My Smile or Lack There Of

This is something that I receive comments/remarks on a lot because I apparently have a natural “mean mug”  or a face that just doesn’t look happy. I originally thought this was something that occurred in high school because I forced myself not to smile throughout most of my sophomore semester and later on I didn’t have to force it because it became natural. However, after talking to my mom, I didn’t smile a lot when I was younger either, unless it was for pictures or if something made me laugh and things of that nature. Now I don’t remember much about my childhood as far as smiling, but the earliest that I received comments about smiling was around the age of ten. There would always be a handful (maybe two) comments made mostly to my mom asking “What’s wrong with him?”, “What did you do to him?”, “He looks so sad” or “Is he alright?”. This would then be followed up with a question towards me asking “What’s wrong Tez?”, and then I would always say nothing because I was minding my own business thinking about stuff or I was bored and wanted to leave where ever we were for whatever reason. More than likely if I wanted to leave from someplace I already knew we weren’t going to be moving any quicker to the car just because I didn’t want to be somewhere.

As for the high school thing, I don’t remember it well, but I do remember feeling alone a lot (hell, I feel alone throughout most of the year) even though I had friends and got along with others well. If I  had to guess, I was either disappointed with myself about something or felt I needed a defense mechanism to protect myself from something. Now at this point is when my “sad face” became a “mean face”. I received similar comments of course, so I decided to appease those who asked by actually trying to smile. The reason I say trying to smile is because it felt awkward smiling after putting forth the effort in not smiling, in fact it even hurt to smile for a few months. Now on to my (clears throat) adult years, my face has gone from angry to mad and expressionless. There have been several times where my friends have stated that I have a face made for poker. When it comes to card games and board games this is a very true statement. I can feel the non-expression on my face (I know that makes good sense) as well as my attitude towards the game change. That thinking I did as a kid became a lot more strategic as an adult and not for just games although, if you want to see full on strategy at work, watch a game of UNO between my friends and I.

Now to the other side of this, there are only three occasions that I can remember someone commenting on my lack of a smile. The first was when I was referred to someone about a possible internship. When I went to see this person the first thin he commented on was my facial expression and I may be exaggerating this, but I believe he said something along the lines of me scaring the receptionist when I asked for him by name. The second time something of this nature happened was when I came back from BLF after getting my Linkin Park ticket. There was a homeless woman sitting on the ground on my way to BLF at this point and as I went by her she said hello and I mustered up what I thought was a smile and said hi. Now coming back the same way I decided to give her some money for food or whatever, I was hoping for food. When I reached her she asked me if I was mad and I said no (I just picked up a concert ticket how could I be mad). She then went to say something about how even though she was homeless and what she’s been through in her life she still smiles, she even made a sign about it. I then explained to her. which is true for me, I don’t purposely go around looking mad, this is just my natural facial expression. Of course I tried to appease her and smiled, we talked for a few minutes and we parted ways. I will say that I did try to smile for the rest of the day and then the next day I challenged myself to smile the entire day and succeeded.

The final case of someone commenting on my facial expression was a woman at wal-greens yesterday which prompted me to type this. I was there with my grandma and mom who were looking for hair supplies while I was looking for treats for Valentine’s Day for myself. The issue with the candy at wal-greens it was a bit pricey, so I was deciding intently on what I wanted to buy. All of a sudden some woman comes around the corner into the cant aisle and says “You know you don’t have to mean mug that candy”. Now I KNEW that she was joking and as a common practice of appeasement I thought I should smile however, I just wasn’t really in the mood to appease anyone at that time in fact if she had said hi I would have smiled and said hi back. What I did was give her my natural facial expression, which I feel is a cross between Gaara from Naruto and Tim Duncan from the San Antonio Spurs. As soon as she reached the other side of my shoulder felt that she would be looking back at me, so I looked back at her. When that happened she stated that she was just kidding ,which knew already, faced forward and left the aisle. I told my mom what happened and she felt bad for the woman.

Now I will state again, I do not purposely go around with intent to look mad, it just comes more natural to me that smiling does and I think that it can be hard for some people to understand. If you are happy/content you need to smile or if you look mad you are obviously mad, which neither is always true. I do actually smile when I feel it’s necessary, if something is funny or when a child looks at me. I have been smiling more than I have in the past, which is good for me, but not a lot of people get to see the happier side of me, the unguarded side of me. It’s still a work in progress, but I’ve been loosening up each year and one day I won’t have to try to smile for appeasement.

Now about that Garra and Tim Duncan thing.
This is Garra’s natural facial expression, he has smiled, just not a lot.

And here’s a commercial about Tim Duncan’s facial expression lol

I don’t always smile

but when I do… it’s not bad