I’ve noticed when watching people (as it is often my wont to do) that lots of people I know have default faces, the faces they show when they stand in the elevator going to lunch while trying to remember what they ate for lunch the day before, or reading a book, or stopped at a stoplight. These faces can be happy, pensive, dour, vapid, or intense, and I get the feeling that most people have no idea of what their own default face looks like to other people, or the giant effects that other people’s impressions of their default face have on the course of their lives overall.

Do you have a default face? What do you think it is? Ask around. Are you right?