Im not talking about pity smiles. I mean actually listening, making eye contact, joking around, and treating them like a normal human being instead of looking through them or giving them the bare minimum. I'm not doing this to virtue signal or to pat myself on the back. I'm doing it because I know what it's like to not receive that basic kindness. I was overlooked, dismissed, or straight up ignored in social situations because of how I looked. It messes with you in ways people don't talk about. The loneliness, the feeling that you're invisible, the way it chips away at your confidence.
So now, when I interact with someone who probably deals with that same rejection on a daily basis, I try to give them what I wish more people had given me. The assumption that they're worth talking to.