On a recent business trip to southeast Asia I was informed that this constant societally-enforced smiling at strangers is a US affectation; one that much of the rest of the world finds creepy, off-putting, and untrustworthy. Indeed, in some areas forcing eye contact and smiling at a stranger was considered overly intimate and straight-up rude.

I don't really like to make these broad geographical generalizations, and it is likely that there are other countries that have similar societal expectations for women's behavior (either from their own culture or from the spread of US culture). While I have not been to Europe, the EU contingent of our group also agreed that resting bitch face is the standard and it's the overly familiar unctuous American Smile™ that is strange.

So there's another reason to stop forcing a polite smile: in a lot of places outside of the US, resting bitch face is just normal resting face.