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Have you created any damage that needs controlling?

Get David Eddie's advice. Send your dilemmas to damage@globeandmail.com, and include your hometown and a daytime contact number so we can follow up with any queries. (We won't publish your name if we select your question.)

THE QUESTION

I am female, 31, and have the biggest crush on a man I work with, who is 20. Another complication besides the age gap is the fact that two years ago I was his teaching assistant when he was in his senior year of high school. I do have that "hot teacher" rep, I believe, in appearance though not in action. I have been working alongside this guy for six months and have behaved perfectly. But I feel like someone who has taken a vow of hunger and had to work alongside a spectacularly delicious, aromatic roast turkey and not touch or nibble. He is leaving the job this week, and I'm hungry! I feel it will be a huge loss to me if nothing happens. Should I do something? Or just let it go?

THE ANSWER

Mmmm ... hot teacher ... roast turkey ... I'm feeling a little woozy. A little light-headed ...

Where was I? Oh, yeah: Before I carve into the meat of my advice, and serve it hot and steamy with some lumpy gravy and cranberry sauce on the side, I would like to speculate on something about which, realistically, there's no way I can have any knowledge.

So please take the following advice-petizer with a grain of salt.

My guess is he's into you too.

What makes me think that? Well, first of all - and I mean this with no disrespect or disloyalty to my wife, Pam, she knows how I feel - you sound kind of hot.

I mean, in your letter you boast about how well you've "behaved" over the past six months. And in my experience, people who boast about how well they've been behaving over a certain period of time tend to be quite naughty, deep down.

And naughtiness, if I may presume to speak for the heterosexual component of my gender, is an extremely attractive quality in a woman.

We love it. Naughty nurse. Naughty librarian. Or (my personal favourite) naughty prison warden (and I've been a very, very bad prisoner). Works for any profession, really: naughty editor, naughty bus driver, naughty marine biologist. Stick the word "naughty" in front of it and watch men's eyes light up.

So, you've got naughtiness going for you. Which is good.

But also, you know, people talk about one-sided crushes and unrequited love. In fact, it's been my observation over the years that true attraction is rarely one-sided.

True sexual attraction, if I may be permitted to use an ultra-nerdy simile, is like an electric circuit between two nodes: Both nodes have to be on for it to flow. Everything else is just static. And it's easy to tell static from genuine current. Static's frazzled and weak: no amperage. And it flies off in all directions.

But if you're feeling a genuine electrical current flowing through you, my guess is he does, too. And if that's true, it's unlikely at age 20 that he's practising self-control. He's probably just shy.

At 20, when I emerged dazed and parched from the white-hot desert (dotted with cactuses and bleached skulls) of sexual inactivity that was my teenage years, I was still terrified of hitting on women. And it certainly would never have occurred to me to hit on a 31-year-old, no matter how attracted I was.

So yes, I would say, drop down on him like darkness on an innocent peasant village, like a famished puma on a lost, poncho-wearing man riding a burro through an arid canyon, pebbles skittering along the rocks as you pounce. Tear him to shreds and gobble him up, if you like, or sheath your claws and just play with him a bit, batting him around with your paws. It's up to you.

If I'm wrong and he's not into you - well, what the hell, he's 20, not 15. Old enough to vote, old enough to drink, old enough to drive. Certainly old enough to say no and choose rationally with whom to sleep.

Normally, somewhere around here, I would caution against "dipping your pen in company ink." It can be awkward, after all, not only if you break up but even if you stay together - sustaining a (possibly) secret relationship in a business setting.

But you say he's leaving, so it's perfect. Even if he rejects you, he'll soon disappear and the wounds should heal quickly.

I wouldn't worry about your age difference, which isn't that big anyway. Or how old he was when you met, or that you used to be his TA: You "behaved" yourself back then, right? You're both adults now.

Who cares? Maybe in 1967, when The Graduate came out, it was a big deal that a 36-year-old Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson should seduce 21-year-old Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman, who was in fact 30 at the time).

But in 2008, I can't imagine anyone even raising an eyebrow at a 31-year-old seducing a 20-year-old.

Maybe you should use Mrs. Robinson's seduction technique. It goes like this: First, tell him you need a ride home. Then, when you get there, tell him you're afraid to go into the house alone. Inside, offer him a drink. Put on some music. If he tries to leave, tell him you're afraid to be left in the house by yourself.

If, after a while, he still hasn't made a move, tell him you want to change and ask him to unzip your dress (all the while denying you're trying to seduce him). Then, if he still won't make a move, go into the bedroom. As he's about to leave, call out to him, asking him if he would mind bringing you your purse. When he stumbles, confused and disoriented, into the perfumed, crepuscular semi-darkness of your boudoir, materialize naked behind him, shutting the door behind you and blocking his exit.

And that is probably the point where I, as a gentlemanly advice giver, should draw the blinds, allow my voice to taper off gently and recede into the night.

I have a feeling you, the naughty former TA, will be able to take it from there.

David Eddie is a screenwriter and the author of Chump Change and Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad.

I've made a huge mistake

Have you created any damage that needs controlling? Send your dilemmas to damage@globeandmail.com, and include your hometown and a daytime contact number so we can follow up with any queries. (We won't publish your name if select your question.)