You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile

I noticed something interesting about myself today.  Everyone makes snap judgments and assumptions when they first see people.  These are based primarily on stereotypes, either that we pick up from society or that we develop over time with experience.  They are never accurate 100% of the time, but for most people, they seem to serve just well enough to justify holding on to them.  And by "well enough", I mean that most of the time, even our inaccurate assessments don't get us killed, so if it feeds our confirmation bias or affirms the consequent, that seems to be "good enough".  So when I talk about one of my snap judgments, don't think that I'm not aware of the problems with snap judgments.

One of the things I judge people on is their smile in profile pictures.  Profile pictures, especially on dating websites, are usually the pictures we post of ourselves that we think shows us at our best - for whatever definition of "best" is.  Maybe it's when we think we're the most attractive, or maybe we think it illustrates our personality, or maybe it shows us doing something that we are passionate about and we want the viewer to know that we are passionate about it.

So when I see snapshots in a profile picture (in other words, not a professional photography session, but something someone snapped at a party), I have to wonder why they chose that picture.  Is this what they think their "best" looks like?  What does this picture say about them?  There are a lot of things a snapshot picture can say about a person, but right now, I want to focus on the smile.

A person's smile tells me a lot about them.  Again, I recognize that it might not be telling me the truth.  I do not let a 5-second glimpse at a photo dictate how I will think about that person forever and ever and the smile in one, or even a handful of photographs is not the only thing I use to judge people.  But nevertheless, this is what a smile tells me about someone.  

A close-lipped, tight smile, especially one that is turned down at the corners, puckered in at the corners, or has an otherwise "uncomfortable" look to the smile, tends to make me think that he is inhibited, fearful, or has low self-esteem.  A posed picture with a smirk or subdued, quietly dignified kind of smile doesn't do this.  A snapshot where he is aware of the camera, had time to smile, and looks like he "chose" to smile, and consequently chose a smile that says "I'm uncomfortable right now, please hurry up and take the picture" makes me think that he is not very open or secure.  Having a series of pictures where all the smiles are this one only reinforces my presumption.

But a wide, exuberant, showing-teeth smile indicates, to me, a person who is a happy person in general, who was caught in a moment of happiness, and who is not afraid to show us that he is happy.  This is a smile that goes all the way up to the eyes, which are crinkled and squinty.  It tells me that he is more concerned with how he is feeling right now than how he looks, and how he feels is wonderful.  Which makes him look wonderful to me.

An open, exuberant smile shows happiness and confidence to me.  It doesn't mean that he never has self-doubt and never has bad days.  A tight smile indicates a lack of self-confidence, and it's that confidence that is really attractive to me.  I want to fill my monkeysphere with people who embrace life, who are fearless, the Whole-Hearted people that researcher Brene Brown talks about in her TEDTalk about vulnerability.  I don't mind people who are reserved, or quiet, or even shy - social skills and energy requirements are not a part of what I'm talking about right now.  I'm talking about an overarching life philosophy - a worldview that sees the universe as something exciting and wonderful and wishes to experience as much of it as he can.  You can still be introverted or shy or publicly reserved and have this worldview.

My own experience has created a stereotype in my head, which I use to make snap judgments about pictures, that tells me this smile and this worldview are correlated.  The more pictures a person has with either type of smile, the stronger this correlation is.

There are a lot of people out there with advice for how to make your profiles "better", to increase your odds of attracting a partner.  I don't tend to find those very helpful.  Sure, I give netiquette advice too, but my advice is less about how to raise your profile hits and more about how not to be a jackass and insult or piss other people off, and by extension, you will probably find more success if you're not being a jackass online.

But I don't find these "get more hits on your profile" advice columns very helpful because they don't take into account the fact that we all want different things.  Sure, I can start taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror or looking up at my cellphone, and I can shorten my profile and not rant about feminism and sexism and polyamory and atheism, and that will probably get me more hits.  But what about the quality of those hits?  I'm not trying to gather emails like I'm collecting stamps, I'm trying to find those specific people who will get along with *me* and to stop wasting my time with all the wrong guys.

The trick is not to just up the numbers - that gets tedious really quickly when it's all the wrong people.  The trick is to attract the *right kind* of person.  Efficiency over quantity.  You don't need a hundred hits to find "The One", especially if all hundred are incompatible.  You just need the right one.  In order to find a partner, you first have to become the kind of person that your Perfect Partner would want.  Then you have to find a way to communicate that you are that person.  And one of the ways we communicate who we are is through the pictures we choose to post of ourselves on our dating profiles.

So, I won't tell you all to go out and change all your profile pictures to better "improve" your online dating success.  If you don't share my values, then you won't want someone like me to be attracted to you.  But *if* you want a partner who appreciates excitement and has enthusiasm for life, one possible way to attract him or her is to show your own enthusiasm in your profile pictures.

I find I have this same presumption for women's pictures, but since I am not interested in dating women, I never really put it together like this.  I knew that I have some friends who I think are beautiful women, but who consistently smile in a close-lipped, tight smile that I think is not as attractive as their candid, exuberant smile.  Their whole faces just light up when they are genuinely happy, and that's far more attractive, IMO, than having the perfect makeup or perfectly sculpted cheekbones or hiding their teeth.  I'm always just a little bit disappointed when I see a beautiful picture of them that has this "I'm not really smiling" smile because of how much more beautiful I think their happy smile makes them.

But today, I got a notice from OKC about some guy who liked my profile.  I get a lot of those, but I haven't actually checked OKC or read my email in about a year or more.  For some reason, today, I decided to see who he was.  I liked what he had to say in his profile, but when I looked at his pictures, I notice that my interest in him dropped (I read the profile before I look at the picture, and sometimes I don't look at the pictures at all).  So I spent some time figuring out why that might be.  It wasn't until his very last picture, when he had that open, exuberant smile, that I figured out why.  In all his other pictures, he just looked uncomfortable, even though he, technically, had a smile.  And I found myself getting turned off by his discomfort.  But his happiness in the last picture rejuvenated my interest.

So, don't go out and change all your profile pictures.  Use the pictures that you think communicate best who you are and show what you want your prospective date to see of you.  Just keep in mind that people who highly value fearlessness, openness, vulnerability, enthusiasm, happiness, and embracing life may be more attracted to people whose pictures convey those same traits.  And one of the ways those traits are conveyed is through an open, genuine, uninhibited, toothy grin.  

I want happy, passionate people who embrace life & aren't afraid to try new things in my monkeysphere and I have begun learning how to relax and be myself in front of a camera so that my pictures reflect that part of my personality too.  I look for people who smile widely in pictures when I'm interested in considering whether or not someone could be a part of my monkeysphere.  

But if your profile picture has duck face, you are automatically disqualified as monkeysphere potential.

Related articles:
http://tacit.livejournal.com/389036.html - Some Thoughts On Courage
http://tacit.livejournal.com/325057.html - Some Thoughts On Choosing Relationships

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry79LzkkDb4