up yours mr. smiley face
I am always told by people that I look sad and should smile. This annoys me because a) I'm not sad, and b) fuck you for telling me how to be. I was asked by a guy at a bar on Saturday why I had been "pouting" all night. I told him I hadn't been pouting and was in fact having a good time. I can't help it if my natural expression doesn't make me look like a bubbling bundle of joy. My whole life I have been told this. To name a few: a security guard in Junior High as I walked to class, couriers who deliver mail to the office, customers I served at the restaurant (they actually left me a note saying I should smile more, which they wrote next to a big smiley face).
I can't even find words to explain how irritated I get from people telling me this. What if I went around telling people to sneeze or to sweat. These are involuntary acts, just like a real smile. I can't smile on command, and the last feeling I have when someone tells me to is happiness.
Why do people care if I smile anyways? Is it for their own sense of happiness, or are they genuinely concerned about me? I can understand the customers at the restaurant because they were paying for a pleasant dining experience. And I would say that the rest are just guys trying to flirt with me, but the security guard was a woman.
I think it's arrogant to tell someone to smile. How do you know their mother didn't just die? But it's not only rude, it's insulting. In essence you're telling someone to change who they are, and what better way to make someone smile.
I can't even find words to explain how irritated I get from people telling me this. What if I went around telling people to sneeze or to sweat. These are involuntary acts, just like a real smile. I can't smile on command, and the last feeling I have when someone tells me to is happiness.
Why do people care if I smile anyways? Is it for their own sense of happiness, or are they genuinely concerned about me? I can understand the customers at the restaurant because they were paying for a pleasant dining experience. And I would say that the rest are just guys trying to flirt with me, but the security guard was a woman.
I think it's arrogant to tell someone to smile. How do you know their mother didn't just die? But it's not only rude, it's insulting. In essence you're telling someone to change who they are, and what better way to make someone smile.
posted by kristin | 12:22 PM
3 Comments:
i'd say the security gaurd was flirting with you too. lets not be HeteroNORMative. Ha!
this creepy office technician guy who was the only person i interacted with as a receptionist at this temp job said to me once:
"you know, God didn't do right by you in one thing..."
(dramatic pause),
as if i was going to invite him to continue.
it was already bad on so many levels.
"you always look like you're frowning."
thanks a lot, so i look like a droopy faced pound puppy, but the rest of me is hot. see how both sides are creepy.
i figured someone would correct me on the female security guard, and who better than a wesleyan grad. come on sara, lets not be stereotypical.
Yeah Sara, way to uphold that Wesleyan tradition.
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