I see her again, running to catch the bus, all lovely, lithe limbs and blonde tresses. And here begins the usual spiral of thoughts tinged with cynicism...okay so she's a stunner, I bet she's a meanie, bet she's shallow and arrogant, bet her friends are fair weather, bet she's rude and selfish and uses her looks to get what she wants, bet she doesn't know the meaning of rejection, or failure. I'm utterly staggered to see that she's perfectly polite as she lets someone in front of her, and thanks the bus driver.

I believe that beauty is subjective. Personally, I never found Brad Pitt attractive *gasp* and my idea of a beautiful woman is Helena Christensen but I know that some people find her not so attractive. For Chrissake, screen goddess Uma Thurman suffers from Body dysmorphic disorder.

I believe that personality can concentrate or dilute a person's outward beauty. All of my friends are beautiful to me, and as the years go on and I see more and more evidence of their kind hearts, they become more so. Likewise, when I was a teenager, a couple of so-called friends (stunning girls who would turn grown men's heads as they sashayed down the street), burned me and let me down and when I've bumped into them years later, their appearance has dulled, uglified.

I believe that experiences make you who you are, and my fear of beauty is intrinsically tangled up in my adolescent past.

The younger, less jaded me always used to believe that I would rather be plain looking but a good, kind person. That I was happy the way I am. This older, more worn me thinks that, every now and then, if only for a day, I'd love to be tall and slim and beautiful, to see what it's like, to see if life is somehow different.

I realise as I get older that my own prejudice against beautiful people is borne of a deep seated conviction that I myself am not beautiful. Call it sour grapes, call it jealousy, call it what you will. At least now I can be honest about it. Who knows, now that I know what it is, maybe I'll even
cure myself of it?