When did you know you were pretty, intelligent or talented?

[rollonxmas]

Just that really.

I knew I was smart when we started doing basic arithmetic at school. I flew through everything so quickly compared to everyone else.

We had an old fashioned teacher in year 4 who put 4 of us on a table together gave us harder work and told our parents at parents evening that we were the group going to university. She wasn’t wrong to be fair.

Not pretty.. just average looking
Not talented at all.. can’t sing, play an instrument, draw, do anything exceptionally well.
Intelligent..ish. Are we talking academic (not really, although I do have a degree), emotional intelligence (fairly) or common sense?

probably as a teen, I was told I was stupid and thick until I graduated, also that I was ugly and I’d never find a man, well that turned out to be bollocks 😂

I knew I was intelligent as early as I knew what being intelligent was, and everything I saw at nursery and school confirmed that. I also knew I was musically talented but that took longer to know because I genuinely didn't imagine that it was a thing, e.g. perfect pitch or being able to harmonise with a tune was not unusual to me as a young child, I never thought twice and I thought everyone could do it. Probably age 9 I realised some people couldn't? I was also nice looking as an 18 year old looking back, never thought I was though. Before that was an ungainly scowling creature with spots and thick glasses. I think I had one day of genuine beauty age 20, I was on a train at night and I had a new hairdo and just kept looking at myself in the window reflection with real surprise like oh my god you might actually be beautiful. All downhill from there though!

Stealth boast

I knew I was relatively smart when I found it extremely easy to get As in my GCSEs, so from y10 upward. I just didn’t have to work very much at all for it. I went to state school so was never pushed towards Oxbridge which I now regret not having a chance at.

Should add I was never pretty but always knew I was clever and witty and that would make up for it. It did. Getting older hasn’t been that bad as my looks were never my primary currency.

A few moments, when I realized my boyfriend in college needed to study for our biology exam and I was like, wait, this is hard?!

At the LSE, feeling like a fraud when everyone was working 24/7 in the library and I went and sat there because I felt like I should but didn’t actually have any work I needed to do (and did very well on my degree).

First proper job. I went to a very academic school in a very privileged area with a lot of Tiger Mother parents and then Oxbridge and the LSE so was in a pretty intense bubble for a long time. School and uni were never hard at all but I didn’t really realize that they WERE hard for other people until I was doing a graduate degree. I still feel like I must be missing something when all my colleagues are working really hard and I am spending less than 20 hours a week on my job while consistently being held up as an outstanding example. Prioritization and focus have always been my super powers though so maybe I’m efficient rather than clever.

I wasn't any of them at school. But there was a girl in my class who was very clever although not attractive. And I knew I wanted to be like her a lot more than I wanted to be pretty.

And then I blossomed in my teens and almost overnight became a lot more attractive, but I still wanted to be clever. So I worked my fucking arse off and did brilliantly at uni at both under and post grad. And I was right. Being clever was a hell of a lot more satisfying than being pretty.

All being pretty gets is male attention. Meh.

TBH, I'm pleased I was sensible enough at 12 to know that being clever was the best option.

We all did some CAT tests in year 6 and I got 96 and 100%. I was confused as to why the other 3 pupils in my year got around 70%.

The whole of year 7 did a test to put us in sets and I got 98%.

Didn't really think about those results again.

Did some of my GCSEs aged 14. Did well in those.

Have never applied myself or amounted to anything! I've never failed a test nor exam.

The problem with defining yourself as smart, talented or special is that it's great... until it isn't.

There WILL come a time when you're not the smartest, the specialist, the most beautiful or the most talented person in the room. If your identity is built on those things, it takes a hit (aka you are emotionally screwed).

Tie your self-worth to something evergreen instead. Your character. Your curiosity. Your kindness. Your integrity. Your willingness to learn. Those things don't disappear just because someone else walks into the room.

From when i was 3. Clever, beautiful, kind, like Snow White astrophysicist with freckles. Also humble not gonna lie.

I have (barely) sufficient social skills to realise this was a joke… but genuinely find the question when did you realise you weren’t talented / pretty / clever / charismatic / whatever more interesting than the positive version. Because most kids start out believing they’re the center of the universe.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise I do not have special musical talent, for example. I can sing in tune, more or less, and had piano lessons as a child, and somehow I just believed I was really talented at it even though I didn’t practice much and had several peers who were obviously better than me.

I knew I was book smart and was quick minded very early.
didn’t know I was attractive until I was about 18, a good age. Let’s not all pretend this is not a thing. I don’t know why saying this is considered controversial?

Like @Brightbluesomething I, and my two sisters, were categorised. I was 'the clever one', then there was 'the domesticated one' and 'the musical one'. I don't think it did any of us any favours.

I found it particularly galling when I had worked hard to make a delicious meal and my (actually very nice) mother said ' of course, Linda is the cook in the family'. I am not a bad cook at all! But at my school we only had 1 afternoon of cookery classes a week for 1 year in the 6th form. At my sisters' school they had about 3 years, maybe more, of domestic science and it was an option for 'O' level. And then when I left school after failing my 'A' levels catastrophically (I too sailed through my 'O' levels without doing much work), got married and had a baby very quickly, there was no money to cook nice things or experiment, or even to buy a decent kitchen knife, so I didn't get much chance to do any real cooking until I became a little better off.
Musical sister, who was also known as sporty sister, did take a music related degree but didn't take it any further than that.
Both my sisters are, I think, just as intelligent as me but in different ways. They both got proper qualifications after leaving school, I didn't get my degree until I was 36. I just have a different kind of mind. A 'butterfly' mind if you like. I have a wealth of inconsequential information I have gleaned from reading and I pick up new ideas quickly. Theirs are more solidly learning-based and I am always impressed by how good they are in their own fields. I am autistic which may explain that.

None of us were ever known as 'the pretty one' thank goodness, although I think we were all quite nice-looking in our youth.

Pretty: 18/19
Talented: 21
Intelligent: 14/15

Lacking social skills: 25

When I started infant school and could already read and then I was always top of the class. Never thought about being pretty, I wasn’t, but I was attractive and was told I was ‘hot’. I was attractive to men who liked an intelligent woman.

When I was born the doctor, who had decades delivering babies behind him, said, "Wow, this is the prettiest, most intelligent and most talented baby I've ever seen!" As I was fully conversant then, I understood what he said and could comprehend it, so as soon as I was born, I guess.

Or humility!

I knew i was a bright kid.

Pretty and smart. I’m 45 and still waiting for those 🤣

talented? Depends what you describe as a talent. I’m not sporty but was ok at hockey and made the school team. I was good at tap dancing but wasn’t a performer so depends how you define talent?

Im talented at my job though. It came clear quite quickly in my line or work that certain aspects of the job just came to me easier. But I also think having talent means nothing unless you use the skills wisely. In my case I’m now responsible for training others in the role .I'm passionate that others could (should) have the skills and I’m happy to take the time and give extra feedback where it’s sought out too.

If I could choose whether to be pretty, intelligent, talented or happy, I would always choose happy.

I knew I was bright at primary school. I am now an academic at a good university.

I realised I was very attractive, stunning apparently, in my early 20s.

No particular talents, unless you include jigsaws and sudoku.

Social skills have been a bit of a struggle. I am diagnosed autistic.

It’s an anonymous forum. People can be intelligent, talented and pretty. People can acknowledge that without it being gloating. Anonymous forums are the place for such discussions as nobody can actually compare and as it’s anonymous it’s hardly bragging.

To be fair, I know a 41 year old, who has based her whole life around being a dancer (despite having done almost no dancing work) and she's just... average. The first time I saw her performing, I thought it was a spoof and that at some point, real dancing would happen. Nope.

So at least you wised up as a child. Some people are deluded for life!

I knew I was alright or at least average in terms of looks when I was a teenager with boys looking at me..then my big nostrils seemed to grow even bigger and that was pretty much the end of it.
Never had any talent .. About average in terms of brains.