Advice columnist - 6/23/10

I have a kind face. It’s a curse. While shopping at a thrift store, about to try on some clothes, a woman pops out of an adjacent dressing room, contorting herself to view the pants she’s wearing and asks, “Are these okay?” Because I have made the mistake of answering someone who is actually talking to a Bluetooth headset before, I hesitated. She looked directly at me. “Um, yeah, they’re nice pants,” or something else generically approving was my reply. The pants were actually a handful of sizes too small for her. Did she really expect honesty from a complete stranger? Since I was a complete stranger, not likely to ever see her again, should I have given it to her? Moments later, she did it again. “Those pants are better than the others,” I honestly replied, in all honesty being perfectly honest this time. They were still too small.
Having a kind face - an approachable, even inviting face – is as much a curse for the people who approach me as for myself, because I will be nice. I can’t help it. My mother tells me all the time that I’m too nice. I’ve learned that I simply believe it to be better, when a stranger approaches my kind, trustworthy face, not to betray that trust with hostility or suspicion. Obviously a woman who will ask a stranger’s opinion of her appearance needs the reassurance; what does it cost me to provide it to her? A strange man who approaches me in a grocery store parking lot to ask me on a date while I’m wearing my most unflattering sweater and with my 5th-grader in tow - here I’m assuming he wasn’t doing this as part of some joke or dare - is choosing a very non-threatening target for a reason; I could be silently suspicious of him later, but at the moment there was no reason to insert sarcasm or acidity when I informed him of my marital status, and as he slinked back to his car muttering, “Yeah, I should have known,” I believed I had made the right choice. Besides, I read Miss Manners; I know even when asserting yourself you should remain considerate of others' fragile feelings. 
Perhaps that's it: I missed my calling. Perhaps this is the face of an advice columnist, the photograph of whom, showing the slightest of smiles, is placed to the left of the warm, comforting answers to the readers' dilemmas. The unfair advantage being allotted the time to ponder my answers before they're dispensed, as opposed to needing to come up with a better answer than, "Uh," when asked if these towels match this shower curtain. I am doubtful, though, seeing as how I'm already amazed at what a fellow human will ask a complete stranger; I'm not sure I would be willing to volunteer to have these queries thrust upon me. Better leave it to the professionals.