Smile!

Ok, I'll admit, I lost it a bit today. I didn't mean to, but there is only so far I can be pushed before I push back.

Ok I wasn't so much pushed as one of my buttons was. The button clearly reads "Don't tell me to Smile".

I don't have a smiley face.

This doesn't mean I am unhappy, or depressed or particularly stressed!

Unfortunately, my face, when displaying its "neutral expression", just tends to look a bit glum (I blame the lines that run from the sides of my nose down towards the sides of my mouth - they make me look this way). Short of getting a face lift or finding some set of special facial callisthenics to do, I will always look this way.

This is my face!

I don't walk around grinning all the time - I know very few people that do. If I did it would quite possibly; a. exhaust me and b. scare small children and c. lead to men in white coats stopping me on the street and popping me into the back of an ambulance "for the safety of all concerned".

So it's understandable that when, for the second time today, someone told me to smile, that I lost it a bit. Sorry - I hope I didn't offend...

Maybe they expect me to smile every time I see them and for the most part I do greet all who I know with a cheery "Hello" - do I smile? I assume so.

So maybe what they objected to today was that I was lost in thought and didn't acknowledge them at all - sorry - that might make me a bit thoughtless, maybe, but not someone wallowing in misery.

Am I too sensitive to being told to smile? Is it really the inner child in me pouting and saying “No you can’t make me!”? I don’t know, maybe. Maybe I subconsciously take it as an insult to my looks; I got silently annoyed by a co-worker telling me I looked angry when I was simply trying to concentrate on the job at hand. Like I said before – this is my face!

Unfortunately, telling me to smile does tend to have the opposite effect than what was intended (as would telling me to “cheer up”, by the way).

Oh well, hopefully next time I’ll just grin and bear it!