Week of September 3-9

[mrissa]

Five rejections, one...whatever-it-is. Not really an acceptance, since I didn't actively submit the story for the JBU2006 anthology, but on the other hand, I didn't have to. One reprint, I guess that is.

In the category of "care and feeding of mrissas": I will shake hands with people, I will hug people I know, I will try to assume the best of people even if their idea of casual friendly contact isn't the same as mine. I try to deal with people from interruption cultures and people with long conversational pauses as gracefully as I can. But one thing I do not tolerate well is people telling me to smile. If you aren't taking a posed picture, just don't. Every Northern girl* learns the smile that means, "I will commence bashing your head in with a large stick in ten...nine...." Do not solicit this smile. You will not enjoy it if you do. Especially do not put this order in terms of girls/women being prettier when they smile. This will move the countdown forward.

*People of other genders and cardinal directions may learn this smile as well. I don't know, not having grown up as any of them.

Comments

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

If you tell me to smile you get something resembling bared fangs on a wolf. And a major snarking, if I'm feeling particularly feisty. I LOATHE that.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. It's not very polite to tell other people to smile. You might as well say, "Stop being such a big mopey-head!" On the other hand, a few years ago, I decided to start smiling more, as best I can, in social situations, and I think it makes me much happier and more comfortable. So although it may be good advice, it's rude to go around giving it out. You might think someone needs a shower, too, but unless they are eleven years old, you don't tell them so.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And I think it's not good advice to strangers or to people whose circumstance you don't really know. I have not been shy, in the past, about telling people who told me to smile what was going on: "My Gran just died," was one example where they felt really awkward. And they should have.

[redbird]

Quite. If someone who knows me wants me to smile, they can do something that's likely to make me happy.

If they don't know me, and think the world needs more smiles, they can smile themselves: it may or may not cause me to smile as well, but there will be one more smile in the world, which should please them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes. The gentleman in the convertible who told me how cute my dog was got a big grin. The other fella in the other convertible who demanded that I smile got a cold stare.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Hmm... on one hand, I want to respect your personal space. On the other, you look better when you smile, at least from this side; this isn't a matter of "girls" being prettier, but of you looking better, in our brief interactions. In general, almost everyone looks better with a smile, which is why I try to take pictures of people laughing and having a good time. I will reluctantly take posed pictures, but I'd much rather capture a true moment.

Perhaps this hearkens back to the recent discussion of balance, context and feedback. If I've said something funny (or are around when a funny thing occurs) and an appropriate response is not forthcoming, I may very well say, "Yes, that was a joke. You may laugh." That usually gets more of a smirk or titter than a laugh, but still. I hope you're allowing for these circumstances.

A smile isn't an umbrella, but the kinetic memory brought back by the position of the smile muscles does help lighten the mood. And yes, sometimes smilers like to proselytize.

On yet another hand, I know perfectly well what you mean. The line between A Friendly Suggestion and Intrusion On A Mood is fuzzy, but exists. If I don't want to smile and the suggestion is made, I have a Warding Scowl that's fairly effective.

[redbird]

There is a difference between "I will wait until you're smiling anyway to take your picture" and "I will tell you to smile." Which you probably realize, but you don't seem to realize its importance from the viewpoint of the person being told to smile.

Also, most of the men who walk around demanding that women smile aren't, in fact, smiling most of the time themselves, and they do not "proselytize" to other men about smiling.

If you say something that's meant to be funny and I don't laugh (or smile when I hadn't been), it's because I didn't find it funny. This happens. It doesn't mean you're a bad person--it may mean the joke requires a reference I don't know, or is a play on words that depends on pronunciations different from mine, or that I heard it three times already that week. It may be a place where your sense of humor and mine don't overlap. Or I may be in a mood where not much will amuse me--though in that case I'm unlikely to be hanging out with people I don't know well.

Hammering me with "that was a joke" is a good way for someone to convince me that they lack both subtlety and any respect for the flow of the conversation. (The worst example of this is someone a friend of mine was involved with, who would repeat a pun until he got the response he wanted. A weak pun, usually, which is why she and I, and other people with us, would try to ignore it and continue the conversation.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But I think -- and I haven't interacted with you that much in person, so I could be wrong -- that you can tell the difference between "I would rather see this person happy and relaxed and having a good time" and "If I order this person to be happy and relaxed and have a good time, my order will work!"

[mkille.livejournal.com]

(Grrr, livejournal ate my reply. Trying again...)

"You look better when you smile"--if taken in a more strictly aesthetic sense than how mrissa interprets it below--seems to me to fall into the same category as "You look better when you don't wear so much eyeliner." Unless one has an established relationship with someone where it's okay for to say stuff like that unsolicited, it just, well, *isn't*. Because the strong implication otherwise is either "You look *bad* this way" or "It's my place to be your appearance coach" or both.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I smile frequently, according to my definition of frequent, and yet I once lost a raise based on my general inquities as a Northern Girl. One of the reasons given for not rating me high enough to get that raise was, "You don't smile enough."

Fucking Nashville.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ick.

[sculpin.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. I got that just a few weeks ago. I'd totally mismanaged my energy and had overdone it but good; I'd gotten all extra-pale and dizzy while stuck downtown, having just missed my bus. It sucked. So there I am, hunkered down on the sidewalk, just trying to get through the next half-hour with my dignity more or less intact. That, of course, is when some random late-middle-aged man gives me a hard time about not smiling.

I had just about enough energy left to give him that very special angry smile. My lips peeled back from teeth that suddenly felt a whole lot pointier and more carnivorous. And he gave me a special smile in turn, the ones that means, "Heh heh, please don't hurt me, I'm moving along now." The guy may have been a fool, but he was not a complete fool.

I probably do look prettier when I smile (when I smile normally, anyway!) but it is not my job to be all pretty for every random dude on the street. Any random dude who thinks it is my job to be pretty for him is a dude in need of adjustment.

[pieslut.livejournal.com]

Ah, the adjusting of attitudes through eye contact. Did that once to a sushi chef wielding a large knife. It worked, and he gave me extra sushi! I love my glare.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

It's worst from random strangers. And it's always men.

The last time it happened, I just said, with a wooden face: "fuck off" and it may have been one of the most satisfying moments of my life.

[sculpin.livejournal.com]

And is it just me, or is it always men who appear to be over the age of 47 or so?

My second thought, after "Back off, creep," is often, "Man, I bet you have no idea about the degree to which you have just dated yourself. Fogey."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Actually I've gotten it from women, too. And it bothered me from women, too -- it's not that I think being told to smile is always a gendered/sexual thing (although in many cases it definitely is). It's just that I don't like it.

[ladysea.livejournal.com]

I have been told I should smile more frequently.

I tried pointing out that when one sits around, smiling at nothing, it raises all sorts of annoying questions.

smile and a Northern woman

[aet.livejournal.com]

The most amusing titbit from "Detective Inspector Huss" (translated to English from Swedish) by Helene Tursten.

The heroine gets a judging stare from a fellow passenger in a train and her reaction is:

"She gave the woman in the suit a radiant smile and sat down. That's the most effective way to startle people: They think you're crazy and avert their eyes."

See, up here only the crazies smile without a weighty reason ...

Re: smile and a Northern woman

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We have some of that here due to high percentage of Scandinavian, Baltic, and German immigrant populations.

Raises hand

[barondave.livejournal.com]

You weren't around at the right moments, then. It's happened to me, usually by women.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

For a while last semester, a lot of people thought I was upset about something-- acute upset, not chronic, which I suppose was true. "Oh, you look sad, what happened!" isn't terribly fun to hear all the time, especially when it's just that I'm not actively talking, but it's better than, "Teeth now, please". My neutral face is rather sober. A friend of mine is the opposite; she smiles all the time-- or at least she looks like she does because her face is shaped that way. Happiest girl on earth.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have a friend whose face is shaped mostly that way -- she is hilarious when she tries to frown -- but she actually is pretty happy in general, so it's hard to tell which came first, the smile or the happy.

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Well, being a smiler, I'm not often told to smile...

In FACT... I've been told on a number of occassions that:
1. I have a grin like a shark.
2. When I'm grinning, it makes people nervous. Usually because they've done something DUMB and I'm about to eat their brain for it.

I think it's that slightly unhinged twinkle in my eye that makes them worry so... or the fact that one of my most frequently worn t-shirts is the "I put the LAUGHTER in SLAUGHTER" one from goth-in-a-box. On me... people actually believe it, despite my reletively diminutive stature...

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

I don't make people nervous when I grin, but my boss thinks I'm either talking or smirking, and if I'm smirking then I'm plotting, and if I'm plotting then someone is probably about to die. It's very fun.

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

When I was in high school, I was walking down the hall on my way back to class from the bathroom when I ran into one of my least favorite people - the 6', vacuous classmate with a bad dye job and the world's freakiest wardrobe. I disliked her because she was just flat-out dumb (and smelled a little odd). She looked at me, walking along perfectly happily wearing my neutral face, and decided that because I was not grinning like a blooming idiot, I must therefore be upset. As she approached me she said, "Smile! At least you don't have cancer!" And I turned on my heel to face her, gave her the look of death, and said, "How do YOU know?" and grinned ferally as she flobbered around, trying to figure out what to say to that. Dumbass.

(Hi. I'm here from <lj user="mechaieh".)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

(It's not showing up on my screen, but the notification e-mail said you were here from mechaieh. Hi, and welcome!)

But yes: you just don't know other people's circumstances.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It is defininitely fortunate that you are unlikely to meet my father, then. He can be annoying in this respect.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ahh, but I am much more likely to make an effort to smile politely when I'm being introduced to a friend's parent than when I'm walking down the aisle in the grocery store.