Smile!

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Ok, raise your hand if you grimaced, grunted, or were otherwise annoyed by the subject of this thread. I have been hearing "Smile!" from strangers in all kinds of places ever since I was a little girl. Anyone else have this problem? You're walking along, perfectly content with the world, and some well-meaning but stupid person tells you to smile. Or to cheer up. Or asks if you're ok. And they might as well be saying "You don't look right. You don't have an expression on your face that I approve of, and even though I don't know you, I think I have the right to stop you and request that you alter it."
The next time someone tells me how to position my face, I'm going to tell them to hop on one foot and cluck like a chicken. THAT would make me smile.

Say something funny first.

Omgosh, i know what you mean, today at the doctors office, the nurse goes, we only have one rule here, you got to smile, then looked at me waiting for a smile, I just stood there like ughhh haha! People tell me this all the time, smile, why do u look unhappy, I'm not, I'm just not a big smiler jeeez!

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Being Normal Is Vastly Overrated

From "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand:

Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man's first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought.

If I am contented, I bite my lower lip and look "faraway". Apparently to NT's this shows unhappiness. Odd...I feel happy till they bother me.

Hurray! It's such a relief to be understood.

When I was about five, I was eating a donut at a counter in the grocery store, and this lady next to me says "Aww, did your mommy yell at you?"

My parents have a friend who lives at an old folks apartment complex. As a child, I was nicknamed "Smiley" by the residents. It was a sarcastic nickname, obviously.

The thing is, I don't go around with a frown on my face. I just don't really make any face at all. I'm not going to wear a big empty grin all day, how freaky would that be? I just have to try and shrug off the comments, because this is just the way my face is and it's none of their business anyway.

My problem is the opposite. People often tell me to STOP smiling, lol.

I get this too...My neighbor sometimes asks my husband if I'm mad at him...At work people sometimes would complain about the "faces" I'd make like I was angry...To me? I'm just very focused on what you are saying...I can't really smile and focus on what you are saying at the same time...Which might be the reason I don't get jokes, since I can't listen and smile...hehe

How funny. As a kid I got this all the time. Now I've learned to smile to make other people feel comfortable, even though I have to force it and I myself feel very UNcomfortable...

Actually I have a friend who is very talkative and while I love her, she is so expressive that for some reason I feel I have to match her in expressiveness. So after two hours with her, I have been smiling so much that I literally get a headache.

I can remember tons of times - even just today - when I have had to force myself to smile. Yet I can't remember having to force myself to frown...

well, I don't open my mouth when I smile because even to this day, if I smile or laugh at the tv set in front of my mother, she tells me I have a too large mouth. Hers is even bigger but she doesn't irritate herself. There were three reasons I got braces but I gave her this one that I wanted to look less like her as possible. My father had a tiny mouth and I have his mouth but when I smile, my mouth does get a lot bigger. I keep my mouth pressed tight at all times even when I am alone because I don't want to be like her.

I remember someone on TV saying "always beware of the man who smiles a lot"

Apologize for making fun of my accent, Serena. (An immature woman who was in my Job Prep course, in college.)

I get that all the time, in grade 5 this girl who was in my class for two years said she never saw me smile once, after a while of thinking about it i laughed I always thought I smiled but apparently just in my head.

Checkout lady in Target yesterday started to ask if I wanted to get a Target card, then stopped. Said she could tell by the look on my face I didn't want one.
Once again, I was not aware I was making any kind of face.
Oh well, for the first time in my life at least I knew what was going on and didn't beat myself up about it.
In fact, as I walked away I smiled to myself.