Today someone told me that I should smile more. This is common. Super common. I would say I hear it at least once a day. It's no secret that I'm not....bubbly. I find that pushing fake smiles out is incredibly uncomfortable for me. However, I am not an unhappy person. I am indifferent, but not unhappy. My persona is best described as "dead pan", "bored", "bitchy", "unimpressed". That isn't exactly my aim though. My aim is to look uninviting. Here is the reason why:
Between the seventh and eighth grade my boobs grew quickly and overbearingly. And you can ask my mother (who still believes I might be a lesbian because of these teen year fashions) and she'll tell you I immediately began wearing baggy, anti-feminine clothing and I developed a tremendous slouch in my posture. I was already a shy person and this new flashing billboard attached to my chest was completely stifling and unwelcome. I got teased. Most girls invented rumors that I stuffed my bra while most boys dared each other to accidentally bump into them or try to get paper wads to land between them. I didn't like this attention. Even good attention felt invasive to me. By the time I got to college I had moved away and made friends with girls who were very pretty and liked that they were pretty. I envied them so much. They let me borrow their clothes frequently and for a short time I began to feel proud of my figure. A SHORT time. I had a job at a gas station for a few years. In that gas station I met a thousand people a day, most of which never ever looked me in the eyes. I commonly refer to my boobs as being "comically big" because they don't even look they belong on my body. Being that I feel like a freak of nature, I equated people looking at them to people making fun of me in their heads. I began to avoid eye contact. I got a lot of unwanted attention from men during those years and I discovered that being polite was a no no.
So, I stopped smiling. I developed a habit of never looking at people and keeping an uninterested and vacant glare at all times. There aren't many things in this world that make me as uncomfortable as knowing that a stranger is staring at me. But please don't read this as "I'm so attractive and awesome that if I smile I'll have to fight off all the men!" That couldn't be further from how I really feel about myself. I've just been instilled with this painfully insecure shyness. I can feel myself blushing if someone even looks at me for too long. It's not always a good kind of blushing either. Sometimes it's a panic. Now I'm older and not as attractive as I once was, but it's too late. My personality is ingrained. So although I don't believe I should have to worry about people looking at me like they're starving and I'm a steak, I cannot act differently than I always have. I can only smile with people I am very close with and trust on some level. If I seem uninviting to you, it doesn't mean that I dislike you. I just don't know you yet.
