Do you get jealous of them?

I've recently been introduced to a girl I'm going to a conference with in September. She is doing a PhD at a very prestigious university and is incredibly beautiful. She's also lovely, and modest. I know these are far from the only things which make somebody an excellent person and I’m not sure good looks should even really count, but anywho...
When meeting people like that do you just think ‘well, mustn’t grumble, I’ve got all my own teeth and hair etc’? I seem to have recast her as some kind of goddess in my own mind. Maybe I’m in love :-x

She sounds great, can you fix us up?  I joke...

yeah, you're right, excellent people can be depressing. You must remember everyone has there insecurities and flaws (e.g. envy...), you're new goddess is no exception.

you're a star too Keep_Calm, I'm sure there's some lowly masters student somewhere admiring your excellence from a far 
:-)

Yeah, Sim makes an important point. She might be a star, but she's not 3 stars like you are! So, should the need (however doubtful) ever arise where you need to pull rank, make sure you make a point of saying, 'I'm an exalted online member of a crack team of PhD students with the 3 star ranking of GeneralKeep_Calm, she might be a star, but there's no way she's a star to the power of 3 like you. Case closed.

Lol, there are people who are positively nauseating in their perfection - have it all, looks, body, brains.... blah (sprout) But its quite right, I'm sure she looks at herself in the mirror and sees a million things that no-one else sees, I'm sure she too has sleepless nights, bad hair days etc and just made herself look wonderful on that day. No matter how gorgeous and how gifted she'll be as racked with insecurties as the rest of us ;-) And yes, I think its possible to have a crush lol, but remember, she's not you and maybe she looked at you and thought bloody hell, 3 stars???? (then went away and sobbed quietly into her pillow wondering how she would ever achieve such astounding feats of amazingness)

I feel that at times, and I think it part of the competitive nature of academia. We are not insecure, but then, sometimes we feel we are somehwere behind others, when really, at heart we know we are all different.

PS: Stressed, I have PMed you on something..

I don't know, I tend to feel terribly insecure and like a complete numbskull half the time.... call it imposter syndrome I guess ;-) I'm sometimes feel like I'm waiting for them to realise that they gave me someone else's results and that actually I got a fail at BA, shouldn't have got the MA at all and that they'll laugh me off the PhD lol. My sup always tells me that confidence is my biggest problem and that I lack it - but I don't, I'm just rubbish :p

Oh, and pm'd you back Bug x

I have to say I don't get jealous of other people - I know I have a lot of good qualities of my own and know better than to judge people from what I see externally. Met too many people who seem nice and look good and brainy who are just complete cunts deep down.

Nobody is perfect. Apart from the guy who was tutoring two course on VBA I went to but that's another matter...

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(puts cultural historian /historian of science hat on)

I'm fascinated by the idea of beauty as a idea and the way in which "it" is a confluence of a wide range of cultural traits and biological imperatives (that are themselves mutable)...Keep_Calm, there are a number of good histories /popular sciences of beauty which might interest you -loads revealed on a google search. Later this year Umberto Eco's "On Beauty: A History of a Western Idea" is being published.

(puts everyday hat on)

When I go to the gym I am usually in awe of many of the people there and feel a bit self-conscious. Though as lots of people have said, sometimes beautiful people are less than satisfied with themselves.

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KC, do not fear, being perfect is not a comfortable, happy place to be; take it from someone who knows first hand. For example, I just had to eat a whole pack of salami and a big bag of vegetable crisps in order to prevent my amazingness shining out at full capacity and, thus, causing epileptic, disabling, responses in those I wish to keep as friends and colleagues.

Seriously though, I know loads of super good looking people who are achievers and who are miserable or have stubborn issues. Looks do not make people happy, in fact, I often think they can be disabling: they set up expectations in others, and hence disappointments for both parties. My stunningly beautiful old mate who runs one of the best courses of its kind in the country has all kinds of emotional stumbling blocks, and spent her younger years being swept off her feet and then hearbreakingly dropped - one time she found a collection of beautiful laydeee phone numbers on her then boyfriend's person - this was pre-mobile phone. My stunning aunty is the only single one of my dad's siblings, and has had a terrible time romantically, and my beautiful sister who all the boys adored had simialr problems in her youth. Some people see beauty as a commodity, and peope who have it can be used and abused for it.

So, no, given what I have seen, I do not envy beauty. Although I do feel a twinge when I hear people are being published in really good journals, cos that's what I want. I also envy people who have welll adjusted families who they see often, that's what gets to me.

As Wal says, KB, you are a triple star here, and not many can say that, can they?

My very best friend at school had beauty and brains, Blue eyed blonde who got 4As at A level (the type that went with O levels) in Physics, Chemistry, Pure Maths and Applied Maths, even though in those days you were only supposed to do a maximum of 3, and me - well lets just say I never got anywhere near that. She got offered a place at one university if she got 2 Es - presumably in the hope that she would miss her first choice by - I don't know just doodling on one of her papers or something instead of answering any questions-. The redeeming thing though, was I had my own bit of talent in my own area, so we each had something to look up to in the other person which I think helped. Mind you, although we have lost touch, someone I still keep in touch with went to the school reunion (ugh!) and met her and guess what! I'm the one got more academic type qualifications now, which is a novel place to be considering where I expected her to end up! I thought she would at least be a professor of - I don't know - extreme cleverness :-)