How important is a perfect smile to you ?

When i became an intern, and we had to work in teams, one of my colleagues had an extremely wild sense of humor. And that was the first time I was told my teeth are kinda projecting out of my skull. It was just a comment made out of pure surprise, but it affected me so much that after that incident I always cover my mouth when i laugh, or i try to not open my mouth, which results in weird distortions of my oral region that make me look super unappealing.
So i tried practicing my smile in the mirror recently. And I realized: i don't have a defined smile to begin with. I kinda just....stretch my mouth which looks super weird and it's partially due to my forward projecting incisors. But besides that, every time i try to smile, my facial muscles start twitching, which means i cannot hold a smile, which is also super awkward and really off putting. Idk but all of this has made me super conscious about how i look in a social gathering. i look extremely clueless in pictures.