I'm in a bad mood.
The truth is, I am rarely in a bad mood. I might snark out on a regular basis, and my sense of humor lands somewhere between wry and dry, but I don't generally do bad moods.
Today, however, I am in a bad mood.
Yesterday and today have been very irritating days, the kind of day where every little thing goes wrong, and every task takes twice as long and everyone wants everything and nobody can help. The weather isn't helping, either. Sudden weather shifts give me migraines and make my joints scream. Oh, and I didn't really sleep last night.
So, to recap, I'm tired, I'm in hideous pain and I'm just fucking annoyed about everything. I'm being as pleasant as I can be, but quite frankly, I want to slap you. All of you. I want to slap everyone in the entire world. (This will take some time, so please wait patiently.)
I am in a bad mood.
You know what makes my bad mood worse? Being told to smile. Look, I don't exist to please you, okay? I'm sorry my neutral lips make you sad, but fuck off. Please, please, please stop requesting that I smile. My emotions are not yours, not a reflection of you, not about you. Yeah, that's right, I'm not all about you. Shocking, I'm sure, but you'll get over it.
I don't owe you a smile, now back the fuck off before shit gets real*.
*I have no idea what that means. I'm old.
*hug*
ReplyDelete:)
BRAVE Failquail....!
ReplyDeleteAlso, PF? This should be one of the "When I'm EotEFW" rules: You may not EVER tell someone else to smile, upon penalty of smacking.
I fucking hate that- complete strangers (usually men) who demand a smile from me. WTF?
ReplyDeleteNo really Random Dude, I am here to please YOU!
I second waltzinexile's suggestion, but I recommend sending zombie velociraptors after repeat offenders. (I'd be happy to loan you some for that purpose.)
ReplyDeleteI'm a lot smilier these days than I used to be (I'm in much more of a customer service environment, all the time) but I absolutely hate being told to smile. On a good day, I take the tips of my index fingers and use them to push the corners of my mouth up. On a bad day, I show as many teeth as possible in my best speak-again-and-I-will-bite-you expression.
Apparently my default no-particular-expression comes across as a frown: sad, angry, or mean, depending on the observer.
Zombie velociraptors? You, sir, are a genius!
ReplyDeletePeople who do that need to be slapped.
ReplyDeleteThey have no possible way of knowing what is going on in your life. Your parents could have just died in a horrible car accident just after you found out you have terminal Cancer and your dog got run over by a car. There are lot of times where one simply cannot help one's emotions. No degree of attitude adjustment is going to help. Sometimes people have bad days. Why the hell do they have to pretend they are not? If I'm not happy, I'm not capable of pretending that I am. A smile when I'm unhappy looks totally forced.
Why do people do this and why don't they realize that they are being an ass?
Why do people do this and why don't they realize that they are being an ass?
ReplyDeleteMy general theory is that there's a continuum between vacuous altruism and complete self-absorption.
On one end you have the vacuous altruist. That's the person who genuinely believes that if you smile, you'll become happy. Perhaps they, themselves, actually feel better when they smile. So they see someone who is unhappy and say, "Smile, you'll feel better," because they genuinely believe that to be the case.
On the other end you have the self-absorbed moron. This person simply does not want to be bothered with the idea that there could be people having a bad day. Because if someone is having a bad day that might, somehow, negatively influence their own plans. So they see someone who is unhappy and say, "Smile, you'll feel better," because they don't want to help and they don't want to think about helping.
This, of course, doesn't mean that Person A can't be self-absorbed. It doesn't mean that Person B can't be a vacuous moron. It's why I say it's a continuum...
PF, I'd say what you've just described sums about 2/3rds of my life (and unfortunately, I'm serious about that).
ReplyDeleteSo believe me, I feel your pain. Literally, figuratively, empathetically, and everywhere in between.
PF, I'd say what you've just described sums about 2/3rds of my life (and unfortunately, I'm serious about that).
ReplyDeleteOddly, a few vacuous members of the female gender that are mutual former acquaintances of ours kinda-sorta form one end of my little continuum. And, in fact, I believe it was an exchange between you and a certain individual with an alphabet soup of a last name that started to cause me to think, "Wait, this whole idea is stupid. Why do people say that?"
I recommend sending zombie velociraptors after repeat offenders. (I'd be happy to loan you some for that purpose.)
ReplyDeleteOkay, are we talking Jurrasic-Park-style zombie velociraptors, or turkey-sized feathered zombie velociraptors?
The first would admittedly be scarier, and probably more capable of hunting down offenders on their own, but there's something immensely satisfying about the idea of setting a pack of vicious turkey zombies on someone.
On one end you have the vacuous altruist. That's the person who genuinely believes that if you smile, you'll become happy.
There is actually some scientific support for this hypothesis: namely, because you almost invariably smile at the happiest times in your life, your brain becomes trained to associate smiling with feeling good. Thus, pulling your face into a smile can force a small release of endorphins.
Nevertheless, I find it extremely odd that people would tell/ask you to smile. I don't think I've ever had that happen in my life. Cultural differences, I guess.
I sympathise, PF. Here's an ISM to help you feel better.
Geds,
ReplyDeleteProof that we share a brain: that was the incident I immediately thought of while reading this post aswell
I was thinking of Jurassic Park, but I could go either way. Hell, zombified turkeys would pretty scary in their own right: they will quite literally peck your brains out.
ReplyDeleteI hate to tell you but it's possible that the "just smile" advice might actually help. Rather annoyingly, scientists have found that imitating an expression (like smiling when you don't feel like it) can actually bring about the feelings associated with the expression.
ReplyDeleteNo, seriously.
http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/2/122.abstract
The first sentence of the abstract reads:
"Intentionally adopting a discrete emotional facial expression can modulate the subjective feelings corresponding to that emotion; however, the underlying neural mechanism is poorly understood."
That said, I'm definitely not going to tell you to smile because I might get punched well before the onset of positive emotions might protect me.
I do hope you feel better though you fucking grump.
Hugs,
Super J.