Annoying

[cosmolinguist]

Some days, like today, Andrew thinks he is annoying.

I almost never agree. (But sometimes his apologies about being annoying can get annoying. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

However, in honor of the occasion, I will tell you the most annoying thing he does:

Sometimes when Andrew thinks I'm sad or angry or some such unpleasant thing, he will try to get me to smile. Many of these times, I do not want to smile, so his efforts are likely to annoy me all the more. This is good; it can bring on a really good frown, or sometimes even a scowl.

Not disheartened by his early lack of success, he knows to advance to the next step. This consists of poking at the corner of my mouth, pushing it so it's curving up instead of down. As soon as he takes his finger away, however, that corner sags down again.

Not easily discouraged, he attacks my unacceptable facial expression from a variety of angles. Sometimes he holds the finger there for a while, as if hoping to freeze the upturned corner in place—after all, our mothers all told us some day our faces would freeze like that; might as well make "that" something good, eh?. Sometimes he'd take it away quickly, perhaps thinking I wouldn't notice right away—the way characters in cartoons are forever failing to notice, and thus being impervious to, the fact that they've just run off the edge of a cliff.

Nothing works, though. (Usually. If such preliminary efforts are actually successful, I am disappointed in myself. But sometimes they are.) This is the part where it gets rough. Because this is the point where he always looks at me, dismayed and alarmed, and says, "It's broke!"

I know this sounds dumb (much dumber than I expected it to, or I'd have never started writing at all), but it's true.

If he has to, he'll usually go on to, "I fix, I fix!" and start pushing on the corner of my mouth again but, I am sad to say, often that is not even necessary. Many times my lips will have have curled into a reluctant but huge smile.

I hate that. What's he doing making me smile when I don't want to smile? And it works every time! It's just not fair! What fun is it looking cheery when I want to mope? Isn't he supposed to be thinking of my needs, or something? How inconsiderate!

And that's the most annoying thing he does.

Comments

[hephaestos.livejournal.com]

American reply: that's so cool. You're obviously made for each other. :)

British reply: well, if that's the most annoying thing he does...

[cieo.livejournal.com]

Oh, you made me laugh with this one. I think it's adorable. I wouldn't want to watch, but yes--cute. :)

[cosmolinguist]

I don't blame you; it's more insufferably cute than I thought I was capable of. But we're like that sometimes. My pastimes in high school and college was making fun of the sappiness of my friends' relationships, and now I've become at least as bad as any of them. The only clever thing about it is that I kept it 4000 miles away from all of them so they don't know this.

[soltice.livejournal.com]

Cute, perhaps, but I think if he would ever try to do that to me, I'd get violent. Sometimes people feel lousy, and no amount of forced humor can "fix" what's under and empty smile.

[cosmolinguist]

Of course. I don't want to smile and that's why it's annoying. And it really is annoying. :-)

But it's not an empty smile. I'm smiling because he's funny, yes, but also because I have someone around who cares about me and wants me to be happy.

[xianrex.livejournal.com]

Oh my god you two are the cutest EVAR. That made me smile at 5 am.

[sporksoma.livejournal.com]

-=snoopy dance=-

That is tooooo cute!!!!!!!

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

:)

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

You two had *better* get married then. Honestly, anyone who does that for you so consistently and who has that affect on you is a keeper.

(I now have tears in my eyes from the sheer mushy adorableness of the whole thing. Dammit.)

[cosmolinguist]

I didn't mean it to be that horribly mushy. Considering the responses to this, I think I must've overshot.

[comradexavier.livejournal.com]

I didn't think it was horribly mushy. But as you know, I'm not particularly sensitive to mushiness.

On the other hand, I don't particularly believe in being unhappy; I can't imagine why you would reject cheer. I like smiles to the extent that I am somehow deviously pleased that Andrew has invented an effective means to force them upon you.

[cosmolinguist]

I don't really like being unhappy, either; nor is it a thing I really do much. (As I was writing this, I remembered you telling me when I was practicing that high school speech about the date with the rocket scientist that I shouldn't be smiling. That while I may be amused at this and my audience may be laughing, my character shouldn't be. But I found it impossible not to smile; I was doing it without even noticing. I do that a lot.)

But sometimes I get stuck in a rut of mopiness and worrying and just generally not feeling well, and then I am annoyed at him. Until he does this. Then I feel better, and I'm glad to have him there.

[ulalune.livejournal.com]

That's adorable!

I hate being told to smile too. If I'm not smiling, I'm not necessarily unhappy, perhaps I just can't be bothered to put forth effort into twitching my face into socially pleasing shapes! Constantly being told to cheer up, smile, lighten up, cheer up goth, have an irn bru (actually, that one makes me laugh. Double points if I actually get free drink out of it) is a surefire way to get all my teeth showing - but I'm NOT smiling!

[cosmolinguist]

Irn Bru would probably make me grimace rather than laugh, but that has teeth in it too. :-) The boy drinks that on a semi-regular basis, because he's boycotting Coke so that means a lot of Lucozade and Irn Bru. Well, it seems like a lot to me! I tried each of them once; I'll have to continue supporting the evil Coca-Cola people, I guess.

[ulalune.livejournal.com]

Haha, Irn Bru is bloody horrible really, I just like getting free stuff :P Coca-Cola is evil. But compellingly so. *drinks evil*