Irritating pet peeve now

[paintedblue]

I absolutely despise people who think they somehow have the right to tell you to 'smile'. What is wrong with these morons. Doesn't it fit into their head that there might be people out there who walk around feeling miserable and thus have no reason to smile. I was at a bowling league i go to the other day, and i wasn't in the best of moods, so i'm sitting at a table waiting for my turn just mindin my own business when some woman comes up to me and goes "smile!" WTF? Who do you think you are? does it bother you that I don't smile? Mind your own goddamn business. I din't say all that I just gave her a blank stare. But it didn't end there few minutes later another person comes up and says something about putting on a happy face. I gave her a sarcastic, "this is my ecstatic face" she goes 'that's scary" i say good. I don't get it what compels these people to think everyone should be smiling or happy?

 

[laure15]

I have days like this where I don't feel like smiling. You are right that people don't have the right to tell you to smile. But they probably have good intentions for doing so. Next time if someone tells you to smile, you can say something like "Why? I'm not in the mood."

 

[Lea]

When someone tells me I am too quiet or that I should smile, it feels like I am sentenced to death. Doesn´t make sense? If you were me, maybe you´d start to understand what I a mean. They just remind me that without those 2 I am unable to be accepted and survive in this world. For them it´s a casual lighthearted remark and they don´t realize what serious consequences these disabilities have for me in life.

 

[paintedblue]

I thought about that, yeah perhaps they had good intentions when they approached me its possible, its also possible they're in some way trying to selfishly control the situation; They're having a good time, they see someone nearby who isn't so jolly, they see this as a 'blemish' on their good time, and feel the need to 'correct' the situation, maybe not wholly consciously, but still acting in some sort of subconscious self interest. Maybe that's a bit of a paranoid interpretation of what really is a less than minor situation. After all i shouldn't really care what's on other people's minds.

It is just extremely annoying when someone feels they have the need to tell me how to feel or what face i should project to the world.

 

[paintedblue]

When someone tells me I am too quiet or that I should smile, it feels like I am sentenced to death. Doesn´t make sense? If you were me, maybe you´d start to understand what I a mean. They just remind me that without those 2 I am unable to be accepted and survive in this world. For them it´s a casual lighthearted remark and they don´t realize what serious consequences these disabilities have for me in life.

Yes Lea well put, for them it might be a casual remark, but for me its a reminder of these adversities I have to deal with day in day out, which hurts.

And yeah that's another one that really gets to me when someone mentions I'm quiet. Maybe I should go around telling people they're too loud or talk to much, as long as we're pointing out these little character peculiarities.

 

[Graeme1988]

Ah get this alot o' the time as well, pisses me off, too.

Especially if am just not in the mood for smiling for apparent reason. Am no sayin' ye need a reason tae smile - when yer happy as Larry (however happy he might be?) Or maybe it's just that ah cannae fake it all that well, tae be honest. Never really understood the whole "fake it til ye make..." idea, anyway. But then, am Scottish, so it pretty says it aw, really... :bigsmile:

 

[Opaline]

I feel exactly the same as you. I don't get this very much any more, but when it used to happen a lot at a former job it really irritated me.

 

[Hellhound]

That reminds me... The other day, I had an old lady, mom's friend, asking me if I was okay, because my expression looked meh.

While I was indeed feeling not so well, I just said it's my expression by default (which is true), but that didn't mean I was troubled all the time.

Then she told me that I should try to smile a little more and wear more colors, because that would make me more approachable. It didn't irritate me, but I lol'd inside.