Psychologists and personality development coaches often emphasize the importance of facial expressions, body language, and dressing for making a good first impression. But what happens when someone's resting face and regular outfit cause confusion and trouble for others? A man on Reddit, u/elegantshoshon, shared a post about how he unintentionally created chaos at his girlfriend's workplace when he arrived to surprise her.
Representative Image Source: Pexels | Los Muertos Crew
The man, standing 5’11" tall, wore a pink and black striped polo shirt, a grey pea coat, and matching grey jeans. It was a Friday, and with a day off from work, he decided to surprise his girlfriend at her workplace by taking her out for lunch during her break. His girlfriend worked at a large and popular wholesale store known for its hotdogs. She had assured him that he could visit anytime without causing any issues.
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When he arrived, the receptionist called the manager, and other employees began to think he was an important official there to fire some of them. “I walked in the front door and walked past the card-checker girl. She did a double-take and asked if I work there. I replied, 'No, I do not. I am here to see an employee, however'." He told her the name and department of his girlfriend. “She sheepishly got her radio and said, 'Management to front entrance; non-emergency'."
Representative Image Source: Pexels | Mikael Blomkvist
A manager walked towards him with a tablet and he explained again why he was there. She then made a call to his girlfriend on the radio. But the girlfriend was nowhere near the radio. Meanwhile, the employees had started to chatter about him, “I apparently kicked the hornet’s nest and I could hear chatter on other employee’s radios,” he described. The employees wondered who he was. Some of them thought he was an auditor and muttered amongst themselves, “Guys, look busy!” The employees were glancing up at him from every corner, making him feel nervous and embarrassed.
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At that point, his girlfriend appeared on the scene and heard the commotion happening around. She wrapped up her work and then, they went out to lunch. During lunch, he asked her, "Why there was such a ruckus?” She said that "I dress nicely and I’m very polite which are characteristics of a corporate rep who comes in to fire people.” His girlfriend also told him that his resting face gave the wrong impression to the employees. “I guess I need to smile more,” he wondered.
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People came with their different takes on this situation, most of which were super-hilarious. @homewra commented, “Now I'm curious how to dress as nicely to trigger that behavior on random workers... lol!” Another user wrote, “I'm sure all the other employees are going to ask your GF who you are if they saw you two leave together. She should make up a good story for the next time you show up.”
Image Source: Reddit | u/PlatonicOrb
@royal-scale772 recalled an experience, “That's hilarious. I've had similar experiences for the same reasons of my outfit + resting sour face. Externally I look like an authority figure, internally I'm as stern as a golden retriever.” @rickard0 also added his own story, “I drive a silver Crown Vic. The first time I used it to pick up my mom from work, they all thought a police officer came to get her. I am not a police officer.”
Image Source: Pexels|u/SleepyOwl420
Another Redditor, @cdwellsMCMXCVI, shared a similar instance by writing that once his boss was showing him around their new store and the employees mistook him for district manager or higher official. “I was in jeans and a plain blue oxford untucked and sleeves rolled. Looking back I was dressed nicer than some of the district managers I’ve had in the past so I guess I saw her point lol!”
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.