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No smiling (with counterexamples)
I apologize for posting two entries in a row with photos (and this one has many photos). I won't do it again for a while, I promise. It's just that Aussie said something in email and I figured if she had some thoughts about that then other people might have thoughts about it as well and at the very least I owed the world an explanation and besides I'm having a "girl" day which means I'm especially defensive about my appearance and and and and ....
(Deep breath.)
Okay, it's like this. Aussie commented that I never smile in photos - or at least not in the photos I show you - and she's not the first person who's noted this.
Well. The virtue of taking my own photos of myself, or paying someone to photograph me, is that I don't have to smile. When a professional photographer asks me to smile, I remind them whose money is funding the event, and refuse. (Amateur photographers are rarely permitted to take pictures of me. This is one of the main reasons why. I can't really refuse to smile without seeming a first-class b**ch.)
I'd like to be able to smile in photos - I'm aware that I look surly and, yes, more male when I don't smile - but I can't. When I smile, I look atrocious.
I realized some years ago that other people don't have this problem. This smile is perfectly fine, for example:
But when I try it, my cheeks and eyes do things I don't like, and in the worst case, it makes me look like I have a double chin:
Here's a photo of three smiling people. Two of them are fine. One of them is hideous.
Now, the smiles above are all open-mouthed smiles, which is where I am at my worst. These days you cannot get me to show teeth for love nor money. If you ask me to smile and I actually comply, you'll probably get the Cockeyed Leer.
This is the smile that shows up most often in my photos - because it's what always happened as a result of the inevitable fight with my family and an endless stream of school photographers. See how my mouth is tilted up on one side, making it look like it was glued onto my face crooked?
There are plenty of closed smiles I covet, from beatific, enigmatic smiles
to glamourous prom-queen smiles.
Even the cynical half-smile can be done without becoming the Cockeyed Leer.
I also have a tendency to make a suppressed smile, where the corners of the mouth turn down like you're clamping down on your amusement lest it escape. This is an absolutely charming face on some people. Not on me.
 This is one of my better smiles; it's honest and it doesn't tilt to one side too much. Even so, I am less than thrilled with it.
Okay. So with all the griping I do about my appearance and what I don't like about it, I thought it was only fair that I show you some things I would like to be. That way you'll find it easier to understand my dissatisfaction - because I know some of you want to slap me around.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think I'm ugly. I don't even think I'm unattractive. I'm just unhappy with what I've got. Frankly, these days my face is the least of my worries. I finished doing my hair and such today and did a final look in the mirror and said to Nonelvis. "I am having a girl day today, or couldn't you tell?" Then I said, "I hate all of my body below the neck." I thought they were two unrelated sentences, but she laughed bitterly and said, "Wow, you are having a girl day."
Here is the Being I Most Want To Look Like. I'd have scanned the whole ad if space had allowed - I like her body too.
 Okay, okay, the person above isn't real; she's had professional makeup and professional lighting and professional hairstyling and professional photography and who knows what-all else. Here's a real photo of a real person taken by an amateur. I wouldn't mind looking like her either - something which would have made a lot of things make more sense if I'd realized it during the time when I knew her.
If it makes you feel any better, this refusal to smile is something I come by honestly. My mother does the same thing. In fact, if pressed too hard to smile, she usually responds by making a face.
I have inherited that tendency as well.
By the by: I don't generally use photos of people without getting permission from the subjects. Many of the people shown here who aren't me, however, are people I've long since lost touch with and can't contact. I've compromised by not identifying any of the other people involved (except my mother). If you're one of those people, do try to forgive me. If you're my mother ... you can get revenge the next time I come home to visit.
© Columbine
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