The Truth Behind RBF

My sister is staying w/ us this week so naturally I had to fill her in on all the VanderPump latest so we could watch together on Monday. Then she ended up needing to work late and I was watching it solo while eating ice cream straight out the half gallon. Such is life.

She doesn’t watch regularly, so when I was filling her in, she would be like, is he the tool w/ the nose job? Or, is she the one who had the unicorn birthday? Yes and yes. When I was talking about how Katie finally finally got engaged she was like, oh, is she the one w/ the resting bitch face? And I remembered how much I hate that phrase and wanted to rant about it and never did b/c my blog is pretty much empty space these days. But my resolution was to blog more, so here we are. 

Resting bitch face, or RBF to those in the know, is complete and utter bullshit. I don’t care how many buzzfeed articles or memes or vindicated online comments it’s spawned; it is not a real thing. I’ll tell you why: no one’s face, male or female, actually looks like a bitch when they’re daydreaming. There are mouths that turn down, that might resemble a frown more than a smile, but that is not what this phenomenon is about. This is a cop-out for people who are actually mean and unhappy people 99% of the time to be like, sorry, this is how I always look. Deal w/ it.

I had a chef in school who was a nasty person. She bullied and berated students and was one of those people who seemed to actually find joy in tearing people down. I don’t remember how the subject came up one day, but she said, “I just have a mean face. I’m not really mean, but people are always scared to approach me,” and then she laughed her maniacal witch laugh. It really clicked for me then; if you’re a bitch, your face reflects that. 

This whole thing probably got started by a fast food employee. I worked at McDonald’s in high school and I get it; kids are screaming in the ball pit, the milkshake machine is down, and your food runner is more interested in sneaking fries than getting your orders. You end up doing everything yourself and at the end of your shift the last thing you want to hear when you ask someone what they want is “how about a smile?” from the pervy guy across the counter. So this girl just had too many gross pick up attempts and would be at work w/ a perpetual scowl and after fielding all the “what’s wrong?” and “are you okay?” she finally was like, “this is just my face, okay!” 

No one walks around w/ a scowl on their face b/c that’s just their face. You don’t need a poker face to have a neutral expression. On the train to work, sitting in meetings, in the checkout line at the supermarket; these are all things no one really enjoys, but you distract yourself w/ your phone or what you’re going to have for dinner or your latest Netflix binge and deal w/ it. There’s a very real difference between an expressionless face and a bitch face, and I’m just outright saying that if you have a bitch face it’s b/c you’re a bitch. Or, at that particular moment in time, you’re thinking bitchy thoughts. Which is fine; no one can think of Scheana’s cropped top wedding gown and not get that upper lip curl (and I love Scheana - but a cropped top wedding gown???)