“You are beautiful when you cry.”

We’ve all heard this line.

It’s in movies, tv shows, books, you name it.

A beautiful person (usually feminine-toned) is crying about something that is utterly heartbreaking to them (if not also the audience) and their friend, (usually masculine-toned) tells them the age old, “truth” that somehow everyone universally understands.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but you aren’t.

People aren’t pretty when they cry.

You want to know why? Because people, when they cry, are reacting to negative stimuli. Crying is a sign of distress. It isn’t meant to look pretty. it is meant to be down right ugly. It’s your body’s natural attempt to relieve stress and to ask for help.

Consider that a baby knows only three things: How to eat, how to sleep, and how to cry.

Crying is a call for aid, assistance, and attention.

Which brings me to my next point: the attention that may be being craved by the person in distress, might not be outside attention at all. Often times, crying is our bodies involuntary response to things that overwhelm us. The attention being craved is our own. Our brain wants us to pay attention to ourselves and our needs.

Thus, when another person says something like “You are beautiful whe you cry.” the attention of the situation is drawn elsewhere.

Very rarely does this diffuse the problematic situation. VERY rarely does someone saying “You are beautiful when you cry.” make you actually feel like you are beautiful and that everything is better.

In fact, sometimes, it makes it worse.

When someone says that to you, it’s like an invalidation of your distress. It’s saying “hey, you are wrong. I am right.” and “I think that you being vulnerable and upset is attractive.”

Does that sound romantic to you?

Personally, I think it sounds sketchy.

Now lets consider a moment in which you are upset about something relating to your natural born features. Let’s say you are upset about the shape of your nose.

One day, your displeasure about your nose upsets you to the point of tears. Now, someone comes over and says, you are beautiful when you cry.”

Does that change the fact that you consider your nose hideous? No. It doesn’t. The comment may divert your attention for a bit, and maybe, just maybe if the “beautiful” comment was unprecedented, If it was sprung out of nowhere by a mere acquaintance or a stranger, you might have found it to be the self-esteem booster you needed to get through your moment of self-reflective anguish.

But probably it wasn’t. Probably you stop crying, but the thought lingers on later.

And more than likely, the comment comes from someone you know well.

If it was a friend, it’s easy to see that they mean well. They are disheartened by your tears and they want to encourage you to feel better about yourself. Very likely the “you are beautiful when you cry” comment carries into comments about your beauty at all other points of your day/life. In this case, it isn’t necessarily bad.

But, then there is the scenario set forth by media, the scenario in which someone who is romantically interested in you says that line.

There are several ways this pans out, in some, it is okay, in others, it is down right disgustingly wrong. For simplicity sake, we are going to continue to say that you are upset about you nose.
(Other problems such as, “my boyfriend/girlfriend left me, my parents are getting divorced, my best friend is really sick, etc. are more complex).

Scenario one: You are attracted to someone else who doesn’t really know you. You are crying about your perceived hideousness and said person approaches you saying “you are beautiful when you cry”.

The reaction in this scenario is likely positive as now, it seems that the person that may not have been blind to you at all. A relationship could build here!

In scenario 2: You are attracted to someone you know doesn’t like you back. The reaction in this scene could also be good because they could be expressing an unrevealed or growing affection for you. However, it could also prove that the person you are attracted to is manipulative. They know that you will be excited to hear words like that from their mouth because you value their opinion so highly, and they will use that against you. Coaxing and leading you into a false sense of security until they had gotten what they came for

The third scenario I want to present is the one that is unfortunately the most common (in my experience) and the most unnerving (if you can believe).

You have a friend, who recently has told you (or perhaps you just know already) that they are romantically interested in you. You however, are not interested in them and have said so. (Or more commonly, they haven’t expressed anything to you directly but you are otherwise engaged and obviously uninterested in them).

You are upset and said friend comes to you saying “You are beautiful when you cry.”

For a moment, that might seem romantic.

Why though?

Because we’ve been conditioned to believe that someone must come to our assistance and assurance in a time of despair (this is especially relevant for women who are taught to be emotive rather than acting).

Let’s break it down for a min. though.

You are distressed and vulnerable. In that moment of sadness and open-ness, another person, who wants to be romantically entwined with you tells you you are beautiful.

What does that say about your comforter?
This person will benefit from helping you. They believe that if they are there for you they can become important in your life. They may sincerely believe (somehow) that you are beautiful when you cry, but it doesn’t change the fact that by telling you this, instead of helping to address the reason you are crying, is manipulative.

Additionally, that claim could mean that they only like, or they like you more, when you are in a state of distress.

For most people that is a very alarming thing to consider.

Creepy, manipulative, rude, diverting, ignorant, whatever you might call it, that particular staple of the romance genre (especially, I find, in things that regard teens) is distressing enough to make me cry! And I admit that I’m not beautiful either.

So, the next time you are watching someone cry on the big screen, beautiful fake, actress sobs and tears streaming down they face as they are comforted “you are beautiful” by someone else, consider this:

That line is NOT as romantic as it seems.