People who tell you to "smile".

Does anyone else resent people who tell you that you should "smile" on some level. For some reason, it bothers me. I don't know about you guys, but whenever someone tells me that I should "smile", I feel like hitting them with the nearest blunt object...I shouldn't feel that way though, because they only want to help, but for some reason, I don't like it.

The ironic part is, I know that success won't come for me until I stop being so serious all the time, and just have fun with life...I'd elaborate more on that point, but that's a different topic for a different day.

People tell me all the time that I look angry and that I should smile more...perhaps I think too much about world issues and know that smiling and pretending like everything is okay isn't right. Maybe anger has become a protective shield for me. I walk around just waiting for someone to do something that pisses me off...and I don't want to be caught off-guard smiling and acting all naive.

I've reached a point in my life where I simply don't feel like smiling all the time...I'm not completely miserable, there are days where I can let loose, but those seem to be few and far between, and I'm not going to force it just because someone else wants me to.

Can anyone else identify?

Mini Rant: Want to kill father...that is all.

Oh yeah. I HATE that crap. I had one woman ask me why I don't smile and I wanted to ask her why she was so fat. I didn't. I think I said smiling gives you wrinkles. Maybe I'm smiling on the inside. I really hate that crap.

I'm the same, I glare at people a lot and keep a stern face. People often say to me things like "Cheer up, it might never happen!", which really gets on my nerves. I guess acting like this has played a major part in my social isolation, I suppose to others I come across as an aggressive, cold person who no-one would really want to talk to. For me it is definitly a protective type thing, to start with it pushes people away and also it means people cannot see how weak I truly am, as I come across as quite a strong individual.

I'm the same, I glare at people a lot and keep a stern face. People often say to me things like "Cheer up, it might never happen!", which really gets on my nerves. I guess acting like this has played a major part in my social isolation, I suppose to others I come across as an aggressive, cold person who no-one would really want to talk to. For me it is definitly a protective type thing, to start with it pushes people away and also it means people cannot see how weak I truly am, as I come across as quite a strong individual.

It's a lot like that for me. I got picked on terribly in high school. I started dressing in all black after graduating and developed an "I'd like to rip your guts out and stuff them down your throat" glare. I wanted people to FEAR me so they wouldn't pick on me and try to humiliate me. I let everyone know I carried a good sized knife. I really thought I should just ###$ someone up so people would be REALLY scared. That's what they tell you to do in prison. My teachers told me I would end up in prison. Theye always encouraged me to beat someone up too. I never did. One told me I would end up being someone's wife in prison. Ah, happy high school memories!

Parador wrote:

I'm the same, I glare at people a lot and keep a stern face. People often say to me things like "Cheer up, it might never happen!", which really gets on my nerves. I guess acting like this has played a major part in my social isolation, I suppose to others I come across as an aggressive, cold person who no-one would really want to talk to. For me it is definitly a protective type thing, to start with it pushes people away and also it means people cannot see how weak I truly am, as I come across as quite a strong individual.

It's a lot like that for me. I got picked on terribly in high school. I started dressing in all black after graduating and developed an "I'd like to rip your guts out and stuff them down your throat" glare. I wanted people to FEAR me so they wouldn't pick on me and try to humiliate me. I let everyone know I carried a good sized knife. I really thought I should just ###$ someone up so people would be REALLY scared. That's what they tell you to do in prison. My teachers told me I would end up in prison. Theye always encouraged me to beat someone up too. I never did. One told me I would end up being someone's wife in prison. Ah, happy high school memories!

I can definitely identify with that. I'm certain that a lot of the issues that I still carry around with me from this day not only come from high school, but from childhood as a whole.

I honestly think that it started when I was a kid, and then High School was sort of the nail in the coffin. It was a weird situation for me...I was always picked on, but I could never fight back. My father pretty much threatened me with physical violence if I ever got in trouble for anything at school, and to me, that translated to not being allowed to fight back physically (or even defend myself). I knew that if I did so, I would get alienated, but the truth was...I didn't give a ###$. I already had my friends and could really do without the unnecessary #######4 from other people. Plus, in most situations, I was outnumbered, so trying to fight back verbally would just dig my own hole...so I never said anything, I sort of took it and suffered in silence. To this day, I resent my father for this (hence the mini rant).

Instead though, people would always pick on me because they knew it would get to me. Instead of fighting back, I'd just show visible signs of anger, and they got their jollies by making a joke or two in my direction. I hated having to look over my shoulder every time someone laughed...wondering if it was intended for me or not.

Often I would write about sick fantasies of blowing the school up, or coming up with gruesome scenarios in where I would cause massive physical harm to my tormentors while listening to something REALLY heavy...other than working out or playing music, that was my catharsis.

All in all, because of that environment, it sort of put me in a defensive state of mind at all times...and it still goes with me to this day. Hence the "go ahead and ######6 start something" expression that I usually have on my face.

same here. i was thinking about writing a post about this this morning. i went to work (retail job) and some worker told me to smile. I was thinking about stabbing him in the eye with a hanger but i decided thats not a way i want to end a job.

I dont even mean to look angry all the time but I mean if u smile while you're walking everywhere, you'd look like a crazy person. But i guess theres a mid ground that I am not able to have.

Honestly I think it was because of middle school for me more than high school. Of course high school sealed the deal for me, but it started before that. It definitely started as a protective type thing. For one thing, people can't see how weak i truly am. And also, in middle school i was really hyper and energetic but got weird looks from people so I felt that I needed to look more mature. Plus people were assholes so I said whatever and stopped talking and stopped smiling. I wanted to be calmer and didnt want to be bothered with the #######4 from people. At first it worked out fine, until people started saying how they loved me so much more when i was energetic. -_- they didnt act like they likes my hyperness back then, so I felt that I could never win. I got really depressed, started wearing all black and never smiled or talked much.

So because of this I screwed myself in the long run. Because even if I'm just walking minding my own business, people think I'm mean and stuck up.

I too don't want to be caught off-guard smiling and acting all naive. And I don't want to look stupid smiling all willy nilly. And at the same time, I'm not really sure what I should be smiling about. Except for the fact that I am still alive and not dead. But sometimes thats just not enough

Oh man I get that all the time. It annoys me so much to hear it. As much hatred that I have toward people, that is the last thing that I want to hear.

Ugh, I hate when people ask me to smile. I generally ask them "Why?" and turn it into an argument about whether or not there is anything worth smiling about. Not smiling has it's uses, no one bothers you save a few interlopers who pester you about being a grouch. I don't really think I don't smile out of hatred, it's just not worth the effort / stress, although to be fair, these days I am not sure if I could even pull off smiling at random people.

I get that all the time from random customers at work. One guy walked up to me (he wasn't even buying anything) and said "smile, it could be worse!" For some reason that offends me way more than it probably should. What do they know about my life? And even if my life was great, wouldn't I look kind of creepy and retarded if I was standing there smiling blankly at nobody? I should buy a nasty but realistic looking set of fake teeth and smile at the next person who says that to me and freak them out.

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