Eva Aurora: Indiscriminate Smiler

I am a smiler. I smile at people. I smile indiscriminately at people. I've been an indiscriminate smiler for as long as I remember, but I made a conscious effort to smile at people for a reaction during my LDS mission in England. People in England are not indiscriminate smilers. In fact, they can be very conservative about doling out smiles to strangers, and sometimes in that often gray and rainy country, I just wanted someone to smile back at me. I took a liking to that infrequent and startled genuine smile some fellow pedestrians or mass transit users would flash back at me -- a woman with small children, an old man in somber black shoes and fedora, a college student caught up in his internal thoughts. I smiled then and now at men, women, and children. Especially children. Who can't smile and make funny faces at a baby sitting in a grocery store cart? What greater reward than that sudden, explosively honest grin of an innocent toddler? Extra points for a giggle.

Occasionally, my habit as an indiscriminate smiler gets me into trouble. For example, one evening I walked into my local Walmart to grab a few groceries. On my way through the entry, a Walmart employee, whom I have seen several times stocking shelves and who has smiled and acted as if he knows me (though I have tried and failed to remember ever having any conversation with him at all) happened to be walking toward me. I smiled at him, as I always do, in what I -- perhaps, erroneously -- imagined was a neutrally friendly way, and he walked right up to me and said, "Hey, beautiful. I'm going on break right now, but maybe after that I'll see you around here." Then he walked off.

Say what?

He said it so quietly I almost didn't hear him, and he didn't say it suggestively. It was like we were continuing a conversation we'd had earlier, as if we were familiar. Except I've never talked to him. I have certainly never winked at him.

I'm not used to being hit on as a woman of nearly a certain age with six kids and some stubborn baby and pizza weight to lose, so I freaked out a little bit. I forgot half the things I went in to get because I was suddenly very anxious to leave. I waited in a busy line that was surrounded by tall shelves of impulse buys rather than the more visible express lane, and I left through the opposite exit, walking through the parked cars in the lot instead of taking a straight shot to where my car was parked. It wasn't that I felt threatened by his demeanor. I just felt really, really stupid.

I told Husband about it later, thinking he would laugh. Oddly enough, he seemed a little upset at first, but that may have been because I went for the "exaggerated for grand effect" approach by starting off with, "So, it seems I'm dating someone at Walmart." I got the "What does that mean?!" without an accompanying "laugh of disbelief awaiting the inevitably humorous explanation." I told him what had happened and how stupid I felt about it.

He said, "Well, you do smile in a friendly way at men."
"But I smile at women, too!" I said.
"Yes," he answered. "But the men don't know that."

The reason I've cultivated an attitude of indiscriminate smiling is two-fold: I genuinely enjoy getting a smile back, and in the back of my mind, I'm making mental notes all the time about who is more likely to smile at a stranger. I had a friend in high school who once said to me with some exasperation, "You're always conducting an experiment, aren't you?" He was right, though I only conduct my silly little social experiments in a very benign sense.

Do you want to know the results of this years-long, unscientific study? It's harder to make eye contact with women (probably because I am a woman and therefore subconsciously uninteresting and non-threatening to other women), but when they do make eye contact, they are quick to smile back, although if they're very preoccupied, they'll only acknowledge your smile with a little forehead twitch while they're thinking about something else. Men are generally a little startled by eye contact and a smile but they almost always smile back. It's a cultural thing, too. Americans are simply more likely to smile or grin frequently, which makes us seem like superficial idiots to people from cultures where smiling is reserved for special occasions. In some cultures I frequently come across, eye contact and a smile is obviously considered a come-on from a woman, and I'm always forgetting that in my indiscriminate smiling habit. This may be where my troubles at Walmart lie.

Children of all cultures smile readily, up to a certain age, where the strong heritage of their parents begins exerting influence.

Husband eventually saw the humor in my dilemma, and I have decided to be more circumspect in my smiling habits. It will take a lot of constant inner dialogue to break that habit, but while I may not smile indiscriminately, I will still smile.

Neutrally Friendly? Or Just Too Friendly?