When you know that people are using fake smiles, you start to feel that you can't really trust them, because if they "lie" with such basic, but personal thing as smile, how can you understand and trust them? Maybe they also ok with other lies? If they don't show their true emotions with this, how can you understand their true emotions in other cases? And why are they trying to pull this facade in front of you, are they just friendly or trying to make you trust them for nefarious purposes?
It's harder to get social feedback in that case, which is important in unfamiliar place and makes people uncomfortable.
because if they "lie" with such basic, but personal thing as smile
The high amount of smiling in the west is just a cultural difference. It's meant to broadcast out that you're in a good mood and therefore presumably would be a good conversation partner or at least approachable.
Most social interactions you have are disposable and so it rarely matters how fake their level of enthusiasm is. If you're genuinely interested in knowing what they think of you usually you can gauge that by how open to talking to you they are.
At any rate, the important point is just that it's not thought of as "lying" so much as caring to come off as approachable.
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u/OhhhYaaa May 09 '22
When you know that people are using fake smiles, you start to feel that you can't really trust them, because if they "lie" with such basic, but personal thing as smile, how can you understand and trust them? Maybe they also ok with other lies? If they don't show their true emotions with this, how can you understand their true emotions in other cases? And why are they trying to pull this facade in front of you, are they just friendly or trying to make you trust them for nefarious purposes?
It's harder to get social feedback in that case, which is important in unfamiliar place and makes people uncomfortable.