[Vincent Durbin]

I am french and i had a hard time dealing with the ‘Smile Thing’: in the U.S. , smiling is an element of the social language, like a handshake or a ‘how are you doing today’, no more no less. It does not necessarily imply that the person smiling has actually something to smile about. In France, a smile is a reflection of your internal emotionnal state, it is a element of your PERSONNAL -if not intimate- emotionnal vocabulary and is not meant to obey considerations of social appropriateness. Americans have a problem with ‘rude’ french people not smiling: for their french conterparts, smiling is a personnal expression which does not have to be included in the field of social interaction, it does not mean they are in a bad mood, it does not mean they don’t like you, it just means that for the time being they have nothing to smile ABOUT. If they do, they WILL… Inversely the ‘american’ smile is perceived as a commercial (fake) smile, dictated by social contingencies, a sort of prostitution of your emotionnal expressions not very far from hypocrisy… As an example, I was totally stunned when, starting to work in customer service in the U.S., my manager asked me to smile,… as a part of my job! I just could not believe he asked me that! Why would I have to fake an eminently personnal expression of myself to comply with a JOB!? I did not get it until I realized that…

User Detail :  

Name : Vincent Durbin, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian Scientist, Age : 36, City : Santa Barbara, State : DC, Country : United States, Occupation : Front desk clerk, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,