Comments and pet peeves.
So, I was in a bar tonight, and I wasn’t even at the actual “bar” but in the back playing pool with a friend. I went up to the bar to get a refill on my water, and while I was waiting for the waitress I noticed the man next to me turn his head a couple of times to look at me.
I just knew what was coming. I was hoping the waitress would hurry filling up my water.
He turned to me, not even completely making eye contact, and said one of my worst pet peeves:
“Would it kill you to smile?”
Ahhhhhhh!!!! I cannot explain to you how much this gets under my skin! It’s so presumptuous! And it’s one of the kinds of harassment that is not about sex at all. It’s purely about control and dominance. It’s so subtly intrusive it makes me sick. Women aren’t allowed to be in his presence if they are unhappy, or just not exuberant? Who smiles all the time, anyway?! What makes me even more annoyed is the fact that I just looked him in the eye, and when I thought of all the gloriously satisfying comebacks I could say (“would it kill you to shower?”) , instead of saying any of them, I just…smiled.
“There you go sweetheart, was that so hard?”
Now I’ve given this man a gift, I’ve given him pleasure and he believes it’s because he requested it. I feel sick to my stomach, tricked, and invaded.
I’ve had totally random men in line at the bank say “why don’t you smile, it can’t be that bad!” and even some men who’ve refused service to me until I smile, I say “I’ll have a ______” and he responds with “sure, if you can just give me a smile”. GAH!
This is my pet peeve, what’s yours in relation to feeling violated by unwanted contact in public spaces?
Post by Luci Cook
One Response
Author comments are in a darker gray color for you to easily identify the posts author in the comments
I see this happen to women quite often and I’ve had women do it to me. It is extremely irritating and I can’t understand why the people who ingauge in such a personal violation do so. Yes, it drives me nuts too. Its got to be a midwest hick redneck thing because believe me in the north east of this country someone who’s so nosy and ignorant to the millions of possibilities as to why someone’s not smiling at any particular time would get drink thrown in there face or punched in the nose but in a super liberal town where everyone is waaay over P.C. they would tell you, you were in the wrong even though you were just violated. I’m in the bar business and believe me we hate when creepers like this are hanging around because it’s bad for business. Always try and find a way to report the creep to the staff without exposing yourself, but be careful who you report too being that half the bar owners and staff in this town are creeps themselves they might not agree with your feeling of violation.