Steve Nash has a column in today's Brownwood Bulletin about people with "yes faces" and "no faces." This is something about a person's appearance that tells you before you even ask a question what they're answer is going to be. This crystallized something for me that I'd noticed in the past about myself.
I've noticed it mostly when I enter a polling place for elections. There are always workers for the various candidates standing around trying to hand you material which explains why you absolutely have to vote for their candidate. I have no use for this type of information, because I've usually already made up my mind how I'm going to vote long before election day. There are exceptions, of course, but my indecision isn't due to a lack of information; it's because there's no clear-cut answer based on all of the available info.
Anyway, if they hand me that paper, all it means is that I'm going to have to find a way to trash it. I'm not a litterbug, so rather than throwing it on the ground, I'm going to have to hang on to it until I find a trash can. Since I've got no use for the paper, I'd rather them just keep it instead of handing it to me. Neither do I want to engage these folks in conversation, unless I already know them, and would likely chat with them anytime I run into them. Plus, I vote at 6 a.m. when the polls open on my way to work. Since I routinely arrive at work at 6 a.m., I'm already late, so I want to get the whole voting process out of the way as quickly as possible.
Most of these folks are extremely pushy, essentially selling their candidates, they're the types that will waste a lot of their own time trying to persuade everyone they meet to agree with them. Hard-sell salesmen. Supremely annoying. The amazing thing is that they consistently let me walk on by them without saying a word. I must definitely be wearing my "no face."
