Telling Strangers to Smile

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H

haina

kiwifarms.net
Joined
May 5, 2013
I'm a bass player and I was very busy with gigs last week. During one day I had six gigs, and I was up from 6am until 3am the following morning, when I got home from the last gig, for which I was standing in or 'depping'. During this last gig, I was told to smile approximately four or five times by obnoxious drunken people. I couldn't respond because I didn't want the band to lose more work with this particular bar. So here are my thoughts on the matter.

1. It is not in my nature to walk around with a dopey grin on my face. Just because I don't smile naturally doesn't mean that I am not happy. I guess I have a solemn resting face, but my friends know me as a pretty hilarious person with a good sense of humour. I smile a lot, but mainly when interacting with people.

2. This was my first gig with this band and we had no rehearsal. Deps are under a lot of pressure for gigs like these, and I was concentrating on getting my parts right. I also know the guitarist a little bit, he's a nice guy and I wanted to play my best for him, and help him keep his regular gig at this bar.

3. I was wrecked and burnt out from gigs, and it's none of your business if I don't smile while I play. Some of the finest musicians I know are like that, and it has nothing to do with whether we're enjoying playing or not.

4. You should have been more concerned about the people trying to get up on stage, or grinding/riding the rail like filthy skanks. You may be smiling and enjoying yourself while behaving like a group of depraved, drunken monkeys, but I'm working. I still remember one guy's smug face when he shouted smile at me, and if it hadn't been for everyone around, I would have jumped off stage and beat him senseless with my bass for that.

5. I was watching the PA outside the venue, just minding my own business and thinking about getting to sleep tonight, when some slapper came up to me and said 'You look so sad! Smile'! and wouldn't leave for at least five minutes, calling me 'sad' and telling me to smile several times before her fellow slappers pulled her away, saying 'They're Scottish, the Scottish don't smile'. Fuck you bitch. I tried to explain coherently that I'm not unhappy, just tired. That just got loads of condescending phrases like 'Awww, you look so sad!' and then she started going on about how she was up early and up some giant pole (not the first time I'm sure), had three kids, and was still smiling. Fuck you again, just because you had to get up early and have kids does not nullify the fact that I had a hard day.

6. You don't know what people are going through. You likely have a completely unrealistic worldview that dictates that everything is sunshine and happiness and people should be smiling all the time. Mind your own fucking business.

7. A much more effective way to get people to smile is to smile or wink at them. I'm totally ok with that, it's not condescending and although I sometimes feel awkward when someone smiles at me like that, when thinking about the day I often think 'what a nice person'.

8. If you are a person that actually does this, stop. It's one of the most obnoxious, condescending, smug things you can say to someone and makes them incredibly unlikely to smile or be nice to you. It really enrages me and next time someone says this to me, I'm telling them my mother just died (which is half true, she died several years ago).

Thank you for reading and I feel less angry now I have got this off my chest. Funnily enough I'm male and it was mostly females saying this to me (aside from one man). From what I have read, it's much more common for men to say this to women.

http://www.xojane.com/relationships/never-ever-tell-me-smile
[youtube]l_1FbjuJp4E[/youtube]
 
Yeah, I get what you mean. People think that just because you're not grinning like a idiot means that you are unhappy. I only tend to smile when I feel happy or when I hear a joke or other funny stuff. I actually tend to smile a lot, but I smile when I feel like it, not because of a "concerned" stranger telling me to smile.
 
When I don't smile people sometimes think I look pissed off. I'm already socially awkward as it is, so someone telling me that I need to smile will give me another reason to continue not smiling!
 
Seeing as I'm not high on life every second of the day, no, I won't grin hysterically while I walk around after 2 hours sleep to a lecture I hate in the cold.
 
I assume you're (haina) in the US, but I've heard foreigners say Americans smile too much and that it freaks them out, so you have a point. Some people outside the US don't even smile for photos.

I agree, smile at people if you want them to smile, and you shouldn't tell people to smile because, like haina said, you don't know what people are going through. I was in college and earned the highest grade on a test for my class and the instructor told me to smile. I was on the verge of a mental breakdown, but she said this to me, and I wanted to slap her.
 
GrandNumberOfPounds said:
I assume you're (haina) in the US, but I've heard foreigners say Americans smile too much and that it freaks them out, so you have a point. Some people outside the US don't even smile for photos.

I agree, smile at people if you want them to smile, and you shouldn't tell people to smile because, like haina said, you don't know what people are going through. I was in college and earned the highest grade on a test for my class and the instructor told me to smile. I was on the verge of a mental breakdown, but she said this to me, and I wanted to slap her.
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Not in the US. I've been to America though and I don't mind Americans smiling or talking to strangers, as long as they don't tell them to smile!
 
Oh, OK. I had no idea where you're from, so I took a shot in the dark because most people on here are from the US, and got it wrong, LOL.
 
Years ago I read about this for my anthropology class. In China it's acceptable for employees to not do the "service with a smile" because they are busy doing their job efficiently and correctly. If the Chinese did smile excessively in customer service, they would look incompetent or smug. I wish that were the case here in the United States, since I tend not to smile too much doing my minimum wage job because I'm trying to do my (crappy) job!
 
Mourning Dove said:
Years ago I read about this for my anthropology class. In China it's acceptable for employees to not do the "service with a smile" because they are busy doing their job efficiently and correctly. If the Chinese did smile excessively in customer service, they would look incompetent or smug. I wish that were the case here in the United States, since I tend not to smile too much doing my minimum wage job because I'm trying to do my (crappy) job!
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That's interesting. I don't mind if I'm being served and don't get a smile, as long as the person's polite. One thing I noticed in America was that in some restaurants, servers could be overly friendly, and make jokes that those of us from across the pond found strange, unfunny, or incomprehensible. I guess I can understand this, because of the tipping culture and all.
 
GrandNumberOfPounds said:
I assume you're (haina) in the US, but I've heard foreigners say Americans smile too much and that it freaks them out, so you have a point. Some people outside the US don't even smile for photos.
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We're either a crowded shithole full of rude assholes or a bunch of brainwashed yuppies sipping on the Kool-Aid, smiling, waving, and not questioning our government at all. Foreigners really like to pick fun at America rather than accept the fact that we're a country full of human beings. But I guess there isn't one country out there that's going to universally realize that about all other countries.
 
Every time someone tells me to smile (which is a lot) it fills me with a psychotic rage. All my life, I've been told that I look miserable. It might be my face, or it might be that people want to see me smile because I'm a young-looking female or I don't know. Like, I get told to smile at work a lot. Okay I wake up at 5am to get to my miserable-ass job and work with people and customers I can't tolerate. Smile? Give me a fucking burlap sack full of money and I'll smile all the way out of that hellhole.

Also, for reasons I cannot understand, every time I go to Home Depot there's a guy who may or may not work there loitering around telling me to smile. I don't go to Home Depot often and I don't know if it's the same guy, but it's happened at least three times to me in the passed year. Being stalked by the Home Depot Smile Fairy, guys.
 
I don't exist to make strangers feel better, so random assholes on the street who order me to smile when I'm going through heavy shit can fuck right off.
 
People have misconceptions about every country, the US is no exception. In some countries you don't even look at or talk to strangers when you're away from home (like in some parts of southeast Asia), so going to a country where everyone smiles at you would be somewhat alarming to these people.

For reference, this is where I found that out, from an Irishman:

17 cultural clashes this European had in America

It's #3 on the list.
 
In the US it is considered polite to smile, even if you don't mean it. But all someone needs to do to get me to smile is smile at me and I'll return it. Straight up ordering someone to smile is rude and I don't know why people think it's a good idea.
 
Niachu said:
In the US it is considered polite to smile, even if you don't mean it. But all someone needs to do to get me to smile is smile at me and I'll return it. Straight up ordering someone to smile is rude and I don't know why people think it's a good idea.
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Well, the people requesting this were drinking.
 
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Bgheff said:
Niachu said:
In the US it is considered polite to smile, even if you don't mean it. But all someone needs to do to get me to smile is smile at me and I'll return it. Straight up ordering someone to smile is rude and I don't know why people think it's a good idea.
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Well, the people requesting this were drinking.
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In general, I should have said.
 
I don't smile unless there's something to smile about.

I mean I sound like an asshole but in reality it's hardly strange.

When I get into a conversation with someone it's a different story, especially if it's a particularly interesting topic. But in my every day I don't really smile too much.

There's a lot more overt social problems than smiling, infact it'd say it's a more mild one. Things like mumbling and avoiding eye contact are much larger factors and smiling is just a very minor thing.
 
Bgheff said:
Well, the people requesting this were drinking.
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True, but I have been told to smile by (presumably) sober people before during the daytime and it made me even angrier.
 
if i make eye contact with people near where i live, i may get shot.

people can go to hell
 
I'm told Russians think Americans are all idiots because we smile all the time. They think that's a sign of either stupidity or being absurdly ungenuine.
 
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