Did I wake up on a different planet or something? Within the last 20 hours or so, two separate people have told me to "Smile". I mean, what the hell is that?

One of those people, the hostess at the restaurant I went to last night was a total stranger. In that case, the command to smile just took me right out of myself. Now, I spend the majority of my time within myself, so coming out of myself is actually an unpleasant experience. It means I'm forced to confront annoyances like small talk and being polite and considerate. I'm not talking about habitual politeness - when I go to a restaurant, I must say thank you like 10 times depending on how often the server visits the table. With the exception of telling them what I want to eat and how many are in my party, it's pretty much the only thing I typically say, but it's completely on auto-pilot. I don't think about it. I'm not even aware of it.

No, I'm talking about the kind of considered polite behavior where you have to actually process what's going on and make a choice with respect to how you're going to respond to somebody. For instance I had to stop myself from responding to the command to smile with something like "Hey, why don't you fuck off? We're at the table now. Unless you're going to ask about bringing me a drink, we're pretty much done at this point. Aren't we?" No, instead I was forced to mumble something and sit there for the rest of the meal wondering how you're supposed to respond to something like that.

Then today at lunch, some guy at another table wanted to start chatting with me about ping pong and remote control cars. I mean ping pong and remote control cars for Christ's sake. And, how are ping pong and remote control cars related? I haven't a God Damn clue. I wasn't listening to the guy. I wasn't even looking at him. Believe me, I was giving him serious I'm not into this conversation vibe. But, no. It was just more of I got an engine for this car, and I need to get gas for it or some crap like that.

And now just a minute or two ago somebody I've worked with for months, someone who really must know that I smile pretty much exactly never, this person repeats the refrain from last night. It's bizarre. It's like the normal social rules have flip-flopped, and the leave me alone I don't want to make chit chat cold shoulder has suddenly become some freakishly desperate cry for attention or something. I just don't get it.