People, I know a lot of you think telling someone to “smile more” is a compliment (I.e. “You have a lovely smile and I enjoy seeing it”) but it’s not.

What you’re effectively saying is “I want you to look, feel and express those feelings in a way that makes me comfortable”.

I know this happens to women a lot. It also happens a lot to me. People feel we owe them a certain aesthetic or a specific response to them. But we don’t .

We have our reasons for not having big grins (or even little smiles) in every photo and at every moment we’re in public

Maybe we have a naturally serious “resting face”.
Maybe we hate how we look with a big grin.
Maybe we have dental issues we want to hide.
Maybe we’ve been negatively judged on our smiles before.
Maybe we just aren’t happy in that moment.

And maybe we don’t have any particular reason for how we look in any given moment and we don’t need to provide one.

If you like big smiles then by all means, let your own shine.

I’ll choose when, how and with whom to share mine.