When I started working with English-speaking people it was genuinely a bit of a culture shock that everyone asks you “how are you doing” all the time. The first time it happened I spent like a minute quickly going over my week. The other person was surprised/annoyed and it all was kind of awkward. It took me like two weeks to finally start answering “goodthankswhataboutyou” instead of trying to think of a real answer.
What I always think when people ask me that: “Do you actually want to know the truth, do you actually care? Or are you just wasting air asking meaningless questions?”
But usually respond with a “I’m fine, thanks. What about you?” as protocol requires 🤠😀🙃🫠
My favorite is the people who respond “Oh, you know, living the dream”. Only the most depressed people in the pits of despair answer like that
Is this still the case? I thought this was slowly falling out of style, but maybe it depends on the place.
More and more in my experience it goes something like:
“How’s it going?”
“It’s going”
“Yeaaah…”Well, I still hear it a lot. Would be great to replace it with some other greeting that made more literal sense.
Same here, I kept answering “tired” and it kept annoying some people 🤣
i used to answer honestly like because this and i never understood; and still don’t (i’m on the spectrum); why some people got angry/frustrated and it almost always eventually germinated into a full blown fire-this-asshole-already movement in the places i worked at until my therapist made me aware that people don’t really expect a true answer and will only accept certain responses.
i call it the social handshake now and i allot an extra 10 minutes every single time i schedule a work meeting an wait to hear certain key words/phrases before continuing on for the actual reason why i scheduled the meeting. lol
I always answer “well I’m still here” and let them make of it what they want.
Faking personal interest as a ritual greeting between business types. It’s about as real as the greasy laughter they use for each other’s often misogynistic tinted jokes when the managers gather.
I’ve started to grow fond of the British greeting of, “y’alright mate?”
You can choose to either just greet them back, or if you want, you can actually tell them how you are.
