Being told by strangers to smile (men, woman, passive, people)
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I get told at least once a day that I look mad or need to smile. It's usually an older woman but I've had younger women tell me the same and even a few guys. I could be just waiting in line at the grocery store or thinking about something. I don't get what a complete stranger who's never met nor seen since then cares what my face looks like. Are we all supposed to be going around with a permanent smile on our faces like we're fairies and singing kumbaya all the time? Then they think something is wrong and they even take it personally. It's funny because the people who tell me to smile usually aren't smiling themselves.
The people who ask you to smile usually don't mean anything malicious by it, but at the same you have no obligation to rearrange your face to please a stranger. You can shut it down with something neutral like, "I've got a lot on my mind that's not worth smiling about. You have a nice day."
When I was in my early 50s, I stopped in the grocery store on my home from work and when I was checking out, the bag boy, about 16 or 17 years old told me to smile. I don't think he meant anything by it, but I had had a particularly bad day at work and the thought that some young teenage boy thought he had the right to tell me to smile, pi ss ed me off to no end. I won't tell you what I said to him, but I'm sure he doesn't tell his elders to smile anymore.
People have been telling me this all my life and it really pisses me off. First, I have no conscious idea of what expression is on my face, but if people don't like it, they can keep their problem to themselves. No one ever tells men to smile.
I know it got worse when it became OK to make remarks to smokers because I was a smoker. So on top of hearing lifelong that I should smile more, I had to hear all kinds of unbelievably horrible things from total strangers in public, i.e., "Excuse me, lady with the cancer." That's the closest I ever came to just plain losing it and attacking someone.
people who make this request of strangers are deeply insecure and don't feel comfortable unless everyone around them looks happy to see them, so they passive aggressively insult strangers by telling them to smile. it's possible you didn't even notice them or were preoccupied but their childish egos are so large they take it as an affront when you don't beam at them and make them feel at ease.
This used to happen to me all the time when I was younger, especially as a girl. I got so tired of it. Now, I think I "carry" myself in a way that says be cautious in your approach!
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