Smile For The Camera

My husband never smiles for pictures.  Most people see a camera coming at them and immediately put on their biggest, cheesiest smile.  Not my husband.  He immediately puts on his "I'm going to be completely emotionless" face.  I've noticed that many men do this and I'm wondering if it has some macho reasoning behind it.  Show no emotion, show no weakness.  Or something.  I just don't see the weakness in enjoying yourself.  For example, here's my husband at the museum with our baby:

This picture should say, "I'm at the museum with my family and having a great time!"  Instead it says "I'd rather be pretty much anywhere than this."  Which may or may not have been the actual case.

Another example, this time a little more exciting.  My husband had the opportunity to spend a month in Hawaii for a training exercise and got to enjoy the beach, Luaus and clubbing every night (while I stayed home with two kids, grossly pregnant in Alaska thankyouverymuch.  But that's a different blog post I'll never get to because it's not funny at all).  Here's the proof:

 

This picture should say, "Holy shit!  I'm on the beach in Hawaii, eat your fucking hearts out, losers!"  Instead it says "Hurry up and take the picture so we can go home."

 

And now, the latest.  My awesome cousin who's kind of a big deal recently came to Kansas for a NASCAR race and not only got the entire family tickets, but also got us garage and pit road passes.  My husband is a big NASCAR fan but has never been to a race... until this day:

 

Instead of saying, "OMFG I'm standing next to Junior's car!" it says "Mehhhh.... here's a car."  In reality he was jumping up and down and squealing like a little girl (for those of you that have the honor of knowing my husband, you'll know I'm exaggerating slightly) but as soon as I turned the camera on him, bam.  No emotion.

 

Perhaps you don't really see the big deal and need a little comparison of equal enthusiam portrayed two very different ways. 

 

"I'M SO FUCKING HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!!"

Here's me on our last date.  We don't get dates very often.  Or ever.  So it's a big deal.  This is my reaction to being sans kids for the night.  I'm pretty friggin' excited.  And now here's my husband:

"I'M SO FUCKING HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!!"

He's equally excited, and yet very different pictures.  Our kids are going to grow up and ask why Daddy was never happy.    Here's him at Disneyland, the happiest fucking place on Earth:

"I just killed a big-ass mouse, now where's the beers?"



Okay, so that's a badly photoshopped picture of him with a fake horseshoe mustache.  But seriously, that's probably what it would look like if we actually went there.  He looks like he's about to open fire on a crowd.

 

I really don't get it.  My husband actually has quite the charming smile.  Unfortunately none of you get to see it because he's a douche who wants to be remembered as a surly asshole.  Which is kind of true, but nonetheless I'd like for people to actually think he has a good time when we're out making memories and memorializing them photographically for all time.  You may hate every part of your existance, but if you smile for pictures people will look back and think "wow, the dude really enjoyed life!" and wow, look at the joke you just played on them!  You're so clever.  And all you had to do was smile.