The Northwest Smile

I've heard people gripe about the Northwest smile before. I'll admit, it's not exactly humanity at its most beautiful. Essentially, it's an effort to smile without expending too much muscle, but it ends up looking like someone who's very happy with their Botox:

So I can see why people think that's kind of a goofy, half-assed expression of feeling. But here's the thing– in many western cultures, people find it offensive and invasive to make eye contact. Essentially, as first-worlders, our goal in life is to not have anyone else exist unless they're specifically serving our needs at that particular moment. nonetheless, we're still curious what everyone else is doing. So if someone is looking at you on the street, if you catch them you're going to avert your eyes- you don't want to give them the impression that you're actually trying to make human contact. (The exception being when you're being checked out, in which case you are indeed serving their needs at that moment. You're welcome.)

Well, here's the thing– PNWers are very social people. So when we catch someone looking at us, we don't get upset that they're making eye contact. Yes, you're still bothering us, but we don't want to look like assholes. So we smile. Granted, it's the weakest, most half-assed effort of a smile that the human body can produce, but at least we're trying to be friendly. If nothing else, it beats the sarcastic Beehive Belt "there, is this the fucking smile you're looking for?" smile: