REASONS TO BE PRETTY

REASONS TO BE PRETTY, by Neil Labute.  Steph, a woman upset by something she heard her boyfriend has said about her appearance.

STEPH.   He hurt me, he really did, you know? I mean, I can take a lot, pretty much, anyway, but I'm, like, my face? That's jerk. It just is ... (Beat.) Not that I think I'm some beauty — an old-fashioned glamour gal or anything, I don't — but I'm not bad, ya know, not bad at all ... and even if I was, ugly, I'm saying, even if I was not cute or close to that, unattractive by world standards, don't I wanna be with someone who finds me beautiful? I think so. It's not like a math equation or anything, it is fairly simple — you can't be with a guy who finds you unpleasant to look at. Not that, but even on the fence ... How can I? Knowing that he's sitting there at dinner across from me but he's always reaching for something, the salt or whatever, or looking around the room, and why? 'Cause he doesn't wanna make eye contact. That would suck, completely suck if you were that woman and that was gonna be me — I'm saying once I knew how he felt about me, that was what I had to look forward to. Listen, it's weird, I know that, because I don't count looks as my top thing in a guy, not at all — look at Greg. He's got a good face, really, not knockout but very OK, yet I never used to even think it to myself, I mean, envision him in that way. Sometimes, a friend or, like, some cousin of mine visited a few months back and she whispered to me at a family thing we were at, a barbecue, "God, he's cute. He's so cute!" And I looked over to where she was pointing, expecting to see a boy from the neighborhood — and she's pointing at Greg. Just right there, my boyfriend, who's over at the grill and laughing and making burgers for all of us ... and he was, too. With the sun going down — you know how it shoots a ray out sometimes around something, like a halo, almost — it was doing that and he was bathed in this light for a second, in this splash of gold and creamy light, and I thought, "Yeah, he is. He really is a handsome man," but, see, that still isn't any big deal to me. Even though he is ... in his own way ... it's not the thing about him that first made me like him. Uh-uh.

Not saying this is full of profound insight or anything but any woman I know, like, my age or younger, she's gonna be super upset if she heard what I did. That her boyfriend thinks her face is "OK." You can't swallow that down and find a way to come up smiling or anything, you know what I'm saying? There is just no good way to take that! (Beat.) Why do we feel that way, though, I wonder? Is it maybe TV or magazines or something, our moms telling us that we're pretty no matter what we look like ... I'm not sure. I just know that women throw everything they've got into their physical being, and a main part of that — the main part — is the face. (Beat.) I go nuts if I still break out on my chin or anything, carry tweezers in my purse, and I'm not even, like, all crazy about it like a lot of my friends are ... and every one of them, the ones that I've called, at least, they all said to dump him. They did. Because if he's willing to say that, even to a friend, then you can bet he's probably thinking even more than you know about. Can you imagine what he's actually feeling about my legs or arms, anything ... OK, yes, I'm thinking about all the rest of it, too, of course I am!  I can't even start to go there without wanting to throw up. I always felt like my face was one of my better parts and he's talking about me like I'm some old Buick out in the backyard that he keeps thinking about fixing but just can't get to it. (Laughs.) "Meant as a compliment," he says to me, like that should calm my nerves or something, so ... forget that. I mean, really. I'm realistic and I know me as a person — I don't have that much going for me, not really. Not all educated and smart or anything, and not gorgeous, not like some girls — but I like what I've got and I'm gonna protect that. I am. Yeah. (Beat.) I mean, wouldn't you?