Faking smiles vs natural smiles

CruelAutumn · 2013-10-07T17:15:00+00:00

Personally I believe real smiles are determined so much more from your eyes than your mouth.

Drugba · 2013-10-07T19:04:07+00:00

A couple years ago I got hooked on body language and facial movements and since have gone through far too many books on the subject. The mac daddy of facial expressions is Dr. Paul Ekman (The show Lie To Me was based off his work) and based on his research I think you are giving incomplete advice.

Telling people to "fake a smile" is bad advice. It's like telling someone who has no knowledge of style to "just dress nicely". What they think is nice, probably isn't what the rest of the world thinks is nice. Even if most people can't tell you how to dress well, they could point out someone who is dressed like shit.

Smiles are the same way. People may not know what the difference between a real and fake smile is, but they can point out a fake one fast, like really fast. We know people can pretty accurately tell one's mood just based off micro expressions, which usually last only fractions of a second.

People need to realize smiling comes from the eyes as well as the mouth. One of the biggest indicators of a real smile is a slight closing of the eyes, which causes small wrinkles on the outside corners of the eyes. Without that, you either look, disingenuous, goofy, creepy, or some combination of those three. A whole episode of the episode How I Met Your Mother revolves around the fact that one of the minor characters (The Captain) doesn't smile with his eyes and thus looks very creepy. Here is an image from that episode.

I have nothing against telling people to smile more, but telling them to make a fake smile, until it becomes real is a recipe for failure. People need to learn what a real smile consists of for this advice to be helpful. Other wise it's probably going to be more hurtful than helpful, if you are walking around looking like a serial killer pretending to be happy.

EDIT: BTW sorry if this post seems a bit rushed. I was trying to finish it before my lunch break was up. I am aware that I oversimplified much of stuff I said.

notevenfinalform · 2013-10-07T16:54:13+00:00

How do you improve your smile technique?

goetz_von_cyborg · 2013-10-07T20:23:33+00:00

Just think of something that makes you laugh and BAM instant, genuine smile!

antons83 · 2013-10-07T18:04:50+00:00

Something I learned from a friend of mine who smiles for a living. She is a model and she taught me two things. You can spot a fake smile from a real smile very easily. If you're genuinely smiling, the ends of your eyebrows curl down. You can't control it. Your face does it automatically. Second thing. If you put your tongue on the roof of your mouth when smiling you automatically hide the excess skin under your chin. Tried it, works like a charm.

Tringi · 2013-10-07T18:05:29+00:00

There is a saying "Fake it 'till you make it." That's basically how I got myself from AFC into kinda-PUA and, subsequently, into huge self-improvement. I just started acting as if I was great man, good with women (and having a lot of them) and things somehow turned themselves just in that way :)

highentist · 2013-10-07T19:28:56+00:00

i was always complimented for my real smile. then i realized i could get that same smile by thinking of something sort of funny and making myself laugh about it in my head making the smile on the outside! give it a try! it worked for me! and yes my fake smile in pictures was awful thus leading to looking into improving it

CrazedBeluga · 2013-10-07T19:31:42+00:00

I don't know if this will help others, but I had the same problem when I was a teenager. The way I fixed my bad/creepy smile (especially in pictures) is to basically laugh a little before the picture is taken. It is a much more realistic way to "fake smile".

jmikolash · 2013-10-07T23:41:23+00:00

I'm actually not a huge mouth smile-er, so I tend to do verrrry small smirks. My eyes are the main vehicle for my expression (don't wear glasses if you're the same as me).

Whenever I catch myself really laughing at something by myself, I try to capture the feeling from the perspective of the controller. When I need to use an expression, I just recount from memory what to do.

That being said, if a conversation with someone is not giving me genuine enjoyment, I will discontinue it. I'm not out to manipulate people most of the time; I'm really not clever enough to do so.

HarfNarfArf · 2013-10-08T01:54:54+00:00

Even when I don't particularly feel like smiling, I can still make it happen. I don't even know if it is just a really good fake smile, or I can actually smile honestly on command. Anyway, the trick is to make it more of a laugh than a smile. Don't think about holding a certain face. Give a little chuckle and it will seem natural.

Fun fact: Laughing, even when forced, can automatically put you in a good mood/better state!

DreadMe · 2013-10-08T03:26:43+00:00

What about ugly people? Serious question.

TonyDAbsolute · 2013-10-08T07:39:03+00:00

You can pick up girls without smiling at all. There was a study where they had women pick out the best looking guys from a bunch of pictures. They mostly chose the stoic looking faces.

Title	Faking smiles vs natural smiles
Author	DreadMe
Upvotes	152
Comments	33
Date	October 7, 2013 3:47 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/seduction
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1nwyib/faking_smiles_vs_natural_smiles/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/seduction/faking-smiles-vs-natural-smiles.1359512 https://theredarchive.com/post/1359512

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