Beauty is only skin deep. If you go after someone just because

Host: The evening sun bled into the streets like melted amber, coating the city in a haze of light and memory. Cafés along the avenue hummed with faint laughter, the clinking of cups, and the scent of roasted coffee hanging in the air.

Inside one of them, tucked in a narrow corner beneath a wall of mirrors, sat Jack — his grey eyes lost in the reflection of other faces. Across from him, Jeeny stirred her drink, her spoon tracing quiet circles, watching the ripples as though they carried answers.

Host: Outside, the world rushed by — bright, dressed-up, filtered — a moving theatre of beauty and distraction. But here, between two weary souls, time slowed to something raw and unpolished.

Jeeny: “Amanda Peet once said, ‘Beauty is only skin deep. If you go after someone just because she's beautiful but don’t have anything to talk about, it’s going to get boring fast.’ She was right. We chase the surface and call it love, but it’s like chasing sunlight on water — it never stays.”

Jack: “Easy for her to say. People who are beautiful can afford to talk about what’s beneath it. The rest of us — we don’t get that kind of luxury. The world sees beauty first, and everything else comes second.”

Host: Jack’s voice was low, his tone practical, almost bitter. His hands rested on the table, strong but restless — fingers tapping in the rhythm of old disappointments.

Jeeny: “That’s not true. Beauty draws attention, yes, but only for a moment. It’s the soul that makes people stay. Haven’t you ever looked at someone who wasn’t traditionally beautiful, but something about them — their laughter, their mind, their way of seeing things — just made the world sharper?”

Jack: “Maybe once. But the world isn’t built that way anymore. People swipe left and right faster than they breathe. Beauty isn’t skin deep anymore, Jeeny. It’s algorithm-deep. You’re judged in a second, before you’ve said a single word.”

Host: The barista called out an order, the steam wand hissed. For a moment, Jack’s face was lit by the flicker of the espresso machine’s light — mechanical, fleeting.

Jeeny: “And yet people still fall in love, Jack. They still write poems, still stay up late talking, still miss someone when the phone stops lighting up. Algorithms can’t simulate connection.”

Jack: “Connection fades too. You think you’ve found something real, and then the conversation dries up, the mystery’s gone, and you realize you’ve just been talking to your own echo.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe you stopped listening. Real connection isn’t in what’s said, it’s in what’s shared. Two people don’t have to talk endlessly to understand each other. Sometimes the silence between them says more than words.”

Host: A car passed outside, its headlights gliding across the café’s window, painting their faces in alternating light and shadow — truth and denial, faith and fatigue.

Jack: “You sound like a romantic. You really believe that kind of depth still exists? In a world where people fall in love through filters and text threads?”

Jeeny: “I do. Because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen two people who barely fit any ‘standards’ light up around each other like they invented the word ‘beauty.’ Look at those two at the counter — see the way she leans in when he speaks? She doesn’t care about his looks; she cares that he makes her feel seen.”

Jack: glancing over “Or maybe she’s just being polite.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “You always assume the worst.”

Jack: “Because reality rarely proves me wrong.”

Host: There was a long pause — the kind that hums between two people who understand too much about disappointment. The city lights outside began to blink on, one by one, like slow-falling stars.

Jeeny: “You’ve been hurt, haven’t you?”

Jack: “Who hasn’t? You spend your youth chasing beauty because you think it’ll make you feel wanted. Then one day, you wake up next to someone who looks perfect and feels like a stranger.”

Jeeny: “That’s not beauty’s fault, Jack. That’s how we use it — like a shield. We fall for faces because they’re safe, predictable. But the moment you start seeing someone’s truth, that’s when it gets real — and terrifying.”

Host: The rain began, sudden and soft, tapping against the windowpane. Jack turned to watch it — the droplets rolling like small truths down glass.

Jack: “You ever notice how everyone says beauty fades, but no one actually lives like they believe it? We still chase it, worship it, build industries around it.”

Jeeny: “Because we confuse beauty with worth. But they’re not the same. One is seen, the other is felt. The ancient Greeks sculpted perfection, but even they knew — real beauty was harmony, not symmetry.”

Jack: “So you’re saying beauty’s just another illusion?”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying it’s a beginning, not an ending. The surface draws you close — the soul decides if you stay.”

Host: The rain fell harder now, a rhythmic whisper against the glass. Jack’s reflection blurred beside Jeeny’s — two outlines, dissolving and reforming in the shifting light.

Jack: “You make it sound easy. But people don’t talk about what’s underneath anymore. They just show more of what’s on top.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe it’s time to look anyway — even when the world tells you not to. Every person carries a story beneath their skin. You can’t see it unless you stop trying to own it and start trying to know it.”

Jack: “And what if you find nothing?”

Jeeny: “Then at least you looked. That’s more than most ever do.”

Host: Her words landed like raindrops, small but heavy with truth. Jack leaned back, his eyes softening — less skeptical now, more searching.

Jack: “You think love lasts when the beauty fades?”

Jeeny: “If it was real, it doesn’t even notice it faded. Have you ever seen an old couple sitting in silence, and still felt the electricity between them? That’s not attraction. That’s recognition.”

Jack: “Recognition of what?”

Jeeny: “Of having seen each other — truly seen. Beyond faces, beyond time. That’s what keeps people together.”

Host: The rain outside softened again, turning into mist. Inside, the café’s lights grew dimmer, warmer — the kind that turns ordinary moments into something almost holy.

Jack: “You really believe we can find that now — in this generation, with all our distractions and pretenses?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because even when everything becomes artificial, the hunger for something real never dies. It’s built into us.”

Host: Jack’s eyes lingered on her, the way she spoke without performance, the way her words carried a kind of quiet courage.

Jack: “You talk about it like you’ve lived it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe I have. Maybe I fell for someone who wasn’t beautiful by the world’s standards, but when he laughed, the world felt right. That kind of beauty doesn’t fade. It just changes shape.”

Jack: “And when it ends?”

Jeeny: “Then it becomes a lesson. That beauty is borrowed, but connection — that’s what we own.”

Host: The rain stopped. Outside, the streetlights glowed softly, reflecting off the wet pavement like scattered stars. Jack looked at Jeeny — really looked — and something in his face shifted, almost imperceptibly.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve been looking at people like mirrors instead of windows.”

Jeeny: smiling gently “Then open the window, Jack. You might be surprised at what you see.”

Host: She rose slowly, pulling her scarf around her shoulders. The café’s doorbell chimed as she left, leaving behind the faint scent of rain and jasmine. Jack watched her go — not in admiration, but in understanding.

He turned back to the window, where the world was reflected — blurred, imperfect, alive.

Host: And for the first time, the beauty he saw was not in the faces passing by, but in the spaces between them — in the quiet, unseen pulse of something genuine.

The lights flickered, the rain began again, and in that moment, the surface of the world seemed, finally, to breathe.