being asked to smile?

[pastwatcher]

I don't smile a lot, naturally, and occasionally strangers will cajole me to smile. This happens in stores, at gas stations or bus stops and other such places where I'm not actually meeting a person. I used to favor them with cold glares or looks of puzzlement, as it felt quite intrusive, but these days I might laugh briefly. I thought this was friendliness or a criticism of my lack of sufficient politeness. But after reading a recent post I wonder if this is sexist behavior. I honestly can't remember whether it came mostly from men, though it generally has been from people obviously older than myself.

So, is it? Care to jot down a quick comment of
1) whether/how much you've been asked to smile by strangers and
2) what gender you present?

It'd be fun going around telling people to smile, though it's California where they do so freakishly often. This merits further investigation. Then again, so does my math homework.

Comments

[pastwatcher]

"but then my ideas of what constitutes an intrusion are, um, abnormally stringent."

Hmph. While this is probably literally true, I think that you're using "abnormal" with a negative connotation here that it does not deserve. That is, you may set wider boundaries than many, but it seems obvious to me that they rarely demand more than basic respect should make the default. (The question of when/how to lower boundaries with familiarity is different.)

[midnight-sidhe.livejournal.com]

This is actually a major issue of mine: people seem to have this idea that their right to violate one's boundaries takes precedence over one's right not to feel violated. I don't understand their reasoning, but it's something I've encountered a lot over the years.

[silkspinner.livejournal.com]

"Abnormal" in this case being shorthand for "idiosyncratic preference having relatively little to do with prevailing standards of decency, and likely to make a lot of people sad if implemented as social code."

But that is neither here nor there. I think you're right about the smiling, I just felt compelled to add the caveat.