Smile love, it may never happen

[Julie89uk]

I was in the queue at Aldi earlier and the bloke in front of me turned around looked at my face and said "smile love it may never happen"..

what does this mean?

This is twattish behaviour to a stranger.. For the record my face was neutral

Always respond to this with: 'My dad just died.'

Ugh I hate this shit

i told the last person who said that to me ‘ I’ve just been diagnosed with cancer ( I had) so I think I’m entitled to look miserable. He looked shocked but if it stops him ever saying that again to someone again- good! We never ever know if the person next to us is suffering

It's old school misogynistic, sexist shite. I'm a 50 something bloke ( for reference) and as a young lad I used to work with older chaps who thought this was the normal way to speak to a woman, and sometimes with the arm around her. It made me uneasy then and it makes my skin crawl now that it's still going on.

"It just has. I've been approached by a pervert. No wonder I'm upset"

The homeless guy who sits outside our local Sainsbury's (mentioned as he says all sorts of odd shite to people) said this the other day. I frowned in a confused manner.

It means so many things though within a patriarchal society. Certain men expect women to look pretty and be nice, nothing else.

'How do you know it fucking hasn't? Face the front.'

He obviously thinks you didn't look that happy. I had it happen to me once and found it extremely insensitive- we'd come back from our honeymoon as member of family passed away. We didn't have any food I so had to go shopping. We'd had a five hour journey back day before, I was tired and in shock

It means "Look more decorative for my eyes woman". Like others I've had it said to me when I've had a cracking reason to be very sad and the man got that reason explained in forceful terms.

I always respond to this with a blank look and "are you talking to me?" when they say yes I respond with a genuinely confused "Why??". They usually get the message.

yep! This actually happened to me about 3 weeks after my Dad died 20 years ago and ive been saying it ever since. Men that do this are misogynistic knobs.

Got this from an elderly man on the way to order flowers for my dad's funeral. I could happily have punched him - that bit would have made me smile anyway.

It translates as “A woman out in public should at least be attractive to the male gaze, else why else are you here?”

My answer is either “It has, I’ve got someone telling me how to arrange my face” or “Thank you for your comment, random man” and a good Paddington stare. They usually come back with some huffy shite about “Well I was just being friendly” to which I reply sarcastically “Were you now.”

They can fuck off with that crap.

I usually say my dad's died (he died 22 years ago but still)

Yeah it is shitty. As you say, for all you know someone could be going through a bereavement so it’s incredibly inappropriate.
For me it’s generally just resting bitch face - if you don’t like it don’t look at me.

"YOU FIRST"

My go to phrase for situations like this is 'Would you say that to a man?'

Its so annoying.
It's so misogynistic, and completely shows absolutely no self awareness. Saying it is a way to show the world you're an absolute dickhead, in my humble opinion.

"Smile mate, it may never happen"

Not heard this for years but definitely been said to me in my younger days, mostly by some random bloke. My response was always a hard stare 😀 it usually had the desire effect!!

I get it a lot. I'm ugly with resting bulldog eating a wasp face. I either tell them to fuck to the far side of fuck and keep going, or give them a maniacal grin to scare the shit out of them.

It means nothing ,it's just something people say ,ignore it.

Yeah of course you do 🙄

My reply ? It happened. I saw you .

"Looking at you, it already has"