War of Smiles

If you smile you’ll feel better. Maybe you have heard that one before. It actually works. We smile when we are happy and, likewise, we feel a light wave of happiness come over us when we smile.

If you follow that line of thought you are on your way to positive thinking and its many schools, advocates, and exorbitantly expensive workshops. All it does, however, is activate the hard-wiring and chemical potions already existent in our bodies. It’s a way to trick our brain in order to make it more responsive and, hence, amenable to perform tasks such as problem-solving. It’s a good technique to know and use when needed.

Smiles are also used to win friends and – virtually – win support: I smile, therefore, I am successful. Political figures cannot help but smile; some of them, as it seems, do so quite out of control.

Playgroup mothers are skilled smilers as well. After all, they dearly need support: Hi-I-am-Nancy-and-this-is-my-daughter-Kimberly. You may have met Nancy and Kimberly before, they are looking for friends and information on where to find hand-me-downs.

But then, there are all these other people who smile although they stand nothing to win, or so it seems. People who hold open doors, give directions, and stand next to you in the elevator. Most of them are Americans. Americans even smile when you bump into them, stare at them, or spill iced tea into their laps.

When I first came to the States, that fact amazed me. But it also put me, the glum German, under pressure. Somehow, I intuitively realized that smiling was not just a national pastime but an unspoken doctrine. So I practiced. I paid close attention to the way Americans smile: mouth open, tongue down, all teeth showing.

I also practiced the control smile (this one is with your mouth closed) – the one used for the spilled iced tea the one that signals superhuman self-control, like no-twit-is-going-to-ruin-my-day. It’s a passive-aggressive smile, no question, but as such extremely powerful.

If one wanted to summarize American culture it could be: The last one smiling wins.