Bitchy Resting Face

Do you know someone with a bitchy face?

So begins the fake PSA that started out as a joke and gathered more than 2 million hits on the comedy site Funny or Die and YouTube. And there was the True Blood actress Anna Paquin who took some heat from a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where she displayed, what has come to be called “Bitchy Resting Face.” She says, and I love this response: “it’s not my responsibility to be everyone’s sunshine.”

Incidentally, Resting Asshole Face (RAF) is the male equivalent to the female’s Bitchy Resting Face (BRF).

I find this whole phenomenon so funny…but understand it. Not only have I witnessed it frequently throughout my life, and even commented on it to my wife, but my wife had also once told me that when I work out at the gym…I look mean. Like I’m gonna kill someone. So, one day, while working out, I did look at myself in the mirror…and, yeah, I did look like that! How funny, I thought, as I laughed to myself. Okay. Well, thing is—from my point of view—when I’m working out, I get very focused. I don’t spend time talking to people in the gym, I’m there for one reason, and one reason only—to work out. Sure, I smile and say “hello” to people along the way, and do even trade a short (key word: SHORT) conversation or two, if it happens, but I’m there to move weight and exercise, not socialize. But that doesn’t mean someone can’t say “hello” to me, or something.

Well, needles to say, since that little epiphany, I’ve actually made an effort to try to “relax” the “angry gym face” (AGF), I’ll label it. Sure, sometimes it’ll get away from me, but I try to reset it. I’m not an angry person. Not in the least. I’m actually quite the annoyingly happy guy you meet out on the street, always greeting “hellos” and smiling to those I meet. I actually have the opposite of Bitchy Resting Face, called Happy Resting Face (HRF). But when I’m in the gym, I blow through my workouts, taking only seconds of rest between sets, making an Olympic event of it all. But, I seem to do that with everything…writing…walks/hikes. Day job work. I seem to plow through most things I take on, like a frigging bulldozer. It’s just how I am, I suppose. When I’m on top of my game, around the house, doing chores, my wife actually has to set bear-sized leg-hold traps to slow me down. And I usually have to step into two of them to get any results.

So, funny as BRF is, I see it. It exists. Just like RAF. But you know, I still do my best to smile and say “hello” when I can to those BRFs and RAFs out there. Especially at work. And I know I’m probably hated for it, but what the hell, it’s who I am and what I do. I have my own AGF, so I do understand all your plights. Just keep smiling on the inside, and maybe… just maybe…that smile will eventually shine through…one day….

Related articles

• ‘Bitchy resting face’ is real (kind of). But there’s hope (today.com)
• Bitchy Resting Face: Experts Explain Why That Woman Might Not Be A Bitch After All (mamapop.com)
• Is Bitchy Resting Face Over? Or Is It Just the Beginning? (jezebel.com)
• Got ‘Bitchy Resting Face’? (threescoops.net)
• Is There A Cure For Resting Bitchy Face? (inventorspot.com)