Courtship
I see the same sight every Monday and Wednesday afternoon, and I don’t like it. I’m working at the same high school those two days in Tokyo’s Itabashi Ward. I leave school at 3:20 p.m. and I always see the same young man on the public street outside the school gate, leaning on a motor scooter, face down, lit cigarette in one hand, scrolling through his smartphone screen with the other. It seems obvious to me that he’s waiting for his girlfriend to exit the school. Every day. That’s what it looks like.
I don’t like it. I don’t like the look of him. I don’t like his hair or his clothes. I don’t like his posture. He looks older than a high school student. Maybe he’s a former student, already graduated but with a girlfriend still in the school. He looks 18-to-21-ish. But since I’m used to seeing teenagers in school uniforms, he naturally looks older simply because he’s not wearing one.
I feel like I’m in full-blown protective middle-aged father mode, because I don’t like the idea that one of my girl students (I have no idea who) will hop aboard his motorbike and go around the neighborhood with him, probably without a helmet. I don’t like the idea that one of my girls will let him put his tongue in her mouth and his finger in her vagina. No, siree. I don’t like it at all. He doesn’t look like the proper sort for any of my girls.
I am a professional observer of adolescents,
like Jane Goodall with the chimpanzees of Gombe.
I’m not the students’ father, and I barely know them, in fact. But I still feel possessive of my students, and as such I’m naturally wary of this young man.
Of course, there are a lot of unknowns here. I don’t know who he is. Maybe he’s a perfectly nice fellow. I don’t know what he’s doing outside the school gate. It only looks to me like he’s waiting to meet someone (I suspect a girl on nothing more than instinct). Maybe it just happens to be his favorite spot, for some reason, and he means no harm. If he is waiting to meet someone - someone from the school - I don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy, or even a student. Maybe he’s a leader or member of a gang inside the school (which seems awfully unlikely). Maybe he’s selling drugs, or some other kind of contraband. Maybe he’s thinking deep thoughts and is on the verge of a paradigm breakthrough.
If it actually is a romantic situation I’m catching a glimpse of, it’s really not my business. I can’t do anything about it, and maybe I shouldn’t even if I could. It’s a natural thing, after all. Everyone must go through this. Everyone has to fall in and out of love, gain experience with intimacy and learn through trial and error who’s right and who’s not right for them, and this is the age to do it. I have to stand by and let it happen, watching. Teachers can only go so far in creating a safe environment to protect, nurture and instruct our students. Beyond certain parameters, the children are on their own. Being a high school teacher means I am a professional observer of adolescents, like Jane Goodall with the chimpanzees of Gombe.