So the other day I went through a drive through, and the dude at the window told me to "smile". He didn't smile. It didn't sound particularly polite, not that the tone was particularly rude either. Honestly, I was confused. I didn't know how to take it. It wasn't a compliment, but was it an insult? Then the other day in Target, a similar thing happened. I was in line and the female cashier was doing her job. The line wasn't short, but she was greeting customers and doing her job well enough to be pretty quick and efficient, id say. A male cashier stopped what he was doing, came over to her, interrupted her work and told her to smile. Then he told me to smile. Again, not in a pleasant tone. This was definitely not a compliment. In fact, it sounded like an order. And honestly, why should I be smiling? Nothing was going on. In fact, I was in a lot of pain (
pregnancy related back pain, no big deal, but still a lot of pain). He looked at the person behind me (a male- also definitely not smiling) and looked back to me. I still wasn't smiling. He looked as if he was going to repeat himself, so before I could, I asked him if he was going to tell the man behind me to smile as well. He was legitimately shocked. I'm not sure if it was because of the question, or that I didn't follow his command and dared to say something about it. I then gave him a reason why I wasn't smiling and added that because he's now holding up two lines for nothing other than to command two women to smile, the people in the lines (male or female) weren't likely to smile either. I'm not sure why this bothered me so much. Or why it still does. But you know what? People aren't obligated to plaster fake smiles on their faces 24/7, and they definitely shouldn't be ordered to do so. You never know what someone is thinking or facing. I swear, I have no idea why people would randomly demand a smile from a stranger, rather than try to put one on a stranger. You want me to smile? Talk to me. Say something nice. Don't order me to do it. Better yet, mind your own business and (literally) stay in your own lane. I'm a relatively bubbly and smiley person by nature. If I'm not smiling, I'm entitled to that. I'm a woman, which means I am a human being entitled to a full range of complicated emotion. So what are your thoughts?
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