Actually, research shows men who smile in dating profile pics do significantly worse than men who don't.

OK, this is good. This establishes clearly that you actually just don't understand the issue. Frankly, it would probably be better if one of the women ITT would step in and explain, I don't want to speak for them.

And of course, you have no idea why this might be perceived as demeaning, and it doesn't seem like you care.

It's certainly possible. As I said, I don't go around saying **** to random girls in the first place. Sounds to me more like it's the constant barrage of actual **** that gets thrown around, and not the 'smile' that they actually have a problem with *shrug*

women love complements from people they know and trust, they don't love skeevy comments from dudes they don't know who are just trying to hit on them.

hell, you can even reverse the genders and the statement holds true.

see the difference?

Everything can be perceived as demeaning. I simply don't enjoy the company of people who perceive everything as demeaning. And no, I don't particularly care because it's not my job to make sure that nobody ever gets offended by anything.

Yes I understand the difference, I just disagree that saying "smile" is a skeevy comment. (Unless it's done as it's portrayed in this thread's comics, which maybe is how it works in the real world, I dunno)

also, there's a huge difference between going up to a woman and saying "hi, you look stunning today, i'm happy_fish" and "smile beautiful!"

the two don't have nearly the same meaning or implications.

we at least we know your opinion isn't based in reality, thanks for clearing that up

Pretty sure fat girls don't need to worry about any of this so it seems the answer to sexism is eat all the ice cream you want.

You have strong opinions for a man who cheerfully admits to being clueless on the subject.

Although either could be seen as demeaning.

My only opinion is that I won't get along with girls who get offended by people telling them to smile.

Sorry that I don't go into places or hang out with people who mean "smile" as a sexist comment. I'll try to go slum around a little so I have a better idea of what it's like in your world.

Given your strong, uninformed opinion, I get the feeling that any females in your life might not necessarily communicate any such encounters in their lives to you.

awww, how cute. he's trying to emulate cwoc's "if you think gays should be allowed to marry, then YOU are the bigot" line of argument

It's doubly demeaning to fat girls because they know they aren't beautiful

Or maybe sexism is the root cause of the obesity epidemic.

Exactly, because they wouldn't be bothered by it in the first place. Either the guy is being a dick yelling out randomly, and they dismiss ******* comments as coming from *******s, or they aren't offended by an actual compliment.

I dunno what this means, but you're the one who's got the experience with guys who say smile doing it for sexist reasons.......

If someone told you to do anything.... would you view that as anything other than patronizing? Outside of the whole gender issue and the perception of attractiveness, it's just ****ing weird to tell anyone to do anything in that sort of way.

Hey Joe - laugh!

Hey Marie - you should blink more!

But yes, if some man told me I should smile I would be mildly offended. I get more upset at the dudes in trucks who loop around twice while I'm running to honk and honk some more. But you know, maybe at the end of it all, after getting honked at, whistled at, hit on in very precarious places that highlights your vulnerability - the last thing you need is some man saying, "A pretty girl like you shouldn't look so worried, you should smile!"

That brings me to something else - what utility do men get from cat calls?

Like I'm trying to train up to hike pike's peak so I'll go out with a heavy backpack and just try and find the hilliest terrain I can to walk around on. One day I was walking home to end my walk and this man in a van stopped. I do what I usually do and pretended I didn't see him or hear his yelling at me and kept walking. That's when he decided to pull up again and stop. So, I usually feel like it's this really thin line where I need to be nice enough to not seriously piss the guy off (and incite violence) and protecting myself from that uncomfortable situation. With that in mind, I decided I couldn't reasonably continue ignoring him and I popped out a head phone while continuing to walk and heard, "Hey do you need a ride" to which I responded, "Oh thank you, but I'm fine" and I put my headphone back in. So, then, he decided to pull up and stop again and I decided to ignore him some more but heard him start to curse me and call me a **** and what have you. Luckily I spotted someone across the street walking their dogs with her boyfriend and I felt a lot safer. He then pulled up and stopped yet again before screeching off.

So... what the **** is up with that?

Report to the gun nut thread and make einbert lose his ****, obv.

No, I would not consider either of these patronizing. If somebody was being an *******, I would consider them an ******* and not give them another thought. Otherwise, I would assume they were trying to cheer me up (laugh) or really strange (blink).

This I can understand, like I said before, it's the constant barrage of **** from the honkers that make you default to the opinion that smile guy is being an *******.

It's as baffling to me as it is to you.

Do words have meaning in fish-land? What is the point of all this ordering strangers to smile?

No, it's not the constant barrage from honkers. Even on a day where there is no honkers, wolf whistles, or come-ons, being told "to smile" is still going to make me think way less of the man and vacate his premises as soon as possible.

To cheer up somebody who's feeling down? Did you really just ask this?

i wasn't aware that being patronizing and being an ******* were mutually exclusive?