Pouty

today's weather: B A S E L I N E
anxiety : 0
agitation : 0


I want to talk about my lips. A lot of times I've been misunderstood because of my lips. I know my words can be daggers sometimes - or high-powered rifles; unintentionally or otherwise - but I'm not talking about words. I mean, without even saying anything.

I do smile, and I do laugh, and I do find a lot of things to be thankful for, and I do have joy. But some people are just too myopic to see it.

I've come to hate it to the point of murderous ire whenever others try to jolly me up. For one reason, I just cant seem to be jolly enough for anyone. For another - and I can't quite stress this sufficiently - there are times when I simply don't have the capacity to be cheery, okay. It's not that I don't want to be cheerful; there are times when I really just can't. That isn't a cop-out; it's a fact I ache for people to understand and accept.

For another reason, I got a lot of ridiculous "jollying up" while growing up - adults forcing me to smile, asking me why I frown and so on. I never seemed able to please anyone in that area; it's a very personal frustration, and I've apparently made the decision to quit trying to at a young age. It's one of those I've had it up to here things.

As a little girl I never really understood why grown-ups asked me why I frowned. As far as I knew, whenever someone asked me that, my face was simply in a relaxed position and not a freaking frown. Those demanding, pejorative a&&holes clowns just couldn't tell the difference.

Honestly, I now find more satisfaction in being a bitch about what I believe than being a likeable people-pleaser. But anyway...

I was around age twenty when it first dawned on me that my smile looked like a frown to some. I was sitting in a van one afternoon with a tactless friend and a busybody. Tactless Friend made me the object of a tasteless joke, and I shot a clever retort right back at him; I thought that was not only clean fun, but fair game. I swear I was smiling. Brother Busybody poked me unkindly on the face and stared me down, as if I'd said a racist remark or something - but I did nothing of the sort, not even close. I wondered why Brother Busybody was picking on me, when I wasn't even the one who opened fire. Just then I happened to glance at the rear view mirror and saw my face - I had expected it to be smiling back at me (or at least sneering), but what it wore was a snobby pout. Good grief. Tactless Friend was born with the kind of face that looks like it has an idiotic smile plastered all over it all the time, so people adore him even if he's a ginormous jerk. Also (as I learned via his admission sometime later), Brother Busybody had evaluated me negatively way before the said incident, simply by the way I looked.

I know that shouldn't have been my problem but his, for his being narrow-minded and judgmental. But it merited my obsession since it's been another constant pebble in my shoe since preschool: I've often gotten labelled as suplada, maldita, and other tags more hurtful because of the way I look.

I've grown accustomed to that since, and eventually expected and embraced people's tendency to misunderstand me. Yeah, sure I'm maldita. I'm vile. Got a problem with that?

... But before any embracing was possible, I unnecessarily experienced being determined to be as likeable as a sugar cookie. ;)

After the van incident, I'd started to pay more attention to how my lips appeared. I looked at other people's lips. Observation led me to the conclusion that some people have naturally happy-looking faces (like Tactless Friend does), and some have naturally saddy-looking faces. I happen to have the latter; I even have a smile that looks like a smirk. It's not due to years of frowning, as some might accuse me of - I was only twenty at that time, way too young for wrinkles. Besides, stupid people have been poking at a nonexistent frown since I was a child, so I must have been born with disapproving lips.

Let me illustrate.

These here are my lips when relaxed, i.e., no particular emotion:


Actually, you know, I even have a slight smile here.

Couple those lips with my large, intense eyes, and my day-to-day expressionless expression could look somewhat irate. Like something that says "You are an idiot, and I hate you".

Let me illustrate further:
First of all, my mouth is small (something that ungentlemanly male friends use as fodder for off-color jokes, which is really beside the point but interesting to mention). And my lips are naturally pouty.

Thanks to Angelina Jolie and a lot of Angelina-wannabes who've had their kissers surgically enhanced, pouty lips are considered sexy these days. But pouty actually makes you look mopey if you aren't flashing your pearly whites for the paparazzi.

Speaking of teeth, my teeth are really small too, so they don't show much when I smile or even speak. No dazzling toothpaste commercial grin here.

So really, for me to smile in a way that other people consider acceptable would take a bit more effort for me. I have actual deficiencies at both the emotional and the physical levels. Whenever I twist my face into a more socially laudable smile, I feel like I've just padded myself with insincerity and buffoonery.

My lips are also puffier on the left side (my left), due to an accident I had when I was nine in which I punctured my lip and required ten stitches (four on the outside, six on the inside). I have an ugly, asymmetrical smile, so when I do put a bit more effort into stretching my lips into the happy pose, it often looks like a condescending sneer.

I won't even put a picture of that here, because it's just not pretty.

And bah, I don't have dimples.

A handful of people have told me they actually like my buffoon smile. I know that's supposed to be a compliment, but I find it insulting. It's likely an attempt at flattery, an act of charity or a tool for manipulation. Even if it were sincere, I still wouldn't like it, and I still wouldn't believe anyone who told me I had a nice smile.

I choose to express joy in ways I prefer, not necessarily in ways people will like. I will let the glee show, even glow when I'm overflowing, but I don't have to fake it when there's nothing to share. I don't have to change the way I smile, and I don't have to "smile more". I actually smile a lot, and if people don't see that, I'd rather live with that rather than give them the satisfaction of thinking they have any effect on me or my lips.