Because it’s a goddamn STUPID request! I don’t smile on command, that isn’t what smiles are for! If you want me to smile, say something nice, or dance around or DO SOMETHING to make me smile. Just commanding me to change my facial expression to suit your personal whim is patronizing and irritating. AND STUPID.
So you expect and request your friends SMILE when SOMETHING IS WRONG? That is just twisted and stupid. What the fuck do you think facial exprssions are FOR? When something is wrong, you don’t express it by SMILING. :::beating head into wall:::
I’ve gotten the “Smile!” stuff a lot. I see it as very similar to “You’re too quiet;” I am happy to say that most of the people in my circle of friends & coworkers these days are polite & accepting enough to let me be.
Basically, I see no need to chatter endlessly when I have nothing to say. Similarly, why should I walk around with a fake smile pasted to my face when I’m not feeling “smiley?” The lack of a smile doesn’t necessarily mean anything’s wrong; maybe I’m just deep in thought about how I’ll rearrange my files when I get to work. Sometimes, though, as Drain suggested in her OP, something might be really wrong-- and your “SMILE!” might just make me feel that much worse, because you can’t possibly know what’s going on.
I appreciate a friendly word as much as anyone, but sincere smiles, however rare, are far more valuable and healthy than false ones flashed just to satisfy some perky passer-by.
As missbunny said, this is apples and oranges. You initiated the contact in this case, and it is done so in a medium where strangers are expected to converse thusly. The point that keeps getting brought up and ignored by the smile enforcement agency is that most of us, in general, don’t have any problem smiling. What we take issue with/against is the instruction, or demand, if you will, that we display a socially pleasant visage. Heck, I’m a downright jovial fellow, but if I don’t happen to have a naturally grinny expression on my face, I don’t need or want to be instructed to change my appearance to suit someone else’s visual standards.
As both bunny and I have mentioned before, you wouldn’t (usually) think of approaching a stranger and giving them instructions about something else, why is this an exception?
Hmm, perhaps my lack of natural smile would allow me to file for a disability?
The “you’re too quiet” comment - aarrrrgggghh! I actually hate that 10 times more than “smile”! Just reading those words gets me riled up! Every time people say that to me, I give them a mental FUCK OFF. I would like to say it to their face, but unlike the “smile” and “you’re too quiet” people, I was raised with some manners. Since the “you’re too quiet” people are usually people I know somewhat - coworkers or something - I can’t really tell them to fuck off. So I just give them a blank stare and say in a very pleasant way, “Oh, I’m really sorry, I was concentrating on something.” This usually gets them confused - why am I apologizing? - and they say, “Oh, it’s okay,” to which I respond, “No, you’re right, I’ll try to talk more.” More confusion. I just keep this up, feigning all earnestness, until they are convinced they have done something wrong by bringing it up in the first place. Then they walk away, and I give them another mental FUCK OFF.
when I get told to smile by people I know, my usual response is the following:
“Why?..are you leaving?”
if it is a total stranger, then I ask:
" how much money are you going to give me?"…or…“fuck off and die”
that’s a good one. i’m going to walk around the office frowning just so i can use it. i might change ‘leaving’ to ‘quitting’ depending on who takes the bait.
My version:
It’s a world of fear, it’s a world of pain,
you’ll be fucked over again and again,
and don’t you cry, and don’t you whine,
it’s a crap world after all.
It’s a crap world after all,
we don’t need to get along,
why don’t you just suck my dong,
it’s a crap world after all.
I despise being told how to feel, and that because I don’t have a vapid smile on my face I need to make others more comfortable by doing so. Screw that.
Ordering people to smile is just insanely rude. I don’t know why Craiger is having so much trouble understanding that. I tend to think that anyone who walks around with a constant grin on their face is a big ol’ idiot, and besides that - I want to know WHAT thought process leads up this this behavior. What is the smile-monkey thinking? “This person isn’t smiling. Perhaps they need to be reminded,” or “If I told this person to smile, they’ll probably thank me for pointing out how unpleasant they are to look at when they’re not smiling,” or maybe, “I’m happy, and since the world revolves around me, everyone else should be in a good mood too. Oh wait, this person isn’t smiling. I’d better clue them in.”
Seriously, what the hell IS that?
I have a serious face, and I have been subjected to people telling me to smile my entire life. To make everyone shut the hell up, I have actually forced myself to smile whenever I see someone in social situations. It is completely natural now; I do it without thinking.
And (this is worse), you know how in pictures when people are fake smiling and their eyes look dead, because when people are really smiling, they use their eyes too? I have identified and isolated those muscles around my eyes, and can now produce a completely authentic smile on cue. Sometimes I just “smile” with my eyes (less work than the whole mouth thing, but producing the same effect).
I only do this at work so they don’t think I’m a sourpuss. I do really smile when the situation warrants it. I shouldn’t care what people think, but hey, whatever makes them leave me alone. Strangers can take a flying leap.
It is possible to do what the Smile Nazis purport to wish to do, give you a supportive affirmation that life can improve. I know, because down in the darkest hole that ever my soul plumbed someone did it. A bystander, a chance passerby, a complete stranger.
I was in the stairwell of the Pediatric Unit of the Georgetown University Hospital, weeping. The housekeeper came by, mopping the floor. She had been humming to herself as she worked. I heard her stop humming, and was trying to gain the strength to get up and go away from her cheerfulness.
In the most beautiful Jamaican accent in the world she said with great compassion, “After you been sad awhile, you go ahead and get back happy.” With that, and a sweet and unfettered smile of her own, she left me to my emotions. Worked a lot better than a simple admonishment to smile.
Tris
Yep. Especially the third message. One of the things that a rapist or con man looks for is someone who will comply with a request like that.
And the last time someone told me to smile, it couldn’t be all that bad, my beloved cat had just died. And I didn’t hesitate to tell that person why I wasn’t smiling. At the time, I didn’t feel like ever smiling again.
I’ll smile if I have reason to. Don’t presume to know why I’m not smiling.
This is from the 1920s and a newspaper column in the New York Sun by humorist/essayist Don Marquis. His most famous creations were the cockroach Archy (a downwardly reincarnated poet) and the bon vivant alley cat Mehitabel. Archy used to type out poetry on Marquis’ old Remington by jumping on its keys with his head, so of course he couldn’t type caps, or use punctuation.
Anyway, find a copy of “Archy and Mehitabel” or other anthologies by Marquis in the library and look up the poem called “The Cheerful Cricket”. It’s too long to type out here and it probably wouldn’t format right with the spacing but here’s an excerpt:
i was / feeling pretty well / and pleased with the world when / he started that confounded / cheer up cheer up cheer up stuff /
fellow i said i am / cheerful enough or was til / a minute ago but you / get on my nerves it s all right / to be bright and merry / but what s the use / pretending you have more / cheerfulness than there is in the world…
i listen to you / and know why shakespeare / killed off mercutio so / early in the play it is only / hamlet that can / find material for five acts
cheer up cheer up cheer up he / says bo i told him i / wish i was the / woolworth tower i would fall / on you cheer up cheer up cheer / up he says again
Great stuff. There’s some more poems on the web, but not this one in particular. Here’s a good one:
http://www.altheim.com/lit/badwolf.html
Carolyn
The main difference here is that she said “after you been sad awhile…” she didn’t demand that you deny your feelings of the moment and smile RIGHT THEN. World of difference.
Exactly, Opal.
The denial of the real emotions that someone feels is never supportive. It is demeaning, and selfish. The most important thing I learned from that woman in the stairwell is that you have to reach out the place where the person you seek is now, not the place you want them to be.
“Cheering someone up” isn’t what you want to do, supporting them while they are sad is. Caring for them, not caring for their feeling. Then when they are done being sad, you can “get back happy” with them.
Tris
Ha! You dour-faced people are lucky if all you get told is to smile!
Apparently, I have a very smiley, friendly, happy, approachable face when I’m not even trying. (Hence the username) This results in every dipstick on the planet asking me what time it is, directions to places, how things work…etc. People talk to me ALL THE TIME. At any given store, if there’s someone in the same aisle with me, chances are that they will show me their selections and ask my opinon or tell me why they are buying it. How many times a day do I talk to total strangers about the weather, their upcoming wedding, the dinner they’re cooking…how many times do I have to tell people where the line ends, how the take a number system is working, where to return your library books, how to use the revolving door, which paper towel holder isn’t broken, what time they’re serving lunch…etc, etc, etc.
I don’t take the bus because I don’t want to be bugged. Even if I’m wearing a Walkman and reading a book, I still get tugged on the sleeve, “I’m sorry, but do you know what stop I need…” People ask me for directions most often. Even in a city where I don’t live. It was the worst in Europe. All the Americans are afraid to ask directions from a native, so they asked me. “Hi…do you happen to know which way to the Parthenon?” Well, you moron, try looking up on that big hill over there. That’s how I found it.
AAAAARRRGGGHHH! I can’t help it that I look like I want to talk to you! Leave me alone! I live in Denver! I do not know the Metro schedule! I don’t even know where half the stuff in Colorado is! Go Away!
On the other hand, it was a great way to meet guys before I got married. I never had any trouble.
I agree with the “smile” request being intrusive when it comes from a complete stranger and very annoying from someone you know. I am leery of people with a shit eating grin plastered on their face.
Maybe they’re just smiling to shut you up. I’ve done that before.
About 4 years ago, I was working a horrible, minimum wage job as a dishwasher at a crappy Denny’s-like restaurant. I was incredibly depressed at the time. I didn’t talk to anyone. Every morning, I’d have to go clean the toilets, and on my way there, I’d see this same fucking idiot sitting at the counter drinking coffee. And every day, he would demand that I smile. I mean this guy would actually get pissed at me for not smiling! Fucker acted like I owed him a smile. I wanted to knock that idiot right off his stool onto the floor and kick his teeth out, but luckily for him, I’m a nice guy.
Also, have any of y’all ever noticed that the happiest people tend to be the dumbest people? Yeah, there are exceptions, but in my experience, the people who talk the most have the least to say. And those words are always accompanied by a smile.
“Happy! Do you take me for an idiot?”
- Charles DeGaulle to a journalist
I just got back to Albuquerque from a week visiting family in Smithville,Tx. (pop: around 4000), where everybody you pass has a big smile and a “Howdy”. (It’s addicting)
So I’m running errands around town today smiling and sayin “Howdy” and people are looking at me like I’m on crack.
I need my big-city cynicism back before I get my ass kicked.