What's That Look On Your Face?

The human face is capable of an amazing variety of

expressions; smiles of joy; frowns of anger;

grimaces of disgust and raised eyebrows of

surprise. And just as a picture is worth a thousand

words, so it is that these expressions do a

wonderful job of communicating how we feel,

sometimes more than anything that we could ever

say.

But it's not every day that our face muscles are

doing duty, telling the world how we feel. More

often than not, they're relaxed, leaving our faces in

'neutral gear'. The thing is, just because our

muscles aren't working doesn't mean that our faces

don't show some kind of expression. And

unfortunately, this can lead to some crossed wires.

A case in point: I recall someone I used to know in

university. He was actually a year ahead of me, so

we didn't get much of a chance to interact, but

whenever I would pass him in the corridors of the

faculty building, I would think to myself "What a

miserable so-and-so this guy is - always frowning

like he has just swallowed a sour lemon", and it

made me glad that I didn't have to interact more

with him.

Fast forward a a year or two, and I found myself

attending more lectures with him; our lecturers'

habits of handing out F's with joyous abandon

meant that he had to retake some courses. To my

great surprise, as I got to know him better, I found

out this 'misanthrope' turned out to be one of the

warmest, kindest and caring people that I would

come to know. Even till today, I wonder how it can

be that someone like that could appear to be

frowning all the time.

I have a theory why some people (like my

coursemate) might have a frowning face in 'neutral

gear'. It could be that they stand under the sun for

excessive periods, and they have to squint to reduce

the effect of the sun's glare in their eyes. Squinting

means that their faces are bunched into a frown,

and after a while, this frown becomes their

standard expression.

But irrespective of how most people's 'neutral gear'

face ends up in a permanent expression, I can't

help wondering whether there are people going

around with frowns and scaring off people who

might want to meet them. The thing is that such

people may be completely unaware of the effect of

their expression, because they aren't consciously

contorting their face into that expression. And I

know that making judgments about someone's

character based on their expression alone is

probably unfair, but really - would you rather

approach someone who is frowning or someone

who is smiling?

So I guess that just as we are aware of the clothes

we wear and the smells that we give off when

meeting people, we should add one more thing to

the list - what kind of face we are presenting to the

world. Do we want to say to everyone that we're

friendly and open to conversation? Or do we want

to tell the world to back off? And more importantly,

is our face telling a different story from what we

want to tell?

What's the look on your face now? If you don't

know, you can look in a mirror to find out. Or you

could simply and consciously make it a smile :)