Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 107
Thin grins and social white lines
S
ay you’re entering a long hallway at the office, and a coworker is coming down the
hallway from the other direction.
Maybe you barely know this person, or maybe you’ve had a bad day,
or maybe you just draw a total blank
when it comes to offering pointless hellos — but you know going in
that you will only give him a tightlipped smile and a slight nod when
you pass.
You won’t speak or shake hands,
hug or chest-bump. You’ll only exchange the “thin grin,” the minimum interaction required to stay between the white lines on the social
highway.
Now the thin grin only works as
a fleeting thing. You can’t hold it as
you travel down the entire length of
the hall without appearing a touch
insane. So the distance from the
person at which you apply the smile
has to be choreographed to the brief
time it is on your face.
Your brain is calculating this timing all during your approach, like a
hurdler preparing for a leap. “Three
… two … one, eye contact, lip-smile
with nod, look away and pass.”
And the world will continue to
turn.
Additionally, this smile should
end just as you go by the guy. That’s
so he sees it fade and doesn’t as-
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
sume you are holding that face for
the rest of the day. It’s up there on
your marquee just long enough so
he knows you aren’t a complete sociopath — and drops off fast enough
so he also knows he doesn’t really
matter to you.
It’s just common courtesy.
But why do you smile at all?
Scientists will tell you that the human smile is one of many social signals or expressions that has evolved
over time to help us all get along.
Smiles advertise cooperative dispositions and altruistic intentions.
In other words, smiles keep us
from biting each other.
Here’s how to test this theory.
Next time you pass your boss in a
hallway, and he offers you the thin
grin — don’t respond in kind. Just
give him an empty stare or avoid
eye contact all together. I guarantee
you things will be uncomfortable at
your next review.
And if you really want to play,
when he offers you the thin grin,
gawk at him wide-eyed as you flash
him a full view of your pearlywhites. Oh, and make sure to hold
that demented look as your head
turns like a periscope to follow him.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get to hear
him whimper.
Smiles, eye contact, voice volume, limb movement, personal
space and gaseous discharges — all
of these things must be maintained
within narrow limits to be socially acceptable. For example, if you
don’t react to events with enough
energy, you’re an outcast and labeled as having a stunted personality disorder. On the other hand, if
you react with too much enthusiasm
… well, they put you in politics.
Now those same scientists will
tell you that some social expressions
are inborn. As proof, they might
point to a study where people who
were blind from birth made sad faces when they were sad. Since these
people had never seen a sad face,
they must have been born with the
inclination to use one at such times.
On the other hand, the nuances of the narrow limits of social expression are usually learned. For example, one of the ways you learn to
moderate your eye contact is when
you stare at your older brother too
long — and he smacks you so hard
your eyes cross.
Similarly, you learn to “say it,
don’t spray it” — not by having that
said to you, but by finding yourself
on the wet end a few times.
The thin grin, I believe, falls into
this category of learned behavior.
You learn how to use it by watching
your parents employ it when they
quickly pass by Salvation Army
Santas, Girl Scout cookie tables and
Jehovah’s Witnesses.
But even the most subtle of social
expressions, such as the thin grin,
may occasionally, serve a greater
purpose. While there are days when
this smile is offered mindlessly, —
when you’re thinking about your
bills — on other days, for just that
brief instant, you truly share something profound with your passerby. The tight-lipped smiles and brief
eye contact you exchange acknowledge the human condition, the overwhelming angst and pointlessness
of it all, the fact you are both worker
bees in a hive of nothingness, coming from nowhere and heading nowhere.
Or they might just mean you both
had a good lunch.
So keep smiling. Just remember
to keep it between the lines.
Jim Walker can be reached at
jwalker@the-signal.com. His column reflects his own views, not necessarily those of The Signal.
