Hey
I'm currently worried about one of my supervisors... I know everyone's relationship(s) with their supervisor(s) tend(s) to vary a lot, and really don't want to over-react here, but, over the year I've had him as a supervisor, though I think he is basically a nice person, I have sometimes found mine really makes me feel uncomfortable. Early on he asked me to add him on MSN, explaining that he prefers to use it as he finds it more friendly than emails and means he can chat through it in the office without disturbing anyone. I added him, but over the last year he's done and said things, both through MSN and in actuality, that I suppose I've found inappropriate and on occassion, in all honesty, a little creepy.
I often work at night and used to leave myself signed in to talk to night-owl friends and check emails... he noticed, also starting to email and sign in to message me at night, or if I wasn't online, asking me to sign in. It would be really long to detail the whole here, but there are quite a few people in the lab he has upset, which led him to believe everyone is against him. After a few of these people stopped talking to him, he not only continued to message me, though I eventually stopped leaving myself signed in and severely restricted my time online, but also started asking me to go for walks with him to talk about my research, which never seemed to actually get round to my research (instead he generally started really random conversations, complaining about my other supervisor etc).
Just recently he's also started to make comments along the lines of telling me what to do in my personal life. For example, he knows I often visit my family on weekends... and thinks this is too often for me to be visiting... so now keeps telling me I shouldn't be going home so often!? Anyway, I guess the main reason I'm posting is I really can't decide whether I'm the one with the problem i.e. whether more objective opinions than mine (i.e. yours) would tell me I have a supervisor who is basically just trying to be a friend/friendly and I'm being too strict in my image of how supervisors should be with their students, or whether other people (i.e. you again) would also find this behaviour odd from a supervisor????
Sorry to prattle, but would really appreciate anyone else's views on this... just hope this isn't too rambly to make sense of :$