English Teacher Julian Morris:
“It was 2009, so it was 9th grade. I had asked a friend out to go see ‘Julie and Julia’ — a great film by the way. As the movie was starting, I was thinking to myself, ‘Look at me out on a date,’ but it was as the movie was starting [that] I realized I was gay. When I was a kid, I would say some things I shouldn’t have said out loud. So I said, ‘I think I’m gay.’ She was like, ‘Oh, yeah. That’s cool.’ We watched the rest of the movie together and then hugged goodbye.”
Dean of Student Activities and Science Teacher Skyler Silverman:
“I was in college and it was before the [school] term had started, but everyone was on campus. I was at a party with some friends and I met someone and we connected — it was fun. The next week I went to class, and they introduced us to the Teacher’s Assistants for the different recitations, and this person from the party was my TA.”
Spanish Teacher Raina Mast:
“I was a senior in high school and my mom was working at our hometown college, and a college student from Egypt was working with her as a helper in the office. He was looking for a wife and my mom showed him a picture of me. I was dating someone at the time, so I didn’t want to go on a date with him, but my mom was like, ‘You never know.’ To please my mom even though I already had a boyfriend at the time and was technically cheating on him, I went on the date. He picked me up in his fancy car, brought me flowers and then we went to this Mediterranean restaurant called Aladdin. As we were eating all this delicious food that he ordered for us, the belly dancers came out, which is part of the restaurant. My date was very into the belly dancing, and I was just laughing and feeling very white and not really available wholeheartedly for the experience. He took me home and it was just one of those horrible dates where you’re like, ‘Don’t kiss me, I’ll see you later and have a good life.’ The whole time I just felt like I was leading someone on, but my mom was making me do it. I was just forced into this date because my mom had this dream of an arranged marriage with this Egyptian royalty.”
Dean of Equity and Inclusion Jason Ernest Feldman:
“I was living in New York at the time and had never met my date in person. When they showed up, I really wasn’t attracted [to them] and didn’t know how to get out of it. So I was like, ‘Oh, my friends, they’re close by. I’m going to go meet up with them.’ My date was like, ‘Okay, I’ll come.’ Before the date we decided we would go on a bike ride, so we were both on our bikes. We were literally biking through Brooklyn together to go see my friends. So then this person met all my friends that same day as well, when in reality I kind of wish that the date had stopped as soon as it started.”
Associate Director of Admissions and Service Learning Teacher Chris Williams:
“I met my date at Lake Merritt in Oakland, and we had planned to go on a walk. As I was walking [around] the lake with this woman, she recognized someone that she knew, so we went over to say hi. They were talking about what seemed like something serious, and I was just kind of awkwardly standing there. They then left together without saying goodbye to me. I sat on a bench for like 10 minutes and then walked home.”
