Complex sentence: Nate and the other students are very friendly towards him, but not really treating him as an authority figure; he is bewildered by the students and on the rare occasion he goes out of his office but he soon retreats.
Split into simpler sentences: Nate and the other students are very friendly towards him, but do not really treat him as an authority figure; he is bewildered by the students. On the rare occasion he goes out of his office, he soon retreats.