Grimacing Culture: Learning to Smile

In Western Europe, there's an expectation to smile a lot. For better or for worse, this expectation is fading somewhat as Europe shifts into a more negative phase of economic hardship, concerns over war, the rise of terrorism, and so on. But this change in attitude is also a sign that things are not going so well.

In Eastern Europe, however, if you smile when you're not actually happy, you're considered either somewhat naïve or simply a foreigner. It has little to do with how good or bad life is. Instead, it’s about smiling only when it's appropriate — which, honestly, is rarely. You walk into a shop in Vienna and often receive a smile, but if you look closely, it's frequently just a polite smile with the mouth, not the eyes. It’s more of a social obligation than a genuine gesture.

As a Western European who was always taught to smile, I didn’t realize that I was grimacing rather than smiling, since I often didn’t feel genuinely happy. In my family, not smiling was seen as poor manners. My grandmother, for instance, smiled so much that even my friends found it unsettling — not because it was warm, but because it looked forced. And as my Ukrainian girlfriend tells me, "grimacing is freaky." Fake emotions can indeed come across as unnerving.

Having lived for 20 years in Israel, I was used to a more direct way of communicating feelings. If someone doesn't like you there, you'll know immediately, and likewise, they’ll know if you don’t like them. When I was in Ukraine, I would sometimes unconsciously grimace, and my girlfriend would ask, "Are you happy right now?" If I said no, she would simply say, "So why are you grimacing?" This concept of only smiling when you genuinely feel like it was revolutionary to me. That’s what I loved about Ukraine: you could walk into a shop, grumpy as a donkey, and as long as you were respectful, nobody cared whether you were smiling or not. It was incredibly freeing.

When I returned to Vienna, I became more aware of this "grimacing culture." Of course, there’s a lot of genuine warmth here too, but don’t tell the Viennese as they have a reputation for being grumpy — they’re rather proud of it! However, I found myself reluctant to go back to that forced smile. If I'm having a good day and genuinely feel warm and fuzzy inside — which, to be honest, is about as rare as a blue moon — I'll smile. But I won't grimace just for politeness.

The reputation Vienna has allows me to feel comfortable not pretending, not contradicting my feelings in every interaction. This is something special about Vienna, sitting as it does on the border between Western and Eastern Europe. If I go further west, to places like Switzerland, and don’t smile at the shopkeeper, they’ll wonder what's wrong with me. But grimace, I won’t. Not anymore.

So, after all these years, I’ve come to appreciate a different kind of politeness—the kind that doesn’t ask me to put on a face that doesn’t match my mood. It’s not about disrespecting anyone or refusing basic courtesy; it’s about being honest in a world that often demands we fake it. Now, I’d rather let my expressions come naturally, whether that’s in Vienna, Ukraine, or anywhere else. If I feel warm inside, I’ll smile. If I don’t, well, that’s okay too. And that, maybe, is the real freedom—just showing up as I am.