As someone who personally struggles with a resting bitch face, I can totally relate to the misconceptions and judgements made towards people who have a naturally aggressive resting facial expression. I’ll never forget the first time I realized that I had a rude looking rest face; It was a few years ago as I was getting my senior pictures taken when suddenly the photographer stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me. I didn’t know what was wrong. He started smirking at me and backed away from his camera. “Do people often ask you what’s wrong or why you look miserable?” Taken off guard, I told him yes; people often did say that. He told me that my mouth naturally curves downward when I’m not showing any expression, making me come off as rude. He told me that was called “resting bitch face,” and I was shocked. That’s a thing?! Here is how resting bitch face can cause misconceptions about a person who totally means well:

People think you’re unapproachable

If I had a dollar for every time someone told me I was unapproachable I think I would have enough money to quit my day job. Apparently my RBF keeps people away (sometimes, that’s probably a good thing) and leads them to believe I’m rude or judgmental. People are less likely to ask us questions, smile at us in public, or try to befriend us compared to people with resting nice face. And yes, that’s also a thing apparently.

People don’t give you the time of day

One of the biggest rude awakenings I’ve experienced during my lifetime full of RBF moments is the time I messaged someone, now one of my absolute best friends, on Facebook during the time of roommate selections before my freshman year of college. I sent this sweet, long, well thought-out message to a girl I found on the Facebook page to talk and get to know one another like everyone else was doing before move-in. She literally read the message and IGNORED ME. Come to find out this brat lives down the hall from me freshman year, and we become best friends. “Honestly when I saw your profile picture all I could think was ‘man, she must be a huge bitch.'” Like what?!

Adults claim that our whole generation is just a bunch of disrespectful kids

“Kids these days, nothing but disrespectful, rebellious teenagers. If we ever acted like this, our parents would have beat us!” If you know someone like this, you can relate. The baby boomer generation always has something to say about our generation. (Hi, did you forget who raised us?!) And the resting bitch face epidemic doesn’t quite help our cause.

You’ll constantly be asked “are you okay?” or “what’s your problem?!”

When you’re actually upset, it’s nice when people show concern for your well-being by asking what’s wrong. But when you’re just sitting in class paying attention to what your professor is saying and the girl who sits next to you asks you every day “what’s your problem today?” it kind of gets irritating. NOTHING IS WRONG. THIS IS MY FACE.

Employers shy away from choosing you for the job

I’ve never personally had a problem with this because I’m generally overly friendly when I try to be, but a lot of my fellow “resting bitch face professionals” have told me that they think the reason they’ve gotten turned down for jobs that they believed they killed the interview for was due to their unintentional rude demeanor. Employers are looking for people who are always smiling and looking joyful, but honestly that’s kind of creepy if you ask me. Do you really want an employee who stands in the corner smiling to themselves all day? Weird…

You’re more likely to be negatively labeled amongst your peers

During your pre-teen years all the way up through your early 20s, people will constantly be labeling you, judging you, and making assumptions about you- good or bad. People with resting bitch face tend to get the brunt of the negative talk amongst their peers just for the way their facial expressions look. We don’t even have to say a word before we’re labeled “the bitch who never smiles,” even if we’re the happiest, smiley person in the room.

When you stand up for yourself, you’re only “being a bitch again” rather than making a good argument

From the time we’re young, we’re taught not to talk back to adults. Then we get to school and we’re taught to stand up for ourselves. Our generation already has a hard enough time dealing with our elders who always think they’re right as it is, but when we stand up for ourselves, even if it’s in the nicest way possible, we’re automatically “talking back.” If you have a bad case of RBF, you definitely know what I’m talking about. People will blame your lack of just going with the flow to your natural rudeness and rebelliousness when in actuality, you were just making a good argument that someone didn’t like.

Making friends takes extra effort

Once people see the good in your heart and who you really are, making friends is a breeze. It’s getting people to see the layer beneath your natural scowl that takes time and effort. We have to make it a point to go out of our ways for people to want to be around us and get to know us. My friends still tell me to this day that before they really knew me, they thought I came off as a huge bitch. They know now that I’m not, but even the people who are closest to you can be the people who also originally thought you were some horrible person.