The friend zone

[but first a brief preface:
I've been a lazy blogger lately, although I have been writing potential posts in Word I can't publish them. I just kept pondering why I wanted to start this blog, and whether it is relevant, both to myself and any others who stumble across it.

And what is it that I want to write about – do I limit it to talk about grad school only, what about my meagre social life, should that be mentioned? But I realised I couldn’t really separate the two, especially as an increasing amount of my time is spent at uni (and the fact that the majority of my non uni friends have fled the country!). Then there is always the fear that I will be ‘outed’, which means that sometimes I can't be as honest as I would like.

But I find that there is something calming about writing a post and publishing it. Almost like a sensation that now what I have written is ‘out there’ it is no longer solely my own. I have admitted it, and shared it. And it most certainly feels different from simply writing it in a Word document and leaving it on my computer. So I will continue my infrequent postings…]

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Advisor A and I, brought together by the Advisor B debacle, have slipped into something that has sent alarm bells screeching and sirens sounding ‘retreat retreat’ over again in my head. I think we are becoming….friends.

I know that this is a bad bad idea, and that it is a messy way to do a PhD if one is ‘friends’ with ones advisor. But like me, Ad A is relatively new, and I am her first PhD student. In fact, she finished her phd less that four years ago. I just have the feeling that we are both learning as we go along. Now I don’t know whether that is an advantage, in that she is relatively young, and open to new ideas, or whether it is a disadvantage because she has little experience in the role of supervisor, and hasn’t really got an established lab or research team. But I knew all this before, and her research specialty was exciting enough for me to outweigh these possible disadvantages.

But the fact that we have moved steadily away from a professional relationship and into what can only be termed the ‘friend zone’ is alarming me. I am fully aware that it is a fake friendship because there will always be a power differential but I feel that there is little I can do to reign the relationship in. I don’t feel I can exactly say to her ‘Ad A, as much as I am intrigued by your fiancé/mother/best friend, can we please get back to talking about my research’. She would be hurt, and then angry. I know, I’ve tried to steer her back on topic before – she didn’t reply to my emails for two weeks! Where does psychology find these intelligent yet precious academics?