I Hate My Smile

I don’t like my smile, and I haven’t done for a long time. 

I haven’t really thought about it much until recently. Who really thinks that much about their smile, on a day-to-day basis. But in recent times, I’ve found myself being pushed to acknowledge these feelings, recognise they are unnecessary, and put them behind me. 

Here’s the thing: I think my smile makes me look dumb. If I let both sides of my mouth widen out, my entire face splits and just looks ridiculous. And if I open my eyes wide as well and show my teeth? Well, then we’ve thrown ourselves into full cartoon character mode. 

But if I don’t widen my eyes, the smile looks fake. I look like I’m forcing a grimace, hoping whatever experience I’m having to pretend I’m enjoying will end as soon as humanly possible. 

Weirdly, if I see these smiles in candid photos they don’t bother me. In these captured moments they seem more natural somehow. In these snapshots of real joy and amusement, my smile seems to actually fit my face. It’s only when I’m posing, trying to set my face into an acceptable position for a photo, that I feel fake. 

This isn’t a healthy way to think about yourself.

When did this happen? Well, like so many insecurities, I can trace it to my teenage years. I don’t remember it bothering me at all in childhood. But then what child thinks about their smile? 

Look at that lady-killer. How was he ever single for so long?

But I do have a distinct memory from the age of 18. I was on a school trip to Italy, so of course, we all had our passports. At each border, the teachers would collect our passports to be processed. And I remember one teacher looking at my passport photo and commenting on my very loop-sided smile 

Other than reminding me of a time you were allowed to smile in passport photos, I can remember working on this smile. Raising just one side of my mouth, not both, broke up the goofiness of it. I felt - or at least hoped - it gave me more of a wry look, rather than dopey. And I stopped widening my eyes, keeping my eyebrows down. 

Why did I do this? Why did I actively create a new smile for myself, rather than embracing the one that came naturally? 

Why it was for girls, of course. 

Goofy isn’t sexy. Cartoonish isn’t sexy. At least, not in the eyes of a 17-year-old boy. One who dwells daily on why none of the girls he likes find him attractive. I didn’t have a girlfriend until university, which meant my teenage years were often filled with time dwelt on why I was so apparently undesired. Why didn’t any girls like me? Why were so many of my friends in relationships and I was alone?

I must just not be physically attractive, right? 

Oh, young me. You were so naive. Who knows how many of those girls I liked probably liked me right back? How many people would have been more attracted to me had I simply been comfortable in myself? 

It doesn’t look any less weird at 37 than it did at 17

But twenty years ago I was not so wise as I have become. Back then the only reason girls didn’t like me had to be the obvious one. I wasn’t attractive. What could I do about that? Not much, but the goofy smile had to go. No girl looks at a guy with a face from a cartoon and thinks they’re sexy. So I worked out my new, lopsided smile. 

A couple of years ago I was told by people I worked with that I never smiled with my face, just with my eyes. And I guess this was because I had spent twenty years training my face not to move. So I guess it worked. I no longer smiled with my whole face if I could possibly avoid it, or if I purposely wanted to look goofy and dumb. 

And while I wish I could say I grew out of my reasons for disliking it, I can’t. So many times I’ve been hunting through photos of myself to use in dating profiles and apps, only to rue the fact I’m pulling such stupid faces in each one. How I am supposed to find anyone interested in me if I’m gurning madly in all my photos? 

This isn’t a healthy way to think about yourself. 

In twenty years an insecurity can bury deep inside you.

I have an on-again/off-again relationship with body confidence. There are some days I will look in the mirror and think that yes, I am genuinely attractive. Like, significantly so. Especially if I’ve got a good outfit on. Then other days finding anything about my appearance that looks even vaguely appealing is impossible. On those days I make sure I just don’t look at any reflective surface.  

I’m certain most of us have these issues. Confidence and body positively ebb and flow. But I can take back my confidence for the things I can’t help. And my smile is one of those. 

This involved actively exploring the reasons behind my issues. I’ve identified that, ultimately, my issue was I thought my smiles weren’t sexy. But 37 year old me has very different ideas about what people find attractive than 17-year-old me had. Back then I had no evidence anyone would ever find me attractive, while now I have plenty that they do. 

But, deep down, even 37-year-old me wants to feel sexy and desirable. And in twenty years an insecurity can bury deep inside you. 

But ultimately, I need to remind myself of the following things: I know my goofy, cartoonish smile comes out in candid moments, and if it was so off-putting, why would people ever have wanted to be in a relationship with me?  

My girlfriend says she loves my smile

It feels stupid, in a way. How does liking or disliking your smile even register on the scale of the problems being faced in life right now? But it’s one of my problems, something that’s lingered in my mind all my adult life. 

And hey, my girlfriend says she loves my smile. And if she likes it, then it’s got to be worth something. She has pretty good taste.