Something amazing happened earlier…
I was sat innocently minding my own business, sipping on a flat white with oat milk (save the cows), when a guy walked past, noticed me, and told me to “smile, it might never happen”.
I couldn’t believe it.
What a great piece of advice!
I’d never fully thought to do this before.
His advice inspired me towards a full on toothy grin and now I’m truly livin’ ma best lyf.
Jokes aside, we’ve all been there. 88% of you to be precise, and our Instagram poll is definitely 100% scientifically valid. Whether it’s a guy telling you that you “look prettier when you smile” or to “cheer up luv”, or the classic “you’re too pretty not to smile” (does that mean we’re ugly when we don’t smile???), this is a thing and it needs talking about, luckily for you we’re here to do just that.
Now, we reckon that in most cases, these comments aren’t meant in a sinister way and are, at least on a conscious level, meant harmlessly, but does that make it okay? Nope, absolutely not. The thing is, Brad, even though you say you mean well, it creeps us the fuck out! Here’s why. We know that your innocent little “give us a smile, love” taunt is how you plan to get your foot in the door to engage us into an unwanted conversation. Stop that, it’s invasive and just plain rude. After all, you never hear of men asking fellow men to smile, do ya?
But why do men tell women to smile?
Who knows. We even looked into it for ya but sadly, there’s practically no research on it. We did, however, come across countless pieces on female hysteria, classic. So, we did some of our own digging, totally legit btw… We found:
- That 78% of men thought that when they told a woman to smile, it was inevitable sex would follow.
- Only 4% of women actually know how to smile.
But seriously, there are a couple of reasons why we think that men think this is acceptable.
It’s defo got something to do with the years of cultural dominance they’ve enjoyed across all aspects of society, women live and breathe to exist for the male gaze didn’t you know?
Orrr, perhaps it’s cos some men think they have the right to control women’s bodies, just grab us by the pussy mate. Your guess is as good as ours.
Until we get some decent research, let’s just go with the following rule:
If we want to smile, we’ll smile. If we want to smile at you, we’ll smile at you. If you have to ask us to smile, well, I’m sorry Brad, but we just aren’t interested.