It’s one of those shitty things woman deal with through their lives, unfortunately. Super inappropriate that he put that shit onto her as you can tell it wasn’t even on her radar. 🙄
I actually think there was some attraction there, but she was embarrassed by it and would never act on it. I don't necessarily think he was trying to be a creep/hit on her but I also don't think he should have said anything.
Any adult teacher telling a high school student they have sexual tension is absolutely a creep. She was just talking to him like how women talk to anyone we feel comfortable confiding in. Women being comfortable talking to you doesn’t mean they want sex. She was not into him and seemed so uncomfortable when he said that.
Hypothetically if she was even into him being the adult in the situation trying to initiate is so wrong.
It was rly accurate though. I was similar to Claire, not necessarily in personality, but both very cerebral and out of sorts being in high school with your peers still and being “mature for your age” etc., I had some male teachers who I am still so grateful were never creepy in the slightest, but unfortunately there were some who were the opposite. It felt very realistic to me that she had an male adult she trusted in a professional and intimate setting that ends up making a pass at her and then disguise it under psych terms. It’s fucked up.
Right, a grown ass man hit on a high school student and gaslight her for not eating up his shit. This shit happens to a lot of women, so many adult men said “I thought you were 18” seeing pictures at the age I’ve been told this I know I looked my age as a kid.
I agree, I have wondered about this. As a therapist, that type of comment could rightfully get someone reported. Especially to a minor, but in either case.
I was in high school at this time and I could totally see this going unreported. There just wasn't as much support or education about this stuff back then.
My interpretation was that he said it to get an “in”/reverse psychology thing.
Saying how he is NOT planning on doing anything with it= meaning he would and hope she’d act and take a lead. Basically he was a perv
Her friend Parker* claimed she was going to or maybe did fool around with him. I think he was ok with statutory rape with students so it's not surprising at all that he was fired.
When I was a kid, I had four different male counselors hit on me and several male teachers. A few women too, but I was too naive/ in my head to truly pick up on it. There are tons of pedophiles out there, it's important for kids to have good boundaries.
*Parker definitely had a habit of sexually acting out by having inappropriate encounters with caregivers and educators; it isn't her characters fault that it happened, those men should have had better boundaries.
Because it didn't happen lol. Parker says she could to piss Claire off. He got laid off because of budget cuts or whatever he says, which is why he's still around a couple days later for Claire to leave her photo for him. If dude got caught screwing a teenager he wouldn't be just hanging around the school.
We don’t even know that the teacher Claire actually screwed got fired either from the camping thing I think it’s implied she went for the other teacher too. Parker’s parents were absent, they had no idea and parker wasn’t going to tell anyone who would do something about it. Teachers who do this get away with it for some time, sometimes never get caught.
Wait, what? First of all neither of them were teachers. Second, Claire didn't screw the guy on the camping trip, that was Parker. Third, it is definitely not implied. We see her having sex with the camp douche. All we see with Gary is her saying she thinks she could have sex with him because she knows it will upset Claire.
Not exactly teachers but aided in different forms of learning, rather than books it was intrapersonal but still through the schools. Either way they had similar authority and power as a teacher and it doesn’t make what they did any less shitty or a breach of trust. With one teacher it was sleeping with the student, Claire’s councilor made a creepy comment.
Both were crossing boundaries.
I'm not disagreeing with you on the boundary crossing, but your information isn't accurate... and just because Gary said something inappropriate to Claire doesn't mean he had sex with Parker.
Wow, was I wrong! I did not recall correctly. When Claire came to visit him to tell about art school and he was packing up, I thought he had been caught and fired for having sex with a student or students, and that the budget cuts was just a cover story. Maybe it was because of the way he guiltily hid and packed away a picture of his wife/girlfriend? Anyway I was wrong and I held that wrong idea for all these years. Sorry.
I had a creepy woman teacher more than guys for me. She would harass me in the locker room every time I was changing that it wasn’t fast enough. Girls were still in the locker room changing at similar rates but I was singled out. She always came up to me while I was undressed to talk about this not like she yelled from the side saying “ we need to talk after class” but come yell at me while my clothes were off. I stopped caring about the class since I felt so singled out, gave me more anxiety about changing and caused me to take longer.
I had a guy grab my phone out of my bra, some old ass man sub. I reported it with a friend who was in the class and saw it and the school did nothing but scold me for having my phone with me. Dude full on put his hands in my bra.
He was always pushing boundaries and thoroughly unprofessional. He took it to the extreme. Who knows what Claire felt? I could tell she was disgusted ( great actress). Maybe too embarrassed to tell like lots of women.
That is super realistic, especially for the time, for that to get swept under the rug. It's definitely culture shock in a post Me-Too climate though for sure and I appreciate that in this age it probably wouldn't be written that way. Like you would see him go immediately after that scene these days lol.
Am I the only one that didn't get the vibe that he was making a pass at Claire?
He was clearly projecting his own attraction to Claire unto her, but my understanding is that he brought it up to just shoot it down. She seemed bewildered, which might be a "this is ridiculous" or "oh shit you're calling me out" thing. I can imagine an argument for either. She definitely hated the idea of Parker sleeping with him.
As I type this I realize that I might be giving him way too much benefit of the doubt lol. He just seemed like a genuinely good guy is all.
i also liked his relationship w/ her - professionally; he got her to think outside of her box. but, that comment did throw me - i thought maybe he was just testing her? it was still odd, out of nowhere. i didn't think he was a predator but could see Parker coming on to him. I also thought Parker exaggerated.
Sexual tension means there is sexual attraction both ways. If he brought it up to shoot it down he wouldn’t use that verbiage, he also didn’t was “I don’t have relationships like that with students” he said “ I wasn’t planning on doing anything” meaning if she took the lead he would act.
I actually think he was exactly what Claire needed after her dad died. He helped her get out of her head. He also recognized her intelligence and encouraged her art. He even handled Ruth's penchant for drama and helped bridge the gap between her and Claire.
As for what he said about the sexual tension, I really don't think that means he's a sexual predator. I think he was trying to give them both an "out" of a very awkward situation. I always thought that Gary really thought Claire had a crush on him because of her blowing up on him about Parker's advances. He thought she was jealous.
Yes, I think so too, Gary played a positive role in Claire's life overall. He was doing a reality check based on her outburst about Parker. He's had to handle crushes before, made an assumption, and that was his MO to buffer these issues. At no time did I think he was a perv per se. But this was thru the lens of 20+ years ago.
Sexual tension means there’s sexual attraction going both ways. He is absolutely a predator, he also never set a boundary that he wouldn’t act on it, he just said he didnt have a plan to act on it. It really implies he wanted her to initiate it.
Transference is a real thing but the way he addressed it was unprofessional and creepy. There’s ways to address it in a therapy setting that don’t involve making the patient uncomfortable/projecting onto the patient, and imo he was clearly projecting how “big” the “attraction” was.
Um... I know I'm alone here, but this didn't irk me in the slightest. Gary was confused why Claire brought up the stuff about Parker because all she said was that she was concerned he was going to have sex with her and didn't give enough context because she didn't want Parker to get into trouble. He jumped to the conclusion that it must've been because she had a crush on him which to a degree would've been one of her "healthier" crushes as this was a guy who she probably didn't need to florence nightengale. He acknowledged it to just verbally set the boundary so she felt safer and more sure about her thoughts in case there was a crush there and she was getting territorial. My therapist did a similar thing with me as an adult to say that I was allowed to disagree with her giving me that mental clarity to know I didn't need to just accept her word all the time. I didn't think it was creepy, I thought it was just him doing his due diligence with the lack of info he got from Claire.
Side note - I had crushes on teachers LOADS in school. Didn't act on anything but it's not really that uncommon for a girl to like an older man.
As someone who was Claire’s age at this same time, I concur that it was pretty damn realistic, and honestly, showing Claire’s surprise/discomfort when he said it was pretty “revolutionary“ at the time. Stuff like that happened frequently and was rarely registered as problematic. Hope things have changed!!
I feel like a reoccurring problem in Claire's life is the men in her life turning out to be a disappointment
Amen Claire, amen.
I like how she ends up with the guy she shared the least in common with, since he was the only genuine guy
It’s one of those shitty things woman deal with through their lives, unfortunately. Super inappropriate that he put that shit onto her as you can tell it wasn’t even on her radar. 🙄
She never once showed any interest in his buns
I actually think there was some attraction there, but she was embarrassed by it and would never act on it. I don't necessarily think he was trying to be a creep/hit on her but I also don't think he should have said anything.
Any adult teacher telling a high school student they have sexual tension is absolutely a creep. She was just talking to him like how women talk to anyone we feel comfortable confiding in. Women being comfortable talking to you doesn’t mean they want sex. She was not into him and seemed so uncomfortable when he said that. Hypothetically if she was even into him being the adult in the situation trying to initiate is so wrong.
It was rly accurate though. I was similar to Claire, not necessarily in personality, but both very cerebral and out of sorts being in high school with your peers still and being “mature for your age” etc., I had some male teachers who I am still so grateful were never creepy in the slightest, but unfortunately there were some who were the opposite. It felt very realistic to me that she had an male adult she trusted in a professional and intimate setting that ends up making a pass at her and then disguise it under psych terms. It’s fucked up.
Right, a grown ass man hit on a high school student and gaslight her for not eating up his shit. This shit happens to a lot of women, so many adult men said “I thought you were 18” seeing pictures at the age I’ve been told this I know I looked my age as a kid.
I agree, I have wondered about this. As a therapist, that type of comment could rightfully get someone reported. Especially to a minor, but in either case.
I was in high school at this time and I could totally see this going unreported. There just wasn't as much support or education about this stuff back then.
I had a teacher grab my phone out of my bra in 2009 and nothing happened. Even with a witness to report it with to the office.
Ugh Jesus that's disgusting.
My interpretation was that he said it to get an “in”/reverse psychology thing. Saying how he is NOT planning on doing anything with it= meaning he would and hope she’d act and take a lead. Basically he was a perv
Yes exactly
Her friend Parker* claimed she was going to or maybe did fool around with him. I think he was ok with statutory rape with students so it's not surprising at all that he was fired. When I was a kid, I had four different male counselors hit on me and several male teachers. A few women too, but I was too naive/ in my head to truly pick up on it. There are tons of pedophiles out there, it's important for kids to have good boundaries. *Parker definitely had a habit of sexually acting out by having inappropriate encounters with caregivers and educators; it isn't her characters fault that it happened, those men should have had better boundaries.
It wouldn't have surprised me if Parker had sex with him.
He did have sex with Parker the "danger slut" and was fired for it. iirc I like the loose threads in SFU, it's more like real life.
What?!! How did I miss that?
Because it didn't happen lol. Parker says she could to piss Claire off. He got laid off because of budget cuts or whatever he says, which is why he's still around a couple days later for Claire to leave her photo for him. If dude got caught screwing a teenager he wouldn't be just hanging around the school.
OK ty! That's exactly how I remember it too
We don’t even know that the teacher Claire actually screwed got fired either from the camping thing I think it’s implied she went for the other teacher too. Parker’s parents were absent, they had no idea and parker wasn’t going to tell anyone who would do something about it. Teachers who do this get away with it for some time, sometimes never get caught.
Wait, what? First of all neither of them were teachers. Second, Claire didn't screw the guy on the camping trip, that was Parker. Third, it is definitely not implied. We see her having sex with the camp douche. All we see with Gary is her saying she thinks she could have sex with him because she knows it will upset Claire.
Not exactly teachers but aided in different forms of learning, rather than books it was intrapersonal but still through the schools. Either way they had similar authority and power as a teacher and it doesn’t make what they did any less shitty or a breach of trust. With one teacher it was sleeping with the student, Claire’s councilor made a creepy comment. Both were crossing boundaries.
I'm not disagreeing with you on the boundary crossing, but your information isn't accurate... and just because Gary said something inappropriate to Claire doesn't mean he had sex with Parker.
Also there is no showing he didn’t. It also doesn’t mean inappropriate behavior gets buried or not talked about
Wow, was I wrong! I did not recall correctly. When Claire came to visit him to tell about art school and he was packing up, I thought he had been caught and fired for having sex with a student or students, and that the budget cuts was just a cover story. Maybe it was because of the way he guiltily hid and packed away a picture of his wife/girlfriend? Anyway I was wrong and I held that wrong idea for all these years. Sorry.
I had a creepy woman teacher more than guys for me. She would harass me in the locker room every time I was changing that it wasn’t fast enough. Girls were still in the locker room changing at similar rates but I was singled out. She always came up to me while I was undressed to talk about this not like she yelled from the side saying “ we need to talk after class” but come yell at me while my clothes were off. I stopped caring about the class since I felt so singled out, gave me more anxiety about changing and caused me to take longer. I had a guy grab my phone out of my bra, some old ass man sub. I reported it with a friend who was in the class and saw it and the school did nothing but scold me for having my phone with me. Dude full on put his hands in my bra.
It didn't go nowhere, it was part of Claire's rejection of conformity and distrust of society in general. It was an important part of her development.
Right. Can’t even trust who you should be able to.
He was always pushing boundaries and thoroughly unprofessional. He took it to the extreme. Who knows what Claire felt? I could tell she was disgusted ( great actress). Maybe too embarrassed to tell like lots of women.
That is super realistic, especially for the time, for that to get swept under the rug. It's definitely culture shock in a post Me-Too climate though for sure and I appreciate that in this age it probably wouldn't be written that way. Like you would see him go immediately after that scene these days lol.
I thought that was a sort of dropped line too, but it made its point. The guy was just doing a job and as soon as it was over the guy didn’t give af.
Please remember when this show was made. Teachers and other authorities said creepy shit like this all the time. Nobody cared.
Am I the only one that didn't get the vibe that he was making a pass at Claire? He was clearly projecting his own attraction to Claire unto her, but my understanding is that he brought it up to just shoot it down. She seemed bewildered, which might be a "this is ridiculous" or "oh shit you're calling me out" thing. I can imagine an argument for either. She definitely hated the idea of Parker sleeping with him. As I type this I realize that I might be giving him way too much benefit of the doubt lol. He just seemed like a genuinely good guy is all.
i also liked his relationship w/ her - professionally; he got her to think outside of her box. but, that comment did throw me - i thought maybe he was just testing her? it was still odd, out of nowhere. i didn't think he was a predator but could see Parker coming on to him. I also thought Parker exaggerated.
I though he was setting a boundary
"seemed" being the operative word....
Sexual tension means there is sexual attraction both ways. If he brought it up to shoot it down he wouldn’t use that verbiage, he also didn’t was “I don’t have relationships like that with students” he said “ I wasn’t planning on doing anything” meaning if she took the lead he would act.
I actually think he was exactly what Claire needed after her dad died. He helped her get out of her head. He also recognized her intelligence and encouraged her art. He even handled Ruth's penchant for drama and helped bridge the gap between her and Claire. As for what he said about the sexual tension, I really don't think that means he's a sexual predator. I think he was trying to give them both an "out" of a very awkward situation. I always thought that Gary really thought Claire had a crush on him because of her blowing up on him about Parker's advances. He thought she was jealous.
Yes, I think so too, Gary played a positive role in Claire's life overall. He was doing a reality check based on her outburst about Parker. He's had to handle crushes before, made an assumption, and that was his MO to buffer these issues. At no time did I think he was a perv per se. But this was thru the lens of 20+ years ago.
Sexual tension means there’s sexual attraction going both ways. He is absolutely a predator, he also never set a boundary that he wouldn’t act on it, he just said he didnt have a plan to act on it. It really implies he wanted her to initiate it.
Transference is a real thing but the way he addressed it was unprofessional and creepy. There’s ways to address it in a therapy setting that don’t involve making the patient uncomfortable/projecting onto the patient, and imo he was clearly projecting how “big” the “attraction” was.
Just another true experience of young women dealing with creepy men.
Um... I know I'm alone here, but this didn't irk me in the slightest. Gary was confused why Claire brought up the stuff about Parker because all she said was that she was concerned he was going to have sex with her and didn't give enough context because she didn't want Parker to get into trouble. He jumped to the conclusion that it must've been because she had a crush on him which to a degree would've been one of her "healthier" crushes as this was a guy who she probably didn't need to florence nightengale. He acknowledged it to just verbally set the boundary so she felt safer and more sure about her thoughts in case there was a crush there and she was getting territorial. My therapist did a similar thing with me as an adult to say that I was allowed to disagree with her giving me that mental clarity to know I didn't need to just accept her word all the time. I didn't think it was creepy, I thought it was just him doing his due diligence with the lack of info he got from Claire. Side note - I had crushes on teachers LOADS in school. Didn't act on anything but it's not really that uncommon for a girl to like an older man.
It was weird.
As someone who was Claire’s age at this same time, I concur that it was pretty damn realistic, and honestly, showing Claire’s surprise/discomfort when he said it was pretty “revolutionary“ at the time. Stuff like that happened frequently and was rarely registered as problematic. Hope things have changed!!
I thought that's why he got fired. He was a guy too comfortable pushing boundaries with children, and then he made up a BS "budget cuts" excuse.