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The pressure to smile
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Anonymous
| Has anyone else noticed that this also appears to be a gendered thing? I had strangers coax me to smile when I was younger because "you're a pretty girl, and you'd look so much prettier if you smiled." I think it is rare for strangers to encourage solemn-seeming men to smile more, but it is a fairly common and paternalistic thing to do to women. |
Anonymous
| UGH i hate when I am walking in the street or out in public and people especially men tell me to smile, makes me want to give them the bird!!! |
Anonymous
|
Some of the PPs are confusing two different things here. There is a big difference between being ask/told to smile by a stanger on the street and being asked/told to smile by a client/employer.
In the first instance I agree that it is annoying and I would simply ignore the person or if I am really in a bad mood, tell them to MYOB. In the second case, if your job involves face to face interaction with other people, I think it is reasonable to expect that one appear pleasant - smilling is one way to acheive that. |
Anonymous
| If you are talking about a grumpy look that's one thing, but I think this might be a neutral (not gushy) look. That's ok. |
Anonymous
This is a bit of a juvenile/immature/emotionally underdeveloped way of looking at the OP's question. Your observation may apply to people with nothing traumatic going on in their lives, but the OP is going through a personal ordeal and some shmuck tells her to smile so that he/she can feel good? She cannot reconcile that with her loss! |
Anonymous
| great, so let's all fully embrace being in sorrow and ask the smiling people what's so great in their lives that they have to gush about it by smiling at everyone. please. if you are that upset about your sorrow you should make yourself numb to happy people who only wish for you to be happy. best of intentions, maybe not executed perfectly, but who cares? if you're sad, go on being sad... nobody's going to stop you as much as they urge you to smile. so go on being sad with your big bad self. |
Anonymous
What? Did you read the OP's post? She LOST A CHILD! What is wrong with you? She needs time to grieve and that does not make her bad it makes her human. She needs people to respect that she needs time to grieve. Why is that so hard to understand? |
Anonymous
| She also needs to respect that other people DO NOT KNOW THAT. Unless she wants to post a sign on her chest saying "My child just died"... There is no way for other people to be sensitive to that. That is the god awful truth, but it is the truth. |
Anonymous
gimme a break. The OP is going thru a HUGE LOSS. On the one hand, she has a personal grieving process to go thru. On the other hand, people need to be sensitive to the events occuring in personal lives, regardless of whether they know someone has died, is getting divorced, etc. The OP does not have an issue with happy people. (Smiling is superficial anyway. It does not necessarily indicate happiness.) She is professional and courteous while with clients. If those bases are covered, I wouldn't have an issue as a client, regardless of whether I knew about the events of her personal life. You either didn't understand what the OP said or if you did, you're callous and pathetic. |
Anonymous
|
No, I'm honest and realistic and you are resorting to name-calling as your best defense... which would appear more pathetic than I do.
You can only control your reaction and what you do. You can't control others. Sure you can complain about it, and maybe that will make you feel better... but there is no way you can expect others to know what you feel inside of you. It is easy for people here to empathize with the OP because we know the story. I do feel horrible for her loss. But it is unrealistic to expect others to know the same and react the same. |
Anonymous
Well, isn't that the point? You DON'T know what's going on in someone's life. So without knowing anything about the person, you should not be making demands/requests to increase your own pleasure/satisfaction of seeing a smile. I think you're mixing up some issues. Telling someone to "smile" for your benefit is like telling them to wear green because it's YOUR favorite color without considering the person herself/himself. |
Anonymous
| OP. I too lost my little boy 5 years ago and I wanted to sock those people who told me to smile all the time. I had the advantage of being able to work from home, so I didn't have to deal too often. I went through therapy, and I suspect so did/are you. You shouldn't smile if you don't want to. I never really came up with a good response to these people, except to ignore them. I suspect you're just putting this out there hoping some people will learn from this. I am not sure how long ago you lost your child, but it does get better. I think of my little guy, especially now that we're having another child soon, but I don't ache all the time like I use to. Take care of yourself. |
Anonymous
Next time, you should give them the bird! It's none of their damn business. |
Anonymous
| Look at them and say "Sure, I'll smile more if you bathe more." |
Anonymous
|
OP - I am so sorry to hear of your loss. Like a recent poster I too lost two babies 3 years ago. It is so difficult to move on and no one can understand the depth of your grief and how long it goes on. I hope you have the support you need.
I rememeber going back to work and the difficulties I had - in the beginning everyone gave me breathing room but the grieving is such a long process. One thing I learned...is that no one can know what is going on in other peopls lives. That goes for me and for those interacting with me. In general, I became a much more empathetic person as a result. Something a few posters here would do well to learn. Forget about the clients - speak to your boss if you need to - telling an adult - any adult - to smile is condescending at best. Most importantly take care of yourself....my heart still aches for my loss and for every other mother who has to go through the same loss. |