Some Kind of Beautiful

Amanda Jones                                                                                           Watts

                        

  It sure is awesome to be off on a Monday. I slept in late this morning. Got up and just watched an old movie on Netflix called "Some Kind Of Wonderful". It's a movie I've seen 20 times if I've seen it once. It's one of those movies I end up watching every time I come across it on TV. I always thought the guy was blind and stupid if he didn't see the love he had staring him in the face. Yeah, Amanda Jones was beautiful, and Watts was just the tomboy next door. And when I was in school, I used to crush on some of the popular, beautiful girls like Keith (Eric Stoltz) was doing with Amanda. I learned the hard way the sad truth that, with most of them, their beauty ended just barely below the skin. Real beauty is something transcendent, and it radiates from the soul.

  I knew a plain girl with inch-thick glasses once who desperately wanted to be loved. She threw herself at any guy that would have her. But most of them just took what she offered and then tossed her aside. In her mind, it was because she wasn't pretty enough. So, she spent years fixing what she thought was her problem. She worked out at a gym and lost weight. She had a boob job. She got contacts. She had a complete makeover with hair and makeup until she was drop-dead gorgeous.

  I hadn’t seen the girl in years and had forgotten all about her. She came to the nightclub where I worked one night looking for the one guy who had always treated her with kindness and respect. All the guys in the place were falling all over themselves to get her to notice them. But she ignored them and went up to that one guy. He didn't recognize her at first. She looked nothing like anyone he had ever known. But when she reminded him of the nickname the other guys used to call her, “Ashtrays” (because of her thick glasses) it finally dawned on him who she was. Once he recognized her, she threw her arms around his neck and said, “Take me home tonight. I did this all for you.”

  He shook his head looking at those now quite beautiful blue eyes (and trying desperately not to look any lower) and pulled her arms away from his neck.

  “No, he told her. You did all this for yourself. And don’t get me wrong you look great. Better than great. And it’s a good start. But now you need to work on what’s inside.”

  “What do you mean?” she demanded angrily. “Are you saying you still don’t want me?”

  “Exactly,” he said. He could see the shock in her eyes and knew she was asking herself how this could be possible. Wasn’t she now what every guy dreamed about having?

   “It was never about your looks. I always tried to be your friend. But to be honest, you’re so empty inside except for the self-loathing. You don’t even like yourself. How can you expect anyone else to like you? And, besides, you don’t even really know me.”

 “So, you’re turning this down?” she asked indicating with her hands what she meant by “this” as she moved them down her now incredibly sexy body.

  “Yes,” he told her. He saw a tear roll down one check. And for a moment it almost melted his resolve not to do something he would regret. He had always been a sucker for tears.

  She turned away and left him standing there. He shook his head sadly and then went about his business. He didn’t notice her again until he saw her making out with the bartender. The bartender came over and asked me if he could get off early that night. I finally let him talk me into it. With a big grin, he was out of there like a shot. I thought maybe I should have warned him about that girl. But some guys just have to learn the hard way that beauty isn’t everything. Especially, when it is only skin deep.

  When all the other guys realized that the pretty girl had come in there for that one guy and he had turned her down, they all wanted to know what was wrong with him. They knew he wasn’t seeing anyone at the moment. Was he sick or something? They had to know. He just shook his head and smiled and said, “Ask the bartender tomorrow.”

  So to all the pretty girls out there (yeah, you know who you are, and we all know your modesty is fake), if you were born with good looks, be thankful. But don't be satisfied with just that free gift. Work on being beautiful from within. That beauty will never let you down, and it will never fade.