I’m gonna just go on a brief tirade here—
It’s probably just me, but I despise “how are you doing?” as a greeting.
To put this in context, I work in a customer-facing position, handling returns at a counter. When people come up to me and ask “how are you doing?”, 95% of the time they don’t actually care. And it bothers me in particular because I instinctively want to answer the question honestly, but a) that would result in me going into a non-trivial emotional ramble because of the… everything going on in the world right now, and b) being that open with a stranger is weird.
It’s why I’ve settled into using “fine, relatively” whenever I’m asked that question in a context that demands a terse response. It’s as honest as I can be, captures a decent range of emotions, and at the very least can get a rise out of people who aren’t expecting the standard “good” or “great” or “alright.”
“The horrors persist, but so do I.”
“I have persisted so long, I am the horror now.”
“What?”
“What?”
“By the way, sniper”
A tirade? On my tirade app?
As a customer, I ask mostly because I want to be polite; it’s also a habit ingrained in me since I was a kid, so it’s totally fair of you to feel that way. But, look, if you’re having a bad day, tell me, and I’ll be sure to adjust myself accordingly and respectfully. The last thing I want to do is be all bubbly/excited/goofy when your mood is not there.
I just respond with “Living the dream” and they can guess what I mean.
“Can’t complain, wouldn’t do any good if I did”
Yep it’s a pointless question. We should all start answering it honestly
Sometimes I wonder if I should stop trying to answer it honestly
I know where you’re coming from. My answer these days is always surviving.
Honestly it’s the best I can say most days.
Same.
(and yeah, I like to take the inquiry “how are you doing” seriously)
We’re not in the abyss, we’re in the car park and snack area adjacent to the abyss. Not too bad.
