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Showerthought: My fake smiles at work are starting to feel like a betrayal
Faking happiness to protect others might be the real selfish move, change my mind.
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henryp407mo ago
Never heard someone call a fake smile selfish.
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tyler_bennett597mo ago
At my last job, our manager always had this fake smile during team meetings. It felt insincere, like he was just checking a box without listening. A friend on the team called it selfish because it shut down real talk about our stress. What worked for me was asking directly for more honesty, even if it was uncomfortable. @henryp40, maybe it's not common to call it selfish, but it can feel that way when someone's smile avoids real issues. You see how that changes things?
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jana_jones7mo ago
Yeah, "selfish" is a strong word for it. I read something once about how a fake smile can be a kind of emotional gatekeeping. It stops the hard stuff from coming up. Kinda like what @the_thomas was getting at, it might be more about avoiding conflict than being selfish in a mean way. But the effect is the same, it shuts people down.
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