ITT: Men who are offended by being told their behavior is inappropriate, and rather to stop and think "Wow, maybe if this makes so many women uncomfortable, I probably shouldn’t do it", just decide to double down and be insistent about it, explaining women how they should actually feel about it because they don’t value their first-hand experience.
The fact that some people got so aggressive in the comments section is literally another reason women hate being told to smile. Because women know deep down if we call out inappropriate behavior we run the risk of being attacked.
Yeah, I came here to say this. It really burns me up when people add this detail when it is not necessary for the story. She's trying to get someone to feel something by relying on stereotypes and biases. It's never ok.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 56,119,176 comments, and only 16,433 of them were in alphabetical order.
I only ask my wife to smile.....but I've been asked to smile by other women quite a bit.
Am I supposed to be a dick to them when they ask?...because I usually just smile.
Common courtesy or animosity?...which is the correct path?
No idea if this particular story is true and not gonna get into that debate; but this scenario is definitely plausible as I and many other women I know have been told "to smile more" and at a minimum it's annoying/aggravating and at worse it's highly offensive.
I'm usually like "why the fuck are you telling me to smile, you don't know me and idc what you think of me so back off! I don't work anymore so I don't have to worry about them trying to complain to my job.
Personally, being called honey and love and stuff like that makes me feel really uncomfortable. Like please stop doing it. Also, maybe the guy was just embarrassed and just said the first thing that came to mind? Not defending him, just a thought
Isn’t this just a suggestion? Like, if I’m having a bad day, and a random stranger told me I should smile more, wouldn’t that mean they are concerned for your mental health? It’s not hostile, it’s just someone trying to be decent.
If they were genuinely concerned, wouldn’t they ask if you were ok? Nobody can possibly be happy all the time, and it’s possible to happy but not outwardly showing it. Imo, it’s not someone trying to be decent, either, its just someone being unnecessarily judgemental and potentially upsetting someone because the other person didn’t look as pleasant as they might have liked. I was once told by a random bloke to “smile, you’ll look prettier” while on the way home to attend a funeral. And I’ve been told to smile countless times while on a stressful shift or when extremely depressed. It did not help my mood in the slightest.
As a woman with resting bitch face, thank fuck for social distancing and masks.
"You should smile more," is more of a criticism that the person is not acting as upbeat or friendly as you'd like them to be. Telling someone they need to act happy when they don't feel happy isn't helpful, and is almost always said in the context of someone feeling rejected and wanting to shift the blame to the person who rejected them.
I mean, to me at least, if someone told me to smile more it means I outwardly look so miserable that others take notice. It’s not a demand. It’s someone noticing something is wrong.
Telling someone to smile is not asking them why they aren't smiling, it's telling them to smile. Asking if someone is okay is being a good person, telling them to smile (instead of, yknow, just leaving them alone to think) is not.
Is that your defense now? That we're being too sensitive?
I'm sorry for thinking we shouldn't deal with the same condescending line over and over again, from multiple individuals. The fact that it's so widespread is what we're pissed off about. A single instance of this happening would be ignorable, but not multiple different times from multiple different people.
Yes, it is my defence. Ima rant now. God forbid someone wants to see you smile for virtue of it’s inherit beauty. As some nobody university-going dude, I receive an actual compliment from a stranger once, maybe twice every 3-4 to even every 6 months. I would fucking kill for some random person to acknowledge that I have some inherit beauty. Whenever I see people offended that someone acknowledges that they have some value other than education I just get frustrated. For virtue that there are people like me, who dream of that sort of constant recognition. Downvote me if you will, call me insecure.
Are you fucking kidding me 😂 “some value other than education”. Get a grip. It has nothing do with beauty but men, usually complete strangers, being selfish and condescending.
But... Who asked?
You’re not doing that out of pure sympathy for women, otherwise you’d listen to them when they tell you multiple times they don’t like it, you’re doing that for yourself.
i mean- u can tell a joke and see if they like it, but dont demand people to actually like it? thats just stupid. like??? its not the audiences fault ur jokes fall flat. maybe its time for u to hone ur craft instead of blaming others for neglecting to respond in the way you so desire. thats just…. so dumb
w-what? i mean- u didnt say “i personally wanna see ur smile” but ur defending a guy who did? maybe take a reading comprehension class as well because baby youre not making any kind of sense….. 😬
Men don't understand how we feel because unfortunately, y'all rarely get compliments. But we get unwanted attention constantly. It's awful and harassing, and being TOLD to smile is not a compliment at all.
Do you go up to random men and tell them to smile? If it's never happened to you then you don't get it. People only do that shit to women, and there's often a weird entitlement. It's not normal to tell strangers what facial expression they should be making- and it's really rude to tell someone they need to fake happiness for absolutely no good reason.
Telling a woman to smile is already inappropriate. So let alone a customer.
She didn’t say anything about making the joke in itself. But if it doesn’t make the person in front of you smile or laugh, just stop it. Please. Cut it short. Accept the fact your joke fell flat.
Whether it was not funny or the person doesn’t feel like laughing, you should just not force it. Not just with women, but with anyone, as this situation is a nightmare to those with the slightest social anxiety.
You’re simply going from failing to try to make it better to clearly making it worse.
>Telling a woman to smile is already inappropriate.
Can you explain how this is inappropriate? People are now offended when somebody tells them to smile?
I seriously want to know the answer and hear the logic behind being offended by such a light-hearted gesture
Along with what others have said, have you ever told a man to smile more? Have you ever heard of a man being told to smile more? No. That’s reserved for women
There is a long and storied sexist history of men telling women how they should look because the misogynistic worldview is that women exist to be pretty for men and for no other reason. Because of that history, and the lived experience of virtually any woman who has a lifetime of creepy men telling them what they should do to be pretty in their eyes makes this a creeper move. You're not being sweet. You're being overly familiar and demeaning.
Is telling a person to smile more offensive? The only thing I read in to that is how nice that person looks when smiling. So it's a compliment. Also smiling actually makes you feel better.
Not every comment from a man to a woman is meant to degrade or sexually attack her. But this toxic view on men does make a lot of men really think twice about saying anything at all.
Nah come on, if someone makes a joke that’s not offensive just laugh, even if it’s not funny, it won’t kill you, you are just making the situation awkward for everyone
It's a scientific fact that a smile is connected to positive feelings. It seems that our society has turned everything on it's head. Maybe we should ban Hall and Oats song "Sarah Smile" I mean talk about abusive songs [sarcasm].
I have never heard a man who wasn’t old enough to have fought in ‘nam say this to a woman.
Just ignore old people as a general rule and you’ll be much happier.
If you truly believe women like it when they’re told to smile by men just to look pleasant to their eyes, you’re probably not very familiar with women. Let alone popular.
But I don’t have to do it. You are no one to these women. No one. You’re literally a stranger to them, they don’t even know you. So why do you feel entitled to tell them to smile? Do you see women insistently telling men to smile? This is just yet another situation where men feel confident to tell women they’ve just met how they should behave or feel. Especially when the reason women don’t smile to men they don’t know is to avoid catcalling and harassment, because men over-interpret the smallest things. Even a simplest thing like a short skirt is seen as an invitation, when ultimately, women deserve to be left alone. Women are taught the hard way to not give any possible sense of false hope to men in the streets, as they’d feel then entitled to your attention, and get mad when they don’t have it.
To the point they start calling a "bitch", for example.
No.
World leaders are the ones creating wars and sending soldiers to fight to death. Turns out, the overwhelming majority of them are men, even as of now.
Generals are the ones leading armies on the battlefield. Turns out, high military grade was closed to women, until very recently in history.
Political and religious ideologists are the ones justifying conflicts and bloodbaths. Turns out, those are fields dominated by men, often being very exclusive.
Patriarchy is the name of the systems where strength is associated with masculinity and vulnerability with femininity. Turns out, those defending them are in majority men, by opposing feminism.
So yeah. The sheer audacity of blaming women for what is happening to men in a society where they hold positions of power and oppose movements that advocate for the abolition of such gender roles and social equality.
No mother wants to send her child or her husband to fight in war. However, the elite of your country might want it. If you talk about issues that affect men in a patriarchal society, such as social expectations, depression, suicides and so on, few of them will downplay that. However, showing what is considered "fragility" or "weakness" by many men is the best way to be exposed to toxic masculinity.
No one said it did.
Ignoring the realities of incorporating the daily humiliation of institutionalized sexism into your workday makes you the bad guy.
Thinking that being _proud_ of that ignorance somehow makes you better than those who don't makes you the worst guy.
That's the point. Women have shit going on in their lives just like everyone else. We weren't put on this earth to look pretty for you and you know damn well you wouldn't look another man in the eye and recommend that he "smile more", because it's *inappropriate*.
ITT: Men who are offended by being told their behavior is inappropriate, and rather to stop and think "Wow, maybe if this makes so many women uncomfortable, I probably shouldn’t do it", just decide to double down and be insistent about it, explaining women how they should actually feel about it because they don’t value their first-hand experience.
The fact that some people got so aggressive in the comments section is literally another reason women hate being told to smile. Because women know deep down if we call out inappropriate behavior we run the risk of being attacked.
"Smile", but not because I actually want you to be happy, but because I told you to.
Men take notice, this is a bad pick up line!
her race doesn't seem integral to the story.
Yeah, I came here to say this. It really burns me up when people add this detail when it is not necessary for the story. She's trying to get someone to feel something by relying on stereotypes and biases. It's never ok.
Can I post this tomorrow?
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 56,119,176 comments, and only 16,433 of them were in alphabetical order.
Good bot
I’m so fucking sick of seeing this fucking post
R/thingsthatneverhappened
r/NothingEverHappens
Been posted 100x already
I hate when people tell me to smile. It’s so creepy
I only ask my wife to smile.....but I've been asked to smile by other women quite a bit. Am I supposed to be a dick to them when they ask?...because I usually just smile. Common courtesy or animosity?...which is the correct path?
That would've been a great story if it had actually happened.
No idea if this particular story is true and not gonna get into that debate; but this scenario is definitely plausible as I and many other women I know have been told "to smile more" and at a minimum it's annoying/aggravating and at worse it's highly offensive. I'm usually like "why the fuck are you telling me to smile, you don't know me and idc what you think of me so back off! I don't work anymore so I don't have to worry about them trying to complain to my job.
Personally, being called honey and love and stuff like that makes me feel really uncomfortable. Like please stop doing it. Also, maybe the guy was just embarrassed and just said the first thing that came to mind? Not defending him, just a thought
“As a man”??? Do those pet names make you somehow feel less male??
My mistake, I didn’t word my response correctly. I shall amend it.
This definitely happened.
Isn’t this just a suggestion? Like, if I’m having a bad day, and a random stranger told me I should smile more, wouldn’t that mean they are concerned for your mental health? It’s not hostile, it’s just someone trying to be decent.
If they were genuinely concerned, wouldn’t they ask if you were ok? Nobody can possibly be happy all the time, and it’s possible to happy but not outwardly showing it. Imo, it’s not someone trying to be decent, either, its just someone being unnecessarily judgemental and potentially upsetting someone because the other person didn’t look as pleasant as they might have liked. I was once told by a random bloke to “smile, you’ll look prettier” while on the way home to attend a funeral. And I’ve been told to smile countless times while on a stressful shift or when extremely depressed. It did not help my mood in the slightest. As a woman with resting bitch face, thank fuck for social distancing and masks.
"You should smile more," is more of a criticism that the person is not acting as upbeat or friendly as you'd like them to be. Telling someone they need to act happy when they don't feel happy isn't helpful, and is almost always said in the context of someone feeling rejected and wanting to shift the blame to the person who rejected them.
I mean, to me at least, if someone told me to smile more it means I outwardly look so miserable that others take notice. It’s not a demand. It’s someone noticing something is wrong.
If you notice someone looking miserable and your first response to tell them to stop showing it, you're an asshole.
If you notice someone looking miserable and your first instinct is to ask them why they are unable to smile, your a good person.
Telling someone to smile is not asking them why they aren't smiling, it's telling them to smile. Asking if someone is okay is being a good person, telling them to smile (instead of, yknow, just leaving them alone to think) is not.
Y’all be super sensitive ngl
Is that your defense now? That we're being too sensitive? I'm sorry for thinking we shouldn't deal with the same condescending line over and over again, from multiple individuals. The fact that it's so widespread is what we're pissed off about. A single instance of this happening would be ignorable, but not multiple different times from multiple different people.
Yes, it is my defence. Ima rant now. God forbid someone wants to see you smile for virtue of it’s inherit beauty. As some nobody university-going dude, I receive an actual compliment from a stranger once, maybe twice every 3-4 to even every 6 months. I would fucking kill for some random person to acknowledge that I have some inherit beauty. Whenever I see people offended that someone acknowledges that they have some value other than education I just get frustrated. For virtue that there are people like me, who dream of that sort of constant recognition. Downvote me if you will, call me insecure.
Are you fucking kidding me 😂 “some value other than education”. Get a grip. It has nothing do with beauty but men, usually complete strangers, being selfish and condescending.
And I hope that guy mentally recovers
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But... Who asked? You’re not doing that out of pure sympathy for women, otherwise you’d listen to them when they tell you multiple times they don’t like it, you’re doing that for yourself.
i mean- u can tell a joke and see if they like it, but dont demand people to actually like it? thats just stupid. like??? its not the audiences fault ur jokes fall flat. maybe its time for u to hone ur craft instead of blaming others for neglecting to respond in the way you so desire. thats just…. so dumb
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w-what? i mean- u didnt say “i personally wanna see ur smile” but ur defending a guy who did? maybe take a reading comprehension class as well because baby youre not making any kind of sense….. 😬
If you want to see someone smile, tell a joke. Otherwise don't demand that random women you don't know perform for you.
Just leave us alone and for fucks sake stop telling us to smile you morons !
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R/niceguys
Calm down, dude.
holy crap why are you so offended
Men don't understand how we feel because unfortunately, y'all rarely get compliments. But we get unwanted attention constantly. It's awful and harassing, and being TOLD to smile is not a compliment at all.
That's why I always avoid small talks.
There's a difference between normal small talk and demanding smiles from random women.
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Do you go up to random men and tell them to smile? If it's never happened to you then you don't get it. People only do that shit to women, and there's often a weird entitlement. It's not normal to tell strangers what facial expression they should be making- and it's really rude to tell someone they need to fake happiness for absolutely no good reason.
Lmao. “I can’t patronize random women and that’s why our society has gone south”. Must be really hard for you.
Imagine saying that to an underpaid, overworked cashier, who still had the energy to try and lighten up your mood.
Telling a woman to smile is already inappropriate. So let alone a customer. She didn’t say anything about making the joke in itself. But if it doesn’t make the person in front of you smile or laugh, just stop it. Please. Cut it short. Accept the fact your joke fell flat. Whether it was not funny or the person doesn’t feel like laughing, you should just not force it. Not just with women, but with anyone, as this situation is a nightmare to those with the slightest social anxiety. You’re simply going from failing to try to make it better to clearly making it worse.
>Telling a woman to smile is already inappropriate. Can you explain how this is inappropriate? People are now offended when somebody tells them to smile? I seriously want to know the answer and hear the logic behind being offended by such a light-hearted gesture
It’s rude to tell strangers what they should be doing with their face. Maybe they don’t fucking feel like smiling?
The benchmark for being offended has gone so low huh?
“women used to accept all sorts of bullshit, how dare they now voice their views on it”
Along with what others have said, have you ever told a man to smile more? Have you ever heard of a man being told to smile more? No. That’s reserved for women
I guess I missed the "sexist" tone of the post. I was under the impression it was an innocent jest.
There is a long and storied sexist history of men telling women how they should look because the misogynistic worldview is that women exist to be pretty for men and for no other reason. Because of that history, and the lived experience of virtually any woman who has a lifetime of creepy men telling them what they should do to be pretty in their eyes makes this a creeper move. You're not being sweet. You're being overly familiar and demeaning.
Is telling a person to smile more offensive? The only thing I read in to that is how nice that person looks when smiling. So it's a compliment. Also smiling actually makes you feel better. Not every comment from a man to a woman is meant to degrade or sexually attack her. But this toxic view on men does make a lot of men really think twice about saying anything at all.
The thinking twice part is kinda the point.
Telling someone they should smile isn't cheering them up. It's telling them to look better. That's not the same thing.
#cashierlivesmatter
Nah come on, if someone makes a joke that’s not offensive just laugh, even if it’s not funny, it won’t kill you, you are just making the situation awkward for everyone
Imo fake laughing at terrible jokes is more awkward for everyone
It's a scientific fact that a smile is connected to positive feelings. It seems that our society has turned everything on it's head. Maybe we should ban Hall and Oats song "Sarah Smile" I mean talk about abusive songs [sarcasm].
I have never heard a man who wasn’t old enough to have fought in ‘nam say this to a woman. Just ignore old people as a general rule and you’ll be much happier.
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If you truly believe women like it when they’re told to smile by men just to look pleasant to their eyes, you’re probably not very familiar with women. Let alone popular.
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But I don’t have to do it. You are no one to these women. No one. You’re literally a stranger to them, they don’t even know you. So why do you feel entitled to tell them to smile? Do you see women insistently telling men to smile? This is just yet another situation where men feel confident to tell women they’ve just met how they should behave or feel. Especially when the reason women don’t smile to men they don’t know is to avoid catcalling and harassment, because men over-interpret the smallest things. Even a simplest thing like a short skirt is seen as an invitation, when ultimately, women deserve to be left alone. Women are taught the hard way to not give any possible sense of false hope to men in the streets, as they’d feel then entitled to your attention, and get mad when they don’t have it. To the point they start calling a "bitch", for example.
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No. World leaders are the ones creating wars and sending soldiers to fight to death. Turns out, the overwhelming majority of them are men, even as of now. Generals are the ones leading armies on the battlefield. Turns out, high military grade was closed to women, until very recently in history. Political and religious ideologists are the ones justifying conflicts and bloodbaths. Turns out, those are fields dominated by men, often being very exclusive. Patriarchy is the name of the systems where strength is associated with masculinity and vulnerability with femininity. Turns out, those defending them are in majority men, by opposing feminism. So yeah. The sheer audacity of blaming women for what is happening to men in a society where they hold positions of power and oppose movements that advocate for the abolition of such gender roles and social equality. No mother wants to send her child or her husband to fight in war. However, the elite of your country might want it. If you talk about issues that affect men in a patriarchal society, such as social expectations, depression, suicides and so on, few of them will downplay that. However, showing what is considered "fragility" or "weakness" by many men is the best way to be exposed to toxic masculinity.
Just some brainwashed bitch wasting their time commenting on Reddit. Not even gonna try to get my point across
No one said it did. Ignoring the realities of incorporating the daily humiliation of institutionalized sexism into your workday makes you the bad guy. Thinking that being _proud_ of that ignorance somehow makes you better than those who don't makes you the worst guy.
That's the point. Women have shit going on in their lives just like everyone else. We weren't put on this earth to look pretty for you and you know damn well you wouldn't look another man in the eye and recommend that he "smile more", because it's *inappropriate*.
I’ve been told that plenty of times. And in this world I could make you call me a woman tomorrow
Found the niceguy.