Your Resting Bitch Face might make you a better communicator

Take that, smilers.

We all know somebody with Resting Bitch Face. Either that, or we suffer from it ourselves.

The term has long been used to label (and often shame) those among us with naturally non-smiling expressions.

But RBF may not deserve all the heat it gets.

According to one theory, those who have the affliction tend to be better communicators than those who don’t.

The idea has been proposed by Rene Paulson, a statistician with self-proclaimed RBF. She explained that when the world assumes you’re upset or mad all the time, you have to learn different ways to communicate.

To avoid being misunderstood, RBFers learn to speak more eloquently and directly, and are able to interpret the words of others better as a result.

This won’t stop people from telling you to smile, of course. But it might give you a silver lining to focus on the next time someone feels the need to start criticising.