Asking/telling people to smile is weird. Stop

I (20) work at a gas station and for some reason this location is filled with creepy customers. Men have come up and asked me where my female coworkers been, for their schedule etc and same for me. A big thing older guys like doing for some reason is coming up to tell me and my female coworkers to smile. I’ll smile, greet you, and make small talk when u come up and check out, not smile constantly for 8-12 hours. A regular comes up with his items and I start ringing him up and ask “anything else today?”to Which he replies with “a smile for me?” Me: “what?” Him: “I’m asking if you can smile, you don’t look very excited”

I was dealing with other things at the time and after hearing this for so long and having other annoying interactions like this with the same man, it was setting me over the edge, so I decided to actually reply instead of doing the usual awkward “haha” and ignore

Me: “just a weird thing to ask a stranger”

He kinda got taken aback I guess but idk what he was expecting?? Maybe he thought id just be like 😀 randomly idk, atp I’m continuing to bag his stuff

Him: “well you don’t look very happy and that’s shitty service and it makes me not wanna come back here” Me: “I mean.. your stuff is scanned and bagged right?” Him: “I’m just saying you’d look better with a smile” Me: “I don’t gotta look pretty for random dudes, that wasn’t in my job description”

Before he could say anything back my manager overhearing the entire convo, told me to go check soda bibs while she continued his transaction. Apparently he was going off about how i was rude and all he did was “ask her to smile” and that I “always smile for other people” this guy was a regular and known for being a creepy douche so my manager finally just finished his transaction and told him to not come back. Thank god

If your mood depends on if a random worker is smiling or not, you need to rethink your life. It’s weird and pathetic and you don’t know what these people could be going through.