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AIBU?

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Original poster

...to think ‘Resting Can I Help You? Face’ is a real thing?

139 replies

Bebepoor · 15/03/2018 15:49

And does not receive the attention it deserves.

Honestly. Strangers ask for directions and tell me about their health problems. Acquaintances pour out their hearts to me. Friends tell me things I really wish I didn’t know. People moan about Resting Bitch Face but my affliction is much greater. Any other sufferers?

OP posts:
cheeriosandcornflakes · 15/03/2018 21:44

Yep, I am one of those too. Am stopped and asked for directions at least once a week, even on holiday, asked to watch things for people in cafes etc. Once somebody came up and asked me to help get a bee out of their hair Confused

DeadGood · 15/03/2018 21:48

This thread is fascinating! (BRF here)

MrsMoastyToasty · 15/03/2018 21:51

I have a "Cheer up love, it might never happen " face.

LaBelleSausage · 15/03/2018 21:57

Perhaps it’s a combination of my DFs ‘can I help you?’ face and the ‘tell me all your problems’ face of my DM, but my terrible affliction is the ‘you can trust me with your children’ face.

It’s been going on for about a decade and I’m not quite in my 30s yet! So clearly it’s not a ‘nice friendly granny’ look. And I’ve only recently had DS (not yet 4 months) so I can’t possibly have looked competent with kids as I’m still not 100% at not dropping things on him, but people have always loved to entrust their children to me.

It happens on public transport when there’s a seat near me and the mum vanished off to a different carriage or floor, when a dad is out with his daughter who needs to use the loo or a changing room and wants someone to keep an eye on her, in car parks when somone cant quite get their baby into the car and needs somone to look out for the pram or buggy while they get in to manoeuvre...

Most of the time I don’t even get asked, just the child is loudly told ‘let this nice lady keep an eye on you’ or ‘stay here and talk to this nice lady’.
It’s utterly bizarre and all of my friends comment on it.

Xennialish · 15/03/2018 22:00

I have this! I got asked for directions literally bent double in the street in very fast onset labour once Confused

SingingSands · 15/03/2018 22:07

Oh god this is me. I must give directions to people every day, I seem to attract people at bus stops who give me their life stories and twice this week I’ve had tradesmen round to give me a quote and have ended up listening to their tales of woe regarding their ex-wives!

ShovingLeopard · 15/03/2018 22:10

I have this. I put it to good use and retrained as a psychotherapist!

jennylindinha · 15/03/2018 22:11

Oh my goodness, I have this face too! Only this evening I was asked where the toilets were in the station. I had literally just run in and was looking at the board. Happens all the time, plus the life stories. I don't mind and am happy to chat to people unless I'm in a rush, but sometimes I have to put my headphones on and stare into the middle distance...

Guaranteed that whenever I am abroad I get asked directions and I nearly always know the answer, even if I've never been there before. I like to be prepared, understand roughly where things are and how to get there so maybe it looks like I know where I am going? Confused

I also wear glasses... But only for the last few years, before then I wore contacts but still got asked things a lot!

TheElementsSong · 15/03/2018 22:13

DH has this! I love that we can now put a name to it!

It's a long-standing joke that wherever we go in the world, somebody will ask him for directions. People even ask him when we're in Asia, when I'm the one who looks native.

OhYouBadBadKitten · 15/03/2018 22:24

I have this too. Pity the poor couple whom I helpfully took across a bridge in London to the wrong campus after google didn't point out there was more than one campus. Embarrassingly they took selfies with me before I abandoned them on the wrong side of the Thames by accident.

jennylindinha · 15/03/2018 22:38

Ha! OhYouBadBadKitten was it King's College by any chance? They have campuses both sides of the Thames. And one further down the river too. At least you tried...

Qvar · 15/03/2018 22:42

I call it resting labrador face, and despite my brusque online presence, I have it.

EVERYONE talks to me. Odd men come and tell me about their hobbies. Old ladies ask me to reach things in shops. Children show me their socks.

...to think ‘Resting Can I Help You? Face’ is a real thing?
FinnegansCake · 15/03/2018 22:46

Me too! People are always asking me the time, or for directions. In shops they ask me if the clothes they’re trying on suit them, which t-shirt they should choose for their teenage son or even which jeans would best fit their (absent) ten year-old. I’ve never understood why they ask me, I’m no fashion icon by any stretch of the imagination!

The one I will always remember is the sweet French couple who came to me when I was working as a receptionist in a fancy hotel nearly forty years ago. They said they loved their room, but were extremely disappointed that the bathroom had no bidet. They confided that they wouldn’t have mentioned it to the other receptionists, but they were telling me because I looked as though I’d understand exactly how they felt Grin Confused

Knittedfairies · 15/03/2018 22:47

I have an 'oh, I thought you were someone else' face.

SD1978 · 15/03/2018 22:49

Yup. I have had people make a beeline for me, when there are closer options. It’s kinda funny. At work I am accused of resting bitch face. In public I appear as welcoming as mother Teresa..... Usually it’s a first aid issue. I had an old chap wait until several others had walked past first, stop me, ask for help as a dog had bitten him on the leg. I hadn’t seen the dog attach, so had happened a few minutes earlier, with opportunity for him to ask several others. But he waited for me (was more than happy to help and patched him up and drove him home)! But these things seem to happen more frequently than they do to others. Hello to you all!!

thanksjaneshusbandatcaresouth · 15/03/2018 22:49

Rofl :)

riddlerdiddler · 15/03/2018 22:51

Yes!!!! Thank you for putting a name to this affliction. Whilst waddling down a hospital corridor towards the delivery suite whilst in labour and clearly huffing and puffing in pain, a woman passed 4 or 5 other people before deciding to ask me and OH if we knew where the children's ward was. If i'd been more capable of speaking i might have sarcastically pointed out that we were not yet parents and had, so far, not needed the children's ward. I didn't. In fact we replied that we didn't know and both gave her big smiles. We only have ourselves to blame.

Saracen · 16/03/2018 01:41

I have that, plus apparently I look German. Grin

I live in a tourist town in England. Lots of tourists from many countries ask me (in English) for directions. A fair few also ask me for directions in German!! Never any other foreign language, just German.

The worst of it is that I do speak a little German, so I feel the need to try to answer them in German.

Of course, I do realise that people in many non-English-speaking countries are subjected to a constant barrage of such requests from the English tourists!!

Shinygoldbauble · 16/03/2018 01:49

Resting nice face here too, and i wear glasses.
I must look very approachable and unthreatening so much so that a lady once came out of a toilet cubicle in a hotel I was in and asked me to help open her belt!
It was stuck and she was in dire need of the loo. It was odd to find myself wrestling with a stranger's belt in the ladies loo but wrestle I did! She was very grateful.

ChasedByBees · 16/03/2018 01:55

I have this - so annoying!

silentpool · 16/03/2018 01:55

My people! I am asked for directions absolutely everywhere. Even in countries where I am distinctly not local. People also randomly approach me a lot in supermarkets to offer me advice about what to buy or to ask me questions about (for example) what apples to put in apple pie ( I am in Asia so I offer tips to randoms about Western food). I take photos of tourists.... Its always been that way. My affliction does not extend to people telling me their life stories though, so some of you are worse off!

LackOfAdhesiveDucks · 16/03/2018 02:09

This is me.

My best friend has commented before that I must be a magnet for these type of people. On the bus, in stores, on the train, in foreign countries, they all want to tell me their problems or ask me for help. It might not be so bad if I wasn’t so bloody socially awkward but when strangers talk to me I panic. You’d think I’d be used to it by now but no...

LeeroyJenkins · 16/03/2018 02:20

Yes! This is a thing! I have benign, safe, approachable face syndrome too! Doesn't help that DS is one of those toddlers who loves to court attention, particularly from old ladies, he actively seeks them out. Kid knows his target audience, I'll give him that! All big blue eyes, waving and chirping "iya!".

So I'm trying to get round Aldi and I get Eileen's obstetrics history followed by assisting in doing Marjorie's big shop with her.

RockinHippy · 16/03/2018 02:36

And does not receive the attention it deserves.
^
Honestly. Strangers ask for directions and tell me about their health problems. Acquaintances pour out their hearts to me. Friends tell me things I really wish I didn’t know. People moan about Resting Bitch Face but my affliction is much greater. Any other sufferers?^

I have full on, hardcore resting bitch face, took me years to cultivate it & I still regularly get this sort of stuff Confused

TallulahBetty · 16/03/2018 02:42

I have found my people Wine

My specialty is being asked for directions. I'm hopeless with my left and right, so I often realise when they've gone that I've told them wrong. I then live in fear of seeing them again

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