How to Make Them Feel You “Don’t Smile at Just Anybody”

Have you ever seen those low-budget, mail-order fashion catalogues that use the same model throughout? Whether she is engulfed in a wedding gown or partially clad in a bikini, her face sports the same plastic smile. Looking at her, you get the feeling if you rapped on her forehead, a tiny voice would come back saying “Nobody’s in here.”

Whereas models in more sophisticated magazines have mastered a myriad of different expressions: a flirtatious “I’ve got a secret” smile on one page; a quizzical “I think I’d like to get to know you but I’m not sure” smile on the next; and a mysterious Mona Lisa smile on the third. You feel there’s a brain running the operation somewhere inside that beautiful head.

I once stood in the receiving line of the ship I worked on, along with the captain, his wife, and several other officers. One passenger with a radiant smile started shaking hands down our line. When he got to me, he flashed a shimmering smile, revealing teeth as even and white as keys on a new piano. I was transfixed. It was as though a brilliant light had illuminated the dim ballroom. I wished him a happy cruise and resolved to find this charming gentleman later.

Then he was introduced to the next person. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his identical glistening grin. A third person, the same grin. My interest began to dwindle.

When he gave his fourth indistinguishable smile to the next person, he started to resemble a Cheshire cat. By the time he was introduced to the fifth person, his consistent smile felt like a strobe light disturbing the ambience of the ballroom. Strobe Man went on flashing everybody the same smile down the line. I had no further interest in talking with him.

Why did this man’s stock shoot high in my ticker one minute and plummet the next? Because his smile, although charming, reflected no special reaction to me. Obviously, he gave the same smile to everybody and, by that, it lost all its specialness. If Strobe Man had given each of us a slightly different smile, he would have appeared sensitive and insightful. (Of course, if his smile had been just a tad bigger for me than for the others, I couldn’t have waited for the formalities to be over to seek him out in the crowded ballroom.)