Just wondering, but how many here go to school, work, other places, and Plaster on a smile and pretend things are perfect and amazing? If you are one of theses people, why'd you do it?

Because I hate being questioned

I do sometimes. I do it for multiple reasons. One reason is to lie to myself. I kind of hope that if I smile like everything's ok, I'll eventually believe it. Another reason is to keep my feelings from people. I don't want to be seen as unstable and weak. That's the basics at least.

Smiling at others is a way to show kindness. Even if you aren't in a bad mood, always frowning will give people the wrong impression. Human beings have an uncanny ability to sense emotions, especially from facial expressions. Whether those guesses are correct or not,

*cont
is what we ourselves have to figure out.

I do this often. I really don't like people in my school, but I have to get along with them for the sake of my image.

Sincerely, I feel better If i burst out in a sincere cry. I don't need to hide nothing...and i don't get repressed. It's interesting to know how people can smile. :3

I wear a sad smile, but I will smile for real if I'm truly happy. Sure I laugh at jokes and pretend I'm happy, that's my plaster smile.

I don't smile. But if I did its only half-heartedly.

Yesterday somebody told me I have the eyes of someone who'd had their innder flame extinguished. And I know he's right. He asked me once what could have possibly happened to me to extinguish my flame. I almost told him "somebody took it," or "I gave it to someone important," or "she took it with her when she died," something like that. Too much shit happened. I'm as empty as my smile and a personality to match.

But I smile for those who care about me so they don't have to hurt like I do.

>>9 *Hug* That's sad ;n;! I wish I could symphonize with you, but I can't :\

I don't ware a fake smile. It just doesn't suit me. I smile through the hurtful things in life because .... well why not? ^w^ Besides. Whatever hurt lies in the past is best left there. *hugs* But I feel bad for those of you who feel you have to. I hope things get better for you all soon.

Hmm.

Well, I smile because there is nothing else to do. It doesn't matter if you act sad because your life is sad, nothing changes because of that. I guess I smile because if I went home and stabbed myself in the chest the next morning everyone would wake up and go to work and have a shitty day and nothing would change. I smile because everyone has bad days, people kill themselves and other people are happy. I smile because frowning doesn't change anything.

I don't see a point in being sad and thinking life sucks. There's an even less point in doing that than there is in living. So, I'm basically the kind of person to laugh at almost everything. I take joy in my failures and I laugh with myself. I look at jokes on the internet. I only watch movies if they have some kind of comedy affect to them. And none of those joys are fake.

Just laugh. Everything's fine.

I usually put on a smile because it makes others happy, otherwise my expression is pretty neutral.

>>13 Sometimes people are just fed up with a world that doesn't fit themselves. Or sometimes they just loose hope in humanity and in changes, so they stay in this limbo situation, in their own pit of sadness.
The truth is: if we don't change, the world around us will always look the same. Humans have fear of changes, we are basically scared of whatever we don't know (the outer space, death, religions) but we have to take the big step and climb on our own problems if we want to see the world in a new prospective. And only then we'll be able to smile again, because we'll have all the reasons to do so.

>>1 I do it because a smile can brighten someones day, but a frown can only make it worse. Really, its for other people more than me.

IT's the easiest thing to do than wallowing in sadness. Because smiling makes you look strong; it makes you go through with life easier. You can save your time from answering everyone's curious questions. And come on, you can't tell every person you come across with about the things you're being in to.

I do it because a lot of people expect me to be the happy kind of person when im at my lowest and then i think about the meaning of our lives and when i think of my own self-worth, theres nothing to think of or to tell anyone and then i have to put up a fake smile among fake friends

i try my best to smile because as much as im sad inside i don't want others to know about my pain, not so much because i don't want them to worry but more to that i don't want other people to know too much about me mainly because i feel like i need to keep my distance from everyone because i feel like getting close to someone will make both sides get hurt even more at the end

because people would smile back at you. and that makes me feel good, not just because they're smiling back at me, but also because i know i made someone smile and think that "hey, there are still people who randomly smile at you." though maybe that's not what they think all the time...

I do this fake smile to let others know...i'm really okay. Things just get a little shitty once in a while.. but it doesn't mean I have to be happy all the time.

not that im sad, its just maybe that im not happy. (if you know what i mean.) Neutral like. but people would question why im not smiling, (not like im frowning either). and i cant be bothered with that ya know?

I smile like this sometimes. Just to be possitive, even at the cost of lying to myself. I just ignore the negatives around me, so that I'm not sad all the time. It's like taking rest from all bad things and regaining some energy.

So many different answers! I never knew there were so many reasons why people smile :)

Because i have to? i mean even though i don't feel like smiling there's like a need for me to smile because i don't want to trouble other people.

When i was little my mum used to tease me a lot about how i always looked unhappy, and even when i grew older all of my family friend's parents would say to my mum ''what's wrong with your child? she's always angry'' and spread these rumours behind my back, and the truth was i just didnt like showing emotion. now i smile a lot so people dont get the wrong idea, and sometimes, it actually makes me feel as if everythings okay

I have a friend whom I highly suspected of doing this, and he'll simply smile all the time to hide how miserable he is (I think) because he has another friend who likes to humiliate him and abuse him. This thread influenced me a lot about this theory, though. Thanks, I guess.

So people won't worry about me and ask me what's wrong, because they'll never understand my answer. People generally don't understand the effects of depression unless they have experienced it. It sucks the life out of everything, and eventually, me, one day.

I do it so people will not look at me as depressed. Also if I smile no one is urged to look under my sleeves...

>>1 Pretty sure EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the planet does this at least 30% of the time.

Well, I'm mostly like this everyday in school. The most effective way that this could happen every time is being a social introvert, which I am one. People struggle, and so when introverts keep their secrets, they never want it go spill.
I tend to lie to myself, but it has become a really bad habit.
So it's pretty bad to not be who you really are, because I still haven't discovered what exactly I'm like, according to my friends.

>>31 darn, and please ignore that bad grammar. -_-;;;

Instead of smiling fake, I smile whenever I see my reflection, not for vanity purposes but for the fact that if you see yourself smiling you can be in a lighter mood. I look in the mirror and smile as real as I can, thinking about all the things that make me happy. If you're in a good mood, then you can smile to others and feel happy and avoid smiling fake to the people you don't like as well. Smiling fake isn't really beneficial to anyone, so try to smile real all the time, it'll make other's day brighter too.

62756D70

I fake smile because everybody expects me to be happy all the time.

Personally, I fake a smile a lot.
I do it so my friends and family don't need to worry too much about me so they can focus on their own problems.
Though this smile is slowly fading.

I Lie nearly the whole time and fake smile.
They worry me and I answer a lie. I don't want them to worry about me cause I don't want none of my friends to experience the incident that I had 2 years ago and it's still going.

i think everyone does, because that is how we are raised from birth. it is the way of our society. smile, even if you are barely still standing, smile, brighten up, no one likes a grumpy face. be pleasant, be fun. dont be rude, its polite to smile.

well, life is shitty. Most of us have had this one moment of pure happines, when you litteraly cry out of it. And then something goes wrong, your life comes back to normal, and you know that this state of sheer happines will never occur again.
We smile to cover this everlasting hole in our souls, we smile to our loved ones so they would feel good, so they would not see how broken and tired we are. Such smile becomes a habit, and it goes on and on.

In reality we are all fake and tend to only show good sides the real people show the bad and the true show the ugly. Its what people are.

so i dont have to be asked so many question about why im sad

Its always because I have a fear of getting judged...

To mask that I'm really depressed that I cant see my girlfriend that lives in a different state, when i was in high school it was to partly the same (just for my senior year) but also to hide the fact that I was almost always mad about something or lonely

i will not to say

I'm really the opposite. Even if I'm excited I have this weird poker face i never really try to have on but never get rid of. People say "oh, youre always so tranquil and serene" except I'm really not. Its still weird that i look opposite of what i am

My reason is because I don't want to sadden others or force them to look down on me. But I know some times you just need to let it all out but you just cant.

I always try to put on a smile when something is bothering me so I don't bring down the people I care about and i don't really trust anyone with how I really feel so I don't want them asking about it.

i use to do it to make people not worry about me.. but these past months or even years, i just displayed my emotions wildly... it's easy to say i'm just very tired all the time now hahahaa.. smile when you want to :)

Well this is what I'm like everywhere. Not just at school(since I've yet to start working). I only do it because I despise reality... that sounds really stupid when I pute it that way... but really I see the world as monotonous and controlling. I don't want to lose to this world so whenever I'm angry or depressed I don't show it, just to spite reality itself. I guess it also stems from how I grew up though since I never really had friends and don't get along too well with my family...