More on BRF, or shut the f* up

Now that Bitchy Resting Face is officially a thing, I've been milking it for all it's worth. I showed up to rehearsal last night, barely on time and frazzled. The assistant stage-manager asked me a few times whether I was pissed off about something, and I finally just told him that I have BRF. And that BRF expresses itself in particular when I'm frazzled. Besides, even if I were pissed, it wouldn't matter; I wouldn't make my mood anyone else's problem. I then leveraged that whole episode to confront another friend who did piss me off a few months ago when we went out for drinks, by repeatedly stating that I looked pissed, even as I repeatedly told her that I was fine.

I appreciate that people are paying attention to signals and/or concerned about my state of mind or heart, but you have to take my word for it the first time that I'm fine. It does no one any good to keep asking. To illustrate this point, I'll take us back a year to Nina's wedding party (the restaurant bash the day after the actual ceremony). My BRF was apparently out in full force, because one of her friends kept commenting on it, and I just really wanted him to back off. At that point, the exhaustion of traveling and stressing about logistics had caught up with me, and I was showing the wear. Whatever. I was at a party, and I was enjoying the party in my own way. If that came off as sulking to someone else, that's not really my problem and I shouldn't have to defend my facial expression to people I don't even know. And what exactly was this guy hoping to achieve by pointing out that I looked sad or pissed? It certainly wasn't cheering me up. I really should have just told him to f* off, as I nearly did the checkout guy at Trader Joe's who recently told me to smile. Even if you're trying to be concerned/helpful, you're just making the situation worse. Shut the f* up and let someone sport a frown or a scowl if that's what they're doing. You're not responsible for their state of mind.

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My coworker's wife has achieved what I could not: she got him to understand that just because a vegan can eat somewhere, doesn't mean a vegan would want to eat there. Apparently, he picked up another DC Veg guide, for her. She--who is not even a vegetarian--flipped through it and said it was ridiculous, that most of those places offer a pre-frozen veggie burger at best. Excellent point.