meirl

ecf-3697525743

I've endured the male equivalent of this my whole life.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Why?"

"You look angry."

"This is just my face!"

That's not really a male thing, nor is your example an equivalent. All sexes can get the angry face comment because people misinterpret others expressions wrong all the time. Not everyone is lucky enough to have resting beauty face. Heck just yesterday I was literally told by a nationally renowned dentist that my "small polite smile" would in fact labelled a grimace.. oof.

There is usually a sexual connotation in being told to smile (to look prettier to the viewers), while being asked if something is wrong generally doesn't have the same sexual undertones/motivations. The equivalent to the post would literally be a woman getting catcalled/told to smile and them thinking about escape routes. The difference in the gender swap is when the guy hears the smile comment they move on thinking about smiling (as shown by your comment), while the lady hears the smile comment and wonders if she's in an unsafe situation that could possibly end their life.

Don't get me wrong, both situations are awkward and uncomfortable to be in/navigate. Both put the onus the person hearing it to engage their defenses as to dispell/appease the accusations. And while both deal with fear, it really is just the power dynamics and inherent sexual nature that makes for entirely different interactions/outcomes.

(I say woman/man but the scenario still stands when women= any person smaller or weaker and man= any person with an inherent power/advantage over another. So if a big guy did the same to a weaker guy, the scene plays out the same as a powerful lady and the frail lady, or a strong lady and smaller guy.)
- Here we go, someone mentions how an issue affects men and it's instantly shut down with "well women have it worse".
Ahhh my gf keeps asking me if I'm fine. I guess I just have a resting sad face or something.
I get it at least once a week when at work.

It was pretty funny when women thought "how would you feel if" would work in this case. They clearly didn't know how starved of positive attention men are.

Yeah, no one has ever told me that I had a beautiful smile and that I should smile more... I never get compliments and very rarely get any appreciation. I helped a friend of a friend fix electrical issues saving him thousands that he didn't have? Just a generic "thanks." The guy offered to feed me because his wife was getting chinese but his wife didn't get me any and they just ate their food while I worked.
- Where I live 12 beers or a bottle of vodka is the standard payment
positive attention

So starved of positive attention that you mistake creepy demands for compliments?
- you look cute
  
  Definitely a compliment
  
  you should smile more
  
  Dunno what the intention was, I read it as "you look cute when you smile" but could be "you would look (even) cuter if you smiled". If it's either of those, that's going to my compliment book.
  
  And yes, men are famine level starved of positive attention. So this "creepy demand" (demand??) defintely would count for me.

A lady told me I have nice eyes once. That was 20+ years ago and I’ve never forgotten that shit.

I had the same thing happen while I was working as a cashier. Turns out she was actually scamming me, they used footage of it happening to train new people.
- Big oof
Same. She just kept staring into my eyes. In fact I think I was told the same thing by 3 different girls.
- Same. I was at an eye hospital and they wouldn't stop staring.

It's about it happening to you once every 10 years or once an hour.

Once an hour sounds awesome but I suppose a person dying of thirst would think that a person drowning was having a great time.

I have never had a woman hit on me, but a gay man did once and the memory of that warms my heart. (I'm not gay.)
- But does your now husband know?
- person dying of thirst would think that a person drowning was having a great time.
  
  This happens in Dune. Paul explains the concept of swimming to his gf and she says he's making stuff up.
This post is discussing flirts per hour
Getting complimented once every ten years sounds awesome. It’s hard to even imagine once an hour
- This isn't a compliment.

Imagine getting a compliment as a man lmao 🤣, shit be wild yo

Men die of thirst in a desert, women die of thirst in an ocean
- This here ^ is the full context.
  
  Before doing bar-back work getting a hit on by a woman who I didn't find attractive was still a nice confidence boost because it only happened rarely.
  
  But doing bar-back work clearing away glasses from tables and wiping them down I got hit on so much by drunken women in bachelorette party after bachelorette party that it became really uncomfortable. Then came the inappropriate touching. That was not fun.
  
  Before that job I had heard what women experience on a night out and had only seen it from a 3rd person perspective. But after that job I understand better what women are having to put up with regularly.
- This honestly adds up cause the ocean is saltwater
A gay guy once told me my glasses were cute.

Im married to a woman. But in that moment, I considered my new life as his man wife.
- Clearly a man's man
- Wasn't this basically a bobs burger episode lol
In Pony Equestria mares compliment YOU!

You look cute! - nice

You should smile more. - wtf

Tbh she's probably right, I have resting bitch face at best or maybe smol depression at worst lol, it would probably help me develop new interpersonal relationships now that all my friends are dead (mostly OD) or moved (because they didn't want to OD.)

REAL FUN being the only person you know who avoided heroin/fent!
- Wow, that must be hard. I hope you'll find some nice drug-free friends.

I'd just look around to see who else is in on the joke

Who hurt you

A woman once told me that. Oh boy, did that stick with me for a long time.

A girl also told me I have nice eyes during high school. That was literally one of the bitterly few highlights of high school for me.

I wore a colorful shirt at school and a random girl told me she liked it. I wore colorful shirts every day at school for 2 whole years.

The disconnect between women and men is sad. Women say soo many things with the best of intentions, that just end up cutting way too deep and vice versa.

Pretty sure would smile a lot more if they received more positive attention ngl.

Someone told me I had an ugly smile once and I am still insecure about my smile to this day. If people told me I had a beautiful smile and that I should smile more, I think that would be amazing. I would be surprised, but really happy.
- The person who told you that has an ugly personality.
- Hey @Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de you have a beautiful smile! 😁

That's the experience for some neurodivergent or somehow naïve women the first time. I was one of them (I thought older men were being kind with my teenage self). Then you start getting the same comment again and again: it often feels insincere. You start suspecting and learning about all the ways [mostly] men can be manipulating or even dangerous in the streets. It starts becoming bittersweet; you learn to ignore it just in case it's the people with bad intentions. You know that, if someone really wants to tell you that you're pretty or something, they will make an effort to make you feel safer too. And then, you are in your twenties and those men don't talk to you nearly as often, and it's a relief. As a heterosexual/bisexual woman, you hope that the rest of men can see you as more than a pretty body: a human with dreams, hobbies sense of humor, intelligence, whatever. Sometimes it's scary to know that many men don't, but many others do, so... yeah, my leftism hopes it gets better, as with many other social issues.

That's my experience.

No it's just as infuriating and it's always been one of the complaints women bring up that I always remind them is not just a women problem.

Rbf can seriously negatively impact your life. Especially if you're already physically imposing.

I searched what's rbf and lmao at the result

Imagine being used as the example photo for resting bitch face
- Mines even worse than that. To quote an old coworker "He looks like he's about to stab everyone in the room all the time"
?? I think I misunderstood your comment, did you said that its not cool to be cat called as a man?
- I'm specifically referring to the phrase "you should smile more" not cat calling in general.

Old ladies at my first job would tell this to Male interns all the time.

Productivity at 130%
- Middle management hates this simple trick!

women don't do that, because they subconsciously know like 80% of men (including me) would see that as an opportunity for a pickup line, like "I would, if you went out with me" or "a hug/kiss would cheer me up" or some other borderline creepy stuff.

It's not exactly a pickup line but it is expressing interest. And that's how a lot of men use the line.
- Telling someone they should "smile more" isn't expressing interest. It's a very weird demand. If you'd like to express interest in someone please consider a different approach.
Why is it creepy to be attracted to someone and tell them you're attracted to them? Isn't that, like, biology? What we're programmed to do?

Is it creepy for male birds to do mating dances to try to impress female birds?
- Read the room though.
  
  At a dating event? Sure.
  
  At the bus stop? Uuuuh make small talk before that.
  
  At work? Yikes.
- It's creepy if they are not much attracted to you or don't know yet and it's hard to tell at first, hence you should be unobtrusive. The reason is, some men won't take no for an answer and many women are a bit scared by that and knowing you like them can mean they have to be more careful around you.

I think having anyone tell you to smile more in any situation that isn't a posed photo is creepy because it's invalidating your emotional state, or telling you to stop feeling your feelings and replace them with how the other person wants you to feel... the most fucked-up instance of this that's happened to me was when a female therapist suggested "smiling more" as a prescription for depression.

All that aside, I have actually been catcalled on the street by women, and since it doesn't happen to me all the time I just found it funny. I have also been complimented in the office on my appearance by a female supervisor and it felt creepy, but had much worse sexual harassment from a male boss who apparently wasn't even gay, just doing it to mess with me.

I still remember the compliment i got about my eyebrows back in high school. I got super flustered and ran out of the class. I have a love/cringe relationship with that moment.

If this happened once instead of constantly

You talk about women right ? Because as a man I would love that it would happen all the time to me
- you're assuming that because you don't have to live with the reality.
  
  add in the constant awareness that most rapists occur by men against women and most men are stronger than women.
  
  you wouldn't like theae solicitations or straight up molestation and assaults if you were constantly in danger of being raped and being reminded that men found you attractive or available.
Constantly, really?
- constantly, really:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvq9krecA8g
  
  and men don't start cat calling women after they reach what is thought of as an "appropriate" age to harass someone:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4DCYYs4ECE
- They dix not talk about the dame thing than you , they dont talk about the dame situation than the même. That s why its confusing
- I’ve seen you comment around here before and you have a tendency to make bad faith arguments and it seems like maybe lie about who you are to try and make a point and snap at people who question your history while making similar assumptions yourself. If you offered something critically substantial then I’d understand but you often don’t try and simply seem to be a doubter and critic without any real argument. So I’m curious who you are and what you get out of this. If I’m completely off the mark then forgive me but that’s how it looks through the shallow lens of internet commentary

This would actually require dweebs leaving their basements.

It would require a woman who wasn't convinced she'd be stalked for the next six months.
- This is the fear, isn't it? At work, I have a project manager who privately told me one of my juniors asked her out, because she requested a private meeting with him to go over a project that he's assigned to.
  
  I did not expect my job to be having to explain to nerds that a woman talking to you directly isn't an invitation.

We would if we got more smiles than smirks and sneers

Stop being an incel.
- Stop being an ignorant sheep