why do people smile at me?

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Wrong, you SHOULD smile back at them!

But their seemingly out of place smiling does annoy me.

At least smileys are easier to understand than faces. Though I admit that they annoy me for some reason....

thet aree aliens, imaging how good you taste

So many people on this board are so pretentious that they have the nerve to say that they know what someone else's intentions are when they smile at you.

Who knows?

They might just be trying to be friendly. They might be plotting to kill you. Or something in between.

Stuff like this makes me want to bash my head...or just stay away from people in general.

Smiles, greetings, and general conversation are things I will never get.

Smiles can say a lot of things, I think. They can express harmless intentions and conceal harmful intentions. It could just be that the person is feeling ridiculously happy that day (this happens to me sometimes) and is smiling at everyone and everything. And then there's the subdivisions of fake smiles and real smiles and sneers and people laughing at you and smiles because they think you're good looking and smiles for a variety of other reasons and purposes. I haven't quite worked ANY of those out yet, quite confusing.

One thing I will say though is that smiling is a good thing to do in social situations. "Fake smiling" has proved very useful for me. I don't think of it as dishonesty because most people can tell that my smile is fake as easily as I can. However, what my false smile does show to most people is that, although I'm not particularly happy, I am not a grumpy person, or unfriendly, and I don't dislike them.

It means, "I come in peace"

maybe they think you are a dentist and they bare their teeth to you so you can tell them whether they need to consult you.

people smile at me and i think they confuse me with someone else they know.

"smiles" to me are not infectious. they are just people baring their teeth.

That's quite true, smiling behaviour has a correlation with population density - modified by how conservative or liberal the social environment in the place is.

The only way I can understand this is it's some kind of base way of raising serotonin, like sunshine or fresh air. The "I come in peace" thing makes no sense to me. If I were planning to kill someone face to face like that, the first thing I would do would be to gain their trust and disarm them. For someone who doesn't know anything about me to smile at me seems ridiculous. How do they know they like me? And how do I know I like them just because they smiled at me? I can acknowledge their presence by not walking into them, etc. I maintain random smilers are the weird ones, not me.

I'm with ya, I have the feeling the especially women do that, and they seem the most confused is you don't reply by smiling back. As for guys, most of them look kinda stupid whe they smile (I know I do), and I've known some "sunny boys" back in school that where so full of themselves and their "charisma", they had no other facial expression that an inbred smile.
Going back on track, I simply try to ignore it, because smiles can mean so many different things, but with inredibly subtle differences, that it would take me an eternity to interpret them correctly if I payed attention to every single one. Sometimes I try to smile back at people I know or when I wanted to show them that I am in a good mood, but otherwise, I'll stick to the good old poker face and just go on. For me, smiling back - especially at women, increases the chance of approaching me and starting some BS small talk conversation with me, just giving me another opportunity to make a fool out of myself because they caught me unprepared.

Well If your a guy and your having a bunch of girls smiles at you, why would you be mad? Sorry if I'm coming off as rude, or getting the wrong message.

I smile at people if

(a) they're pretty (because I like seeing pretty things)
(b) they look like they're not doing well (then I want to cheer them up)
(c) I'm in a good mood (then I smile at everyone)