.
For some reason my heart went out to her. At first, I encouraged her and helped when I could. Then I just began protecting her from these people. As our time together went on, we talked often and helped each other out when we could. I knew that it could not be easy to be on her own with those boys and working full time so I paid for her lunches and any other small thing I could do to help her.
She is an adamant supporter of black rights and I liked that. She had a purpose. She loves to write and I encouraged that. We kidded each other about my attraction to her. She always teased back saying she did not like white men. I knew that she had few friends and some light romantic relationship with one man. I sensed that she was lonely.
One of the reasons that she had few friends is that she has a temper and she will yell at you. When she did it to me, I simply said yes ma'am and paid it no mind. I felt that she did not mean it the way it came out and I accepted it.
I liked her and I wanted her to meet my wife and become even closer friends to where I could watch her kids if she had something to do.Anything I could do to help. I thought she needed friends.
She was still standoffish. She never gave me a lot of background on her life and getting together outside of work was avoided by her.
Recently she told me that she had sold her house and was moving out of state. At first, it did not bother me but I began to dread her leaving.
I drove for her on a couple of field trips at her request, one to an overnighter. I did not get to talk to her much on the first field trip but on the second I confessed to her that my feelings had been hurt because she seemed to be avoiding me or was embarassed to be seen in public with me.
She refused to respond. I told her that in the two years that I had known her, she had never called me by my first name. She blew that off as nothing that was just her. That was as deep as she would get on the subject of feelings and then she just quit talking to me.The kids told me that she was angry with me and was ripping me in her class about not doing my job properly.
I could not stand it. I felt that our friendship was more important than my pride so I wrote her a letter from my heart staing that I would never say anything detrimental about her to anyone because I cared for her and that if it made her feel better to talk about me, then she was more than welcome. I would not mind as long as it made her happy. I explained why my feelings had been hurt and I confessed that I loved her but that I did not know how, as a friend or romantically. I went on to say that I just enjoyed being in her company each day and that although she thought she was plain looking, I thought that she was beautiful. I told her that I accepted her warts and all unconditionally. I also said that I did not want her to leave and that I wanted her and her family to stay so that I could help her out.
BIG MISTAKE! She not only did not speak to me, she became hostile.Everytime I approached her she screamed that she was busy and did not have time. She refused to answer my phone calls. One day she was working late so I stayed to watch her young son for her until she was finished. I also know that it frightens her to stay late by herself. When she was finished, she grabbed her son and stormed out of the building without so much as a drop dead.
This continued with me profusely apologizing in phone messages for what ever I had done, and I knew that she did not feel for me the way that I felt for her. That was fine, I just wanted to talk to her. I was pleading with her saying that this had caused me great pain over losing a firend.
She never returned my calls she avoided me at work. But when I continued to pay for her lunches or bring gifts to her sons, she accepted them and never said a word.
Finally, I could not finished my three days at work. I had told my wife everything because our relatioinship is a mature and understanding one of 20 years. She was wonderful and advised me to take the last few days off since it was obviously causing me such great pain.
The next day I received a phone call from her furious with me because as she said it, she was busy but she had to take time out to watch my class because I was not professional enough to get thru this and finish out the school year.
I am the most confused man on the planet. Why is she so angry with me? Why want she talk to me and at least say why she is angry? She is going to leave town in a couple of months without me ever having a chance to talk to her and to have closure. Did she always dislike me? Is this a racial issue? I obviously am not going to receive any answers from her. Can you please give me some insight as to why she is acting this way. I am completely heartbroken and no one seems to have any answers. PLease help the pain go away.

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Saturday, June 9, 2007 - Obsession...
Answer by: starfox_04