I agree that your face "at rest" is intimidating. I have always felt intimidated by you which is why I have never sought you out in a social situation despite the fact I know you are an intriguing and intelligent person.
I do not know if endeavoring to change your normal facial expression. Would it be unconscious if you are conciously trying to make it a different face? What kind of face would you try to display instead? How does one change one's face short of surgery or bacterial injections?
I agree that your face "at rest" is intimidating. I have always felt intimidated by you which is why I have never sought you out in a social situation despite the fact I know you are an intriguing and intelligent person.
Is that still true, now that you and I have spent time on each other's LJs?
First, I utterly sympathize with you here... I have been well acquainted in my life with the problem of people seeing me as more hostile, intimidating, etc. than I intend to be/see myself as/expect, and it's a difficult thing.
Second... well, I'm not sure I've seen you when you're upset, but you're certainly several sigmas out (relative to people I know) on the negative-projection scale. Shortly after meeting you I had to learn to "divide by K" to avoid the perpetual sense that my very presence was annoying you.
This isn't a complaint, btw; there's lots of people I've had to calibrate to in various directions upon meeting them.
I'll also add that you have a great smile... when I see you pleased or cheerful it's obvious that you are genuine about it.
Second... well, I'm not sure I've seen you when you're upset, but you're certainly several sigmas out (relative to people I know) on the negative-projection scale. Shortly after meeting you I had to learn to "divide by K" to avoid the perpetual sense that my very presence was annoying you.
Never annoying, my dear. But thank you for making the effort to divide by K.
I suspect some element of my negative-projection had a lot to do with my depression, which I've got a much better handle on these days. Or perhaps not. I'm not sure.
I'll also add that you have a great smile... when I see you pleased or cheerful it's obvious that you are genuine about it.
I had a similar problem though. Part of it was a slight grimace from being in low grade pain, part of it was a learned threat attitude to keep bullies away when I was a kid. I sort of stopped it by deliberately relaxing, and smiling on purpose. Although then I had people wondering what I was gloating about.
Hmm. I've been making a serious effort in the past couple of years to smile at clerks, security guards, assistants, servers, etc. All the people who seem to get ten shades of shit dumped on them.
I don't know if it's helped my overall expression, though.
I run into the same thing; people that don't know me that well often find me intimidating, and even people that know me well can think that I'm upset about something when I'm really just thinking about it.
Thank you for that pointer. A very interesting set of guidelines.
I do a LOT of pondering. WAAAAAY TOO MUCH pondering. I definitely think too much. Sometimes, when I look faintly constipated, it's because I'm trying to figure out some new angle on handling world poverty.
Other times, I'm trying to decide whether I want to eat a cookie or a potato chip.
Sometimes I wish my brain had an off switch. Or at least a low idle.
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But thanks for the thoughts.
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I do not know if endeavoring to change your normal facial expression. Would it be unconscious if you are conciously trying to make it a different face? What kind of face would you try to display instead? How does one change one's face short of surgery or bacterial injections?
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Is that still true, now that you and I have spent time on each other's LJs?
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But I still know you are an intriguing and intelligent person.
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First, I utterly sympathize with you here... I have been well acquainted in my life with the problem of people seeing me as more hostile, intimidating, etc. than I intend to be/see myself as/expect, and it's a difficult thing.
Second... well, I'm not sure I've seen you when you're upset, but you're certainly several sigmas out (relative to people I know) on the negative-projection scale. Shortly after meeting you I had to learn to "divide by K" to avoid the perpetual sense that my very presence was annoying you.
This isn't a complaint, btw; there's lots of people I've had to calibrate to in various directions upon meeting them.
I'll also add that you have a great smile... when I see you pleased or cheerful it's obvious that you are genuine about it.
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Never annoying, my dear. But thank you for making the effort to divide by K.
I suspect some element of my negative-projection had a lot to do with my depression, which I've got a much better handle on these days. Or perhaps not. I'm not sure.
I'll also add that you have a great smile... when I see you pleased or cheerful it's obvious that you are genuine about it.
*grin* Thank you!
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I had a similar problem though. Part of it was a slight grimace from being in low grade pain, part of it was a learned threat attitude to keep bullies away when I was a kid. I sort of stopped it by deliberately relaxing, and smiling on purpose. Although then I had people wondering what I was gloating about.
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I don't know if it's helped my overall expression, though.
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Elizabeth wrote about this in her LJ a while back: http://lillibet.livejournal.com/63305.html
I don't remember having this reaction to you, which I suppose is probably because I understand what it looks like from the inside.
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I do a LOT of pondering. WAAAAAY TOO MUCH pondering. I definitely think too much. Sometimes, when I look faintly constipated, it's because I'm trying to figure out some new angle on handling world poverty.
Other times, I'm trying to decide whether I want to eat a cookie or a potato chip.
Sometimes I wish my brain had an off switch. Or at least a low idle.
Reply
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