I have the face of a Disney villain.
This came to me as a slowly unfolding personal revelation after reading Emily Matchar’s humorous essay on “Bitchy Resting Face” …
Memoirs of an Un-Smiling Woman - Emily Matchar June 2013
… I struggle with what comedic YouTube-ers Broken People recently termed “Bitchy Resting Face" (hereafter known as BRF). Their PSA-style video introduces us to the plight of women who look sad or pissed off for no reason. Women whose boyfriends always ask them "what's wrong?" Women whose apparent unfriendliness earns raised eyebrows from store clerks. Women who just look, well, bitchy. Even though they’re not…
… My eyes, naturally almond-shaped, can look as if I'm narrowing them in suspicion. My mouth, when not actively smiling, settles into a rather grim line…
… At one of my first jobs, a more senior co-worker pulled me aside to ask why I looked so unhappy. "If you're having an issue, this office is a safe space for you to talk," he said.
I wasn't having an issue. I was just thinking about getting a cup of coffee…
… BRF, I've discovered, has its advantages. I've traveled the world solo, and very rarely been bothered. While female friends with more friendly, open faces report the standard street harassment - cat calls, men badgering them for dates, butt pinching - I float along in my own bitch-face bubble…
… I live in Hong Kong, one of the densest cities on earth, where turning your face into a blank mask is simply a tool of urban survival…
The first person I thought of while reading Emily’s story was a female friend and colleague who I’d once thought of as unhappy and disapproving. When she smiled it was a great pleasure; which is probably why her friends and colleagues often looked for ways to make her smile. Because, despite the first impressions, she was and is a kind, thoughtful and compassionate person.
Orwell and Lincoln were wrong, we don’t get the faces we deserve — at least not entirely. But I’ll get to that part.
The second person I thought of was me, and over the course of a few weeks I enjoyed the agreeable experience of having another piece of the puzzle of mortal existence fall into place. Of course this was not entirely good news, and it would have been better to have figured this out twenty years ago, but solving the puzzle of life is a hobby of mine. After 50 new discoveries are rare, so I particularly appreciated this one.
Of course I’m a guy, so I can’t call it BRF. I’ll have to call it VRF - for villainous resting face (ARF is not quite right - I think I look stern, harsh and disapproving rather than angry). Close set narrow and sunken eyes, small mouth and weak chin, post-CrossFit lean and hungry … yeah, kinda scary. Villainous. No wonder airport security always looks twice.
I wasn’t always this way. As a young adult I was a magnet for cult recruiters — innocent and gullible (though I was neither - faces mislead). Now, though I’m less harsh than my childhood self, no cultist would give me a second look. Over the years photos show my face changing, much as the NYT described.
Faces, as we know, bring a certain kind of destiny. Many a (sometimes disastrous) political career has been made by a strong jaw. There are few lean, beaky and weak jawed faces running publicly traded corporations or nations (Tyler?). So there’s something to be said for knowing one’s face — denial has its advantages, but I prefer to see things as they are.
Of course “seeing things as they are” is the kind of thing we villains do. We make the hard choices others avoid, walk the shadows that must be walked, accept the responsibility for the greater good, grasp the …
Hmm. Maybe I do deserve this face. Truth to tell, I do have some villainous henchman potential, and the usual weathered and worn experiences.
Deserved or not, we must either adjust to our faces or get plastic surgery (My Emily would laugh at that one — and then have me committed). Emily Matchar moved to Hong Kong, where her face worked for her. In my case there’s something to be said for teleconferences and working remotely. I do better as the Vizier and Henchman in the corporate shadows than as the face of the company. If I go the entrepreneurial route I would need a money-raising partner or avoid VCs and banks. When I lead teams I have to opt for “stern but fair” rather than “noble and true”. When I talk I have to find ways to laugh or smile — hopefully without the maniacal bit. That’s especially true with my kids — they tell me my “mildly disapproving look” is the glare of doom.
If I have to find a job … well, the interview is a bit of an uphill battle. Not quite sure what to do about that.
On the bright side, solicitors leave my doorstep quickly.
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