Week Three Walk Two

I did this experiment yesterday but it's taken me a while to think about what to say about it.

I decided to SMILE all day, with people I would actually show my teeth and wandering around I would keep a slight smile on my lips or a broad smile, depending on what I felt like.

People always tell me that I am hard to read or that I don't smile a lot. In fact, a boy I had a crush on at school wrote me a Christmas card one year that has 'you should smile more!' written inside. I've always been shy and never been good at showing emotions, I could say that's a product of being the youngest of five children but that situation is just as likely to make one extroverted.

I wondered if smiling all day would make me feel happy, even when I wasn't but really it made me feel strained, like I was lying about something. I have a friend who's lived in France for a long time (she's an American) and she said that when she first moved there she would smile at everyone, say 'thank you' and 'have a nice day' to people she met until one day her partner (who is French) sat her down and explained the puzzled looks she'd been getting. In France they don't understand why you say something you don't truly mean, it's an empty phrase and they have no time for it. Similarly, why are you smiling at people you don't truly know, they aren't your friends and they don't expect it.

I noticed that when you smile broadly at people they tend to smile back at you, which can be pleasant but also awkward, perhaps as if you're now expected to strike up a conversation. I went about my normal daily activities while I was smiling and browsed in a few shops I don't usually go into that often. Clerks always ask you if you need help and if you're smiling broadly when you say no they look sated, which is an odd reaction.

While I was smiling I remembered when I used to walk home from school alone. I started to be allowed to walk home alone when I was around 13 and as I walked home at the same time everyday I would pass several older people on their way back from the supermarket. I would smile at them but never say a word. Every day for years just smiling at the people I passed as I walked home from school. They nearly always smiled back. I have no idea why I smiled at strangers like this except that probably my Nana told me it was good manners at some point and as the people I passed were about her age I wanted to please them.

It was an interesting experiment but I don't feel any different after it, I think if I was less timid then I would try to strike up conversations with strangers but the thought of doing that makes me feel a little bit sick. I think that's probably a good reason to challenge myself to it.