He was extraordinarily awkward around women. Although his female students pursued him, and referred to him as 34;the professor with the shining eyes34;, he did not dare to kiss his future wife, Else Rosenbach, until the second time he had asked her to marry him. Else had rejected his first proposal out of fear that his interest in her waspurely intellectual; Schwarzschild was so timid that he had only touched her once during their long courtship, and, even then, it had been by mistake.