"A friend in need is a friend to be avoided." [Lord Samuel]

As I like to say and I think represents most professors, we can be friendly but not friends with our students.  So don't confuse the two.  Most of us don't want to be socially involved with students, whether it's the innocuous play in a pick-up basketball game or the distressingly immoral "let's have a drink."  I'm not talking about the happen to see you in a bar and play a game of pool socializing, but the making of plans to socialize with students.  What I've noticed over the years is that the "cool" professors that like to hang with their students almost always have something wrong with them.  Usually they're immature, meaning that they have trouble making friends with peers and contemporaries, or they're looking for "inappropriate relationships."  At best, they're lonely and insecure and get their social satisfaction and/or respect from younger people.  At worse, they're "on the prowl." I can't think of any professor that was "normal" that spent a lot of time socializing with students.  But then, I have trouble thinking of any "normal" professors anyway.  

In general, if you're a professor's student and feel special that a professor would want to spend time with you, it's not a good idea to be friends, and a really, really bad idea to be more than friends.  After you are past the class/graduated, do what you want.

P.S.:  I'm just writing about college here.  Teachers fraternizing with high school kids is just sick and stupid, which I hope is so obvious as to not warrant elaboration.  What the bleep is wrong with those HS teachers we see in the news anyway?

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