I was amazed at how I ugly I look when I frown or when I’m in a bad mood. I was riding the c-train this morning and caught my reflection in the glass of the window in front of me. I had the ugliest mug. It’s not one you would really want to meet up with in a back alley (or any other place for that matter). My eyes were droopy, my mouth was down turned, and my brow was furrowed into something resembling a scowl. Woof. I was not a pleasant site to look at. I couldn’t help but think that I didn’t look very friendly at all. I’m sure I was given a little more breathing room if only for the fact that no one wanted to poke the angry bear so to speak.
When I saw this face staring back at me, I realized that I didn’t want to go through life being the guy that everyone avoided because he looked so damn ugly and just plain mean. There is a saying, – you know the one… it takes more muscles to frown than to smile – well I don’t think it has any correlation to effort. Maybe it takes more muscles to frown but I think it is easier to do – so I was actually comfortable in my scowl. I don’t think it took any energy at all to be grumpy. It just sort of fed itself. It took a lot of effort to force myself to smile. It was a state of being that I didn’t feel inside and I felt really goofy there standing in front of a bunch of strangers, looking at my reflection in the window, forcing my lips to turn up instead of down. I don’t know if you watch friends at all, but there is an episode where Chandler and Monica go to get a portrait done, and when Chandler smiles, it looks like it is forced. Well when I looked at my smile in the window it appeared to me like Chandler was smiling back.
I was tempted to quit right there, but when I did, I saw the angry bear staring back at me. The smile might look forced, but it looked a helluva lot better than my grumpy face. So I continued to smile back at myself, refining the edges and smoothing out the crooked parts. Before you know it, I was looking 10 times better.
Then something truly amazing happened. The doors to the train opened, a couple folks got off, and some more folks got in. Wait, that’s not the amazing part. I’m getting to that. After the doors closed again, I found myself in a new spot. I no longer had my window reflection to look at anymore. I was still forcing the smile but I now presented it to someone other than myself. I looked up and there was this really good looking brunette facing me. And guess what? Yup, she was smiling back at me. As soon as I caught her eye, she turned her head – still smiling. Ok… that was the amazing part in case you needed a hint. I don’t know if my smile was so goofy that she was holding back a laugh, but to me it looked like she was smiling at me and was a little shy.
Funny, only moments before it took a whole lot of energy to force myself to smile, but now it seemed effortless. I was smiling because it felt good. I was smiling because I didn’t want her to stop smiling at me. I was smiling and it was feeding itself. Now it was tough to get myself to stop smiling (which I had no desire to do). Amazing how the smile of a pretty girl can change your insides and make you feel so incredible. For the record, she was very pretty.
With a great deal of confidence I can say that if I had been showing her my grumpy face, there would have been no way she would have been smiling at me with any kind of interest. I was definitely much better looking when I was smiling. I think it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that people are generally attracted to those that are in a good mood. If you are interested in meeting someone, a smile makes them feel comfortable and makes you seem approachable. Just like a moth is attracted to the light, people are attracted to those that smile. I believe that people that smile are just like that light and others are drawn to them because of this. I think I’m going to try to make a definite effort to keep smiling. If nothing else, it makes me feel good to do it. I want to be that guy that everyone says is the one that is fun to be with because he’s always smiling.
So what happened with the girl? Well she might have been listening to a comedy clip on her mp3 player, or smiling at the guy behind me. I didn’t really care to tell you the truth. I was enjoying her gaze without trying to analyze it too much. We both got off at the center street platform, turned and went in different directions and I’ll probably never see her again. Still, it gave me something to write about in my blog this morning and who knows - maybe I will bump into her again – after all we ride the same train to work at the same time in the morning. :-)
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