Secret Teacher: Online dating is like taking an exam

Could my profile land me in trouble at school? What if I bump into a student? Dating poses more questions than a multiple-choice test

Dating can be a minefield – and for a single teacher, especially so. We all know that balancing work and family life is like walking a tightrope in a high wind for those with partners, children and pets, but it isn’t easy for those of us with little more than a pot plant depending on us either.

Dating is like searching for a house: it becomes a second job and takes a huge amount of time and effort to, er, seal the deal. Even one date a week is tough. You have to find a time you’re both free, get ready even though you’re knackered from teaching all day and then spend the evening trying to smile and not yawn. Dating on a school night isn’t ideal, but weekdays seem to be the preferred option for first dates – it’s less intense than committing your Friday or Saturday to a near-stranger, I suppose.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here – the first obstacle in the teacher’s hunt for love is actually finding someone to go on date with. If you want to date in 2016, there’s really no getting away from the fact that most single people are online. Whether it’s Tinder, Soulmates or some other website promising a happy ever after, an online presence means a much bigger pool of potential matches.

This is tricky because teachers always have to be careful about what they share online. Most make the decision to completely lock down any social media profiles to ensure that, as far as possible, no parent, pupil and maybe even colleague is privy to any of it. Some schools’ staff codes of conduct actually require this.

But there’s no point ramping up the security settings on a dating site to Fort Knox levels – the idea is that the more people that see it, the better your chances. So the challenge is to create a profile that isn’t incriminating, but still allows you to appear human. It’s hard. Photos where you’re drinking (or drunk) have to be avoided, as do those with too much skin on display – beach shots are an absolute no-no.

I even find myself second guessing the list of likes and dislikes: if I add mojitos to my list of loves, will I come across as irresponsible? If I put Monday mornings on my list of hates, does that speak badly about my job? You need to create a version of yourself that feels real but wouldn’t cause alarm bells if it was found by a parent.

Once I’ve ummed and ahhed over my profile and uploaded and deleted 67 different photo options, the grief continues. There’s always the nagging worry that I could match with a relative of one of the children I teach. Statistics are probably on my side here, but to eliminate the possibility, there are some questions I ask early on after matching. These include whether they have children and where they live (roughly). I think I’ve got away with this and weaved it into conversation rather than sounding like making these exchanges sound like interrogations.

When I’m finally on a date, I have to stop myself from talking shop too much. This can be tricky because people – and this doesn’t apply just to dates – are usually quite interested in tales of the job. But I try to keep the child-related chat to a minimum so I can fool my dates into believing that my work hasn’t completely taken over my life.

Location is also an issue. If you live near your school, you don’t want to go on a date and end up bumping into any students or parents. That happened to friend of mine recently, when a parent came into the bar that she and her date were in. She quickly moved to another venue, but still isn’t sure if that parent saw her.

Should you manage to get through all of this, find a suitable person, go on some dates without bumping into a pupil or falling asleep at the table, and actually get serious, there is one final – major – hurdle to jump.

If you work with children under 8, as I do, you have to keep the disqualification by association guidance in the back of your mind. If someone in your household is disqualified from registration as a childcare provider (or would be), you may also be disqualified by association. Even if I wasn’t a teacher, I’d hope that my new partner hadn’t been convicted or cautioned for violent or sexual offences in the past, but my job wouldn’t potentially rely on it.

Ultimately, as a teacher, there’s a lot to consider while walking the line between public and private in the dating world. But it’s worth putting yourself out there, not least to ensure that the job doesn’t rule every part of your life.

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