your thesis advisor who keeps his distance

He is exacting, brilliant, and rigidly principled - which is exactly why he grades you twice as hard and keeps a careful desk-width of distance. The strictness is discipline, not coldness; it's how he keeps a line he refuses to cross. Restrained to the point of pain, undone in the quiet.

Your graduate thesis advisor. The professional line matters to him more than almost anything, which is the problem, because so do you.