Resting Bitch Face

I learned about Resting Bitch Face from an article my dad emailed me on the topic (still not sure what he was trying to imply with that email).

As I read the email, it all sounded much too familiar. I remembered how one of my high school teachers (who may have had a case of Constant Bitch Face) would always come up to me when I was minding my own business and say “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I would try to tell her, but she wouldn’t believe me. For so long I thought, “What is this woman’s problem? Jesus Crackers, just leave me alone!” But then other people started asking me what was wrong at other times when I was just chilling. After reading the email, I had to face the fact that it is me with the problem.

I have a severe case of Resting Bitch Face.

After reading the article, I told my team about it and they confirmed my fears. Even at times when I’m completely content, and just sitting there thinking, they point out to me that I’m doing RBF. I had no idea this happened so often!

Not long after this discovery, I was sitting at my desk at work, and my crew lead came up to me and asked if everything was ok.

“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“I don’t know, you just looked like you were not happy about being here. Did you get enough sleep last night?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m not unhappy, it’s just my face. I get that a lot. I swear, that’s just my face.”

Here’s what I think the problem is. First off, I have extremely droopy lip corners. If I’m not actively making an expression with my face, they just droop like dying flowers. One side is worse than the other, so when I have to do a no-smile picture, like my FEMA badge for example, which is more awful than I can convey with words, the right side of my mouth droops way down, and I look like I’ve suffered a stroke. There’s no way I can control it. When I know I’m going to have to take one of these photos, I practice in the mirror ahead of time, trying to purse the right side of my mouth up. Somehow it makes it even more pronounced, and the picture always turns out horrible despite my best efforts.

Me trying to look normal. Notice the dead eyes and droopy crooked lips.

The second problem is my dead eyes. Again, when I’m just chilling, my eyes tend to lose all life and I look like a corpse. A corpse who died of a stroke.  When I realize I’m doing it, I attempt to open my eyes wide and focus on some kind of object so that I look alive. This may backfire too, as I recently found out, when my friend turned to me and said “Wow, you look super alert right now for some reason. What’s going on?”

Some other alternatives I’ve tried are Resting Happy Face, but that just seems to creep people out. I tried Duck Lips Face, like the girls on Instagram, but unfortunately I was born with chicken lips, and am unable to convert them to duck form. Resting Alert Face, like I said, is just awkward. When I do Resting Pensive Face, it just ends up making me look angry or confused.

In the end I can only cross my fingers and hope that people will realize I’m not actually a bitch. Or at least not as big of a bitch as my RBF makes me look.

And sadly, the bad news keeps coming. I was recently informed by a friend that I also suffer from Train Depression Face. If the name is not sufficient explanation, basically it means that when I ride a subway, I look like I’m about to off myself. People are probably concerned that I’m going to get out, run across the platform, and jump in front of the next one. So now I’m going to have to remember to think happy thoughts next time I’m on a train, and hope that some of it registers in my facial expression.

Or I could get a tattoo on my forehead that says “It’s Just My Face”.