What is it about the curl of a man’s lips, the softening of his features, the sparkle in his pupils, the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes that makes a woman weak? Be it from the man across the bar or the breakfast table, the man cradling our arm as we march down the aisle or the little guy holding our hand as we guide them across the street. There is just something utterly captivating about watching the transformation that overcomes a man’s face when he grins in genuine amusement or affection. 

Perhaps it’s because so many men are so stingy when it comes to displaying their joyous emotions. They harbor them like a pirate’s treasure, doling them out in small increments. Maybe that’s why we crave them so much. Or perhaps they know how much we yearn to see them, so they guard them, flashing a dazzling smile only when they want something the most. However possible this might be, I don’t think most of the male population is this devious, or this self-aware. 

Most of the men my acquaintance have no idea of the power of their joy, of the twinkle in their eye, the stretch of a smile across their lips, and the staggering effect it can have on females. They flush with embarrassment when we tell them how much we like their grin. Or brush it aside in annoyance when we ask them to smile more. The floppy, dopey, easy grins of boyhood are so quickly squashed by puberty. The bright smiles of elementary school pictures transforms to the barely concealed contempt of a teen to the stolid indulgence or amused smirk of the adult. Rarely do we capture and immortalize the heart-warming, resistance-melting, sigh-inducing smiles we so crave. 

It was one of these smiles that first attracted me to my husband, a flash of brilliant amusement shared in the mirrors of the dressing rooms behind our college theater as we prepared for dress rehearsal. Another grin turned over my heart in the parking lot behind my dorm when I had to express regret that I could not join him and some of our friends for dinner because of a prior engagement. Several weeks later, a sexy, sleepy curl of his lips after an afternoon nap zapped me with the knowledge that I was in love with him. And, on our wedding day, the warm gleam in his eyes and playing across his lips as I walked up the aisle toward him was only for me, and it told me that I had made the right decision, that this man had captured my heart forever. It calmed my fears and wrapped me in the warmth of his presence and made the breath stutter in my chest from joy and excitement.

If I could give a man one piece of advice, it would be to smile more. For yourself, for your loved ones, for your mother, your daughter, for your wife, for the women who might one day become your wife. There are few things as magical in this world as the light and life and softness that enter a person’s face when they truly smile. And for men, the transformation is by far the greatest.

Does a man’s smile make you weak in the knees? What attracted you to your significant other? Was it his or her smile, or something else? What do you crave the most from your loved ones?