I have a problem expressing my feelings & risking getting hurt (I will explain further on why) to this guy who I met approx 17 yrs ago, & secretly love & thought he had feelings for me in return, & who over recent yrs has bumped into me & attempted to attract my attention, I felt maybe to re-establish contact?

I'm not bad spotting some general signs of attraction -flirting/body language. But because of past emotional abuse when I was young, have a big problem with shyness(esp wi him, will explain why further on) & lack confidence- I'm a coward about telling him how I really feel when he has approached me. I think he knows I have strong feelings for him/something between us, & I suspect he knows somethings from colleagues about why I have confidence problems generally due to my family probs/abuse.

If he does know, that will make him more apprehensive about approaching you.  There's an age difference of 17 years and he won't want to look as though he's going to abuse you.

I am afraid of rejection & torn between believing I might have read situation wrong, he being not only much older -see it as a crush for him, (a lecturer by a mature student) who hadn't got over him from years ago & maybe he was trying to build a rapport with unconfident student we got too close.

There's a chance initially he wanted to build up your confidence and saw himself as a father figure.  But usually once a guy does get close, it goes beyond that and he starts to see you as an attractive lady.  As a guy is getting closer to a younger lady, it's hard to switch off the attraction and focus on being a father figure.  A vulnerable woman can seem quite sexy to a bloke, because he'll want to protect her which is one of his strong points, but he'll also want something back from her in exchange for that protection.

But I'm also confused about his sexuality- i.e. married/straight or rumours of him being gay at the time. If he's gay, I don't think 100%.

It sounds as though he has been married for a while.  So I doubt he is gay, it's possible that he is bi-sexual but even that I would doubt because it would most likely affect his relationship with his wife and it would be difficult to hide. 

Think if anything maybe bi, jugding by signals I got from him over almost 2 yrs, (also at some point married, if not still), he's not been aversed to having carnal knowledge of a woman & creating a child, that if he likes men, he appears to also fancy women too!I know gay's are capable of flirting with straight folk.

I've heard of gay blokes getting married, but to me if you get married then you must be bi-sexual.  If you are 100% gay then you wouldn't think of sex with a woman and definitely not getting married to her.  It's not one of my strongest topics because I'm not gay or bi-sexual myself but really I think I'm probably right to say that any bloke that gets married to a woman who likes men is bi-sexual and not gay.

But do you Sam, think this was the case, or him trying to boost my confidence as a student?

He would have liked boosting your confidence, but he would have hoped for something back, particularly as time went on and he saw your confidence growing as a result of him, he would have started to find you more and more attractive.

Thing is, this guy when doing his job lecturering, is v confident & articulate. (Ok if he's a teacher worth his salt, is going to be confident due to training in his field!)

But when not teaching, I've always sensed he has a similar reserved/sensitive side like myself, & wonder if that's why we keep getting cross wires or both not being more forward wi each other, maybe?

I think there are several things putting him off.  You are married, he is married, you are much younger he doesn't know whether you fancy him, and you both haven't had enough contact recently to warrant him knowing that you fancy him. 

Or maybe he thinks I'm not attracted enough to him -think he's a dirty old man as there is a large age gap.

A lot of older men do think like that. 

I don't feel that way about him at all & the age gap doesn't mean anything to me but perhaps, it might to him. I've always sensed strongly he always treat me with respect & didn't want to hurt me, unless you think I've been played & I'm making excuses for him?  But I felt the chemistry/awareness between us that it is so intense at times. He just turns me on & have no control over certain female body parts when he keeps staring at me so intensley! Due to past personal problems I have not had many partners or sexual encounters -lack experience handling own feelings/situation.

I think the lack of partners and sexual encounters is more a good thing.  The lack of experience in handling your own feelings, situation is maybe a sign that you need to move on and forget about your past and realise that good things and bad things happen in life to everybody.  Yes, it was a tremendously bad thing that happened to you, but the best way to defeat it, is to get on with your life and just dispel those bad memories and replace them with more positive ones.

He approached me once, a few yrs back after numerous occasions (yrs after leaving further education)trying to attract my attention, & got the impression he remembered me immediately ( appearance/hairstyle changed slightly -much longer/femimine than he knew me before) & thought he was still interested but wasn't really sure.

A guy can't come across a woman from his past and instantly be attracted to her, he has to engage her in some conversation and find out how she has changed and whether it's for the good or the bad.  He doesn't know you anymore and any chance of fancying you has to be on the basis of getting to know you again.

Also when he approached me then, I was not prepared for the way he looked at me at first & was a shock compared to how he looked at me in past -mostly smiling warmly or stared at me intensely when at college(anything else prob regard lecturer as sexual harassment issue of a mature student) & also risk damaging his career in process.

He not only gives me intense gazes but has v dark brown, deep, penatrating eyes & rarely blinks. One particular time when he approached & stared at me for ages, he made me feel really nervous, because it was the first time I saw in his eyes how strongly he felt about me.

Eye contact can be intimidating as well as attracting. 

For a split second when our eyes locked & he recognised who I was, I swore I saw some pretty raw, primitive emotions there -like it seemed he wanted to EAT ME!-

Hmmm, he probably did. 

I wasn't expecting to see him & was surprised by the reaction I got. It's not like I'm oblivious to simialar looks men have given me on occasions, & admit felt flattered but ignored it as I wasn't interested in them. But wi him, he's got a knack of making me nervous -him staring alot & not making any move on me -wouldn't necessarily call it sexual tension, more that it just knocks hell out my nerves!

I know girls nowadays move on men instead of they doing all the running. But I'm not really one of them.

Some do, I wouldn't say many, most of the ladies that visit this web site and send me messages say they lack the confidence.  One of the few that has made the move, has now almost been in a relationship with her guy for year now.   Whether a man or a woman makes a move it has to be at the right time for both of them.  Some guys I think prefer to do the asking, some guys like their women to hint and other guys prefer their woman to do the asking.

He has to be the one to make the move on me (physical pass), I won't. And if he won't make a pass, we're in stalemate & feel he's not that attracted to me.

It would be even less likely for a guy to make a move if he is significantly older.  You would have to come into contact with him regularly and consistently.

The day he approached & stared at me for ages, I shouldn'tve been surprised seeing him really. You may laugh at this, or not believe me it. Days previous to him approaching me, I had a dream about him (call it premontion, about a guy I haven't seen in yrs!). Perhaps I should have taken notice at the time (have had other similar dreams before) but I dismissed the dream at the time as nothing. Perhaps after all, (like you said Sam), I should have taken a chance to see how things developed when he approached me then, but I chickened. Esp since he kept looking at me as he walked towards the door. Now I keep wondering what could have happened. I feel heartbroke I let him go, & missed perhaps my only chance of ever getting together wi him. A friend also said once that, 'if all we/he could do was stare, it wasn't serious enough!'

You hadn't got to know each other well enough. 

But why is it then, everytime we are around each other (past & recent yrs), we seem aware & gravitate to each other or stare so much? In my book I call that mutual attraction. Even if I never see him again or he doesn't want to speak to me, I know for a fact, I will never forget him.

Want to get the opinion of other ladies who visit this web site?  Try my new forum .