Smiling For Free

IN RUSSIA, people smile at friends and family, but never at strangers. To smile at a stranger indicates insecurity, ill intent, derision, or who knows what else, maybe something that might be far, far worse. Like native Americans, Russians avoid eye contact, especially with, you guessed it, strangers. In America, we make eye contact during conversation, except at Hooter's, and the failure to look someone in the eye can be considered rude. Now that you know all that, good luck in both Russia and America. Americans are famous, apparently, for smiling a lot, and are considered friendly, if a bit arrogant, self absorbed, rude, and Philistinic. Can't win 'em all. It seems to me that Americans do indeed smile often, on one condition. An American will smile at you if you smile first. Heaven forbid that an American should smile the first smile; that is tantamount to giving away something valuable for free, without knowing whether it will be repaid. In the absence of a first smile, American men, especially working class members, move their heads up and down about a quarter inch, and freeze their mouths into a straight line, a scant acknowledgment, a sure sign of strength. American women tend to avoid eye contact with men they don't know, and tend to either not smile at all or to do so superficially, formally. Since about one out of four American women has been sexually assaulted, no wonder. I smile a lot, as I get older. This is important to my social life. We have three basic choices concerning what to do with our faces. We can smile, we can frown, or we can do nothing, relaxing all our facial muscles. Positive, negative, indifferent. My face is so constructed that when I do nothing, I look mean, and appear to be scowling menacingly, and people who don't know me tend to assume that I am mean, angry, or both. Their response is always the same: they mirror my facial expression, tit for tat. he's mean, so, by damn, I'm gonna be mean right back. They turn their would have been smiles into mean, angry looks, or looks which convey puzzlement, as if to say; "what on earth is this guy so damned mad about.!" My neutral face is indeed not an indication of my state of mind, but who can tell? So, if I want a smile, I had damned well better throw one out first. This leads me to convey an endless succession of insincere smiles, smiles that take the place of ostensible meanness, and it inspire me to ask: "why must I incessantly hand out insincere smiles to avoid being reprimanded with a scowl? Well, I mustn't. All I need do is to make damned sure that when I smile to avoid a scowl, that I really, truly mean it.