To smile or not to smile!

Oh! the burden of being human and that too a sensitive one among the species. Meeting people who are strangers but not quite, in lift lobbies, car dropping areas, at reception desks, around washrooms, in locker rooms, or at the gym. The expression of faint recognition, teamed with apprehension of being the first to acknowledge, deadly combination I tell you. I think women face it more than men. By personal experience I can safely say, men are more eager to exchange pleasantries than women. Most women that I happen to run into, walk around with this absolute dead pan expression. If you are reading this, and are a woman, my appeal to you please don't take this personally, and I don't intend to attack anyone. But I think I have been running in to this variety much too often.

The places you visit everyday, you happen to inadvertently become part of a larger group of random strangers. But there is an unspoken connection between all these people, that they all are at the same place, around the same time, for the very same reason. It's like being part of a silent reading group, where you know no one, but all of you visit the same library everyday, at the same time, and happen to sit around the same big table reading this and that. Like it or not, its about ok social etiquette to acknowledge the presence of any individual in this group and to smile at them. Chances are high that all the guys in the group would exchange pleasantries in the form of a nod, hand shake or just a smile. But the fairer sex can be a bit of a tight fist in this regard. She can be miserly in her smiles and a tough nut to crack even for simple acts of recognition.

Being a woman myself, I'm bound by laws of sisterhood (well or so I presume), but often I'm left wondering if its okay to be the first to smile. If we just let go of the apprehension sometimes, drop the dead pan expression, and bring some sunshine with a radiant unapologetic smile, a smile of recognition, a smile of acknowledgement...