Recently, a coworker of mine told me I needed to smile more. I’m a lifeguard so I have a lot of time to sit and think, and I guess I hadn’t been told this in a while, but it sent me into a whirlwind of grade school memories. Teachers would ask, “Sweetie are you okay? You look sad." 99% of the time I was perfectly content; I was a happy child. Eventually I reached high school where my smile–or lack thereof, dubbed me as a victim of RBF (resting bitch face). I found myself thinking “Do I look mean?”, “Am I unapproachable?” As a shy girl already, this kind of messed with me. I didn’t really have great self esteem to begin with, though I’d argue there are few and far high schoolers that do. I didn’t want people to be afraid to come up and talk to me, and mulling over all of this in my head probably only made the situation worse. My face is just my face and the RBF is probably genetic (thanks mom), but I don’t doubt I often displayed a worried face too, thinking about all of this RBF nonsense. When my coworker recently said this to me, it did throw me back a little, but really it was just an unnecessary little comment. I didn’t let it make me TOO crazy this time. It’s easier said than done, but my advice to fellow RBFs would be not to take these people seriously. Wear your scowl with pride. Why waste time worrying about your face when you could just live contently as you probably were to begin with? Smiling gives you wrinkles anyway.
