The Smiling Experiment

Day 2 featured my mother-in-law paying a visit.  My mother-in-law responded quite well to the smiles! And she doesn’t generally smile too much around me (to put it gently …). But she smiled back! My wife responded well. But my wife is a natural smiler herself and it does not take much to get a cheerful look back from her. But then we hit a small bump in the road – I ate a piece of the dessert she was saving for a pot luck dinner the following day. Whoops! We managed to get through that one, although it helped greatly that a neighbor was over at the time. You know how it goes.

In the evening of Day 2 I joined some fellows for a men’s retreat. These are pretty darned nice guys I will say, but I have felt a bit excluded at times in the past. But this time it was different. I think. I even was shown how to play cribbage – the last two such retreats I watched as the others played. Did the smiles make them want me around?

Day 3 featured more time with the guys. I think I figured something out. . .

people leave you alone when they see you never putting on a smile because I think they figure you are signaling that you wish to be left alone. That isolation, in turn makes the person left alone feel excluded. That in turn reinforces the sad-sack face.  It is a vicious cycle.

At any rate, I was invited in for another game with the guys: bean bag toss. And I definitely did not feel excluded in any way shape or form while at this retreat.

Evening of Day 3 brought me back to my dear wife. She was cheerful, as she often is. (Except when she’s not  LOL) So it is difficult to tell if my smile experiment is having an effect with her.

Day 4, Sunday, will give me more time with the kids. It will be interesting to see how they react. I have not had much time at all with them since this experiment began.

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