“How are you,” is one of those loaded questions I never know how to answer.
Is it part of a greeting? Do you genuinely want to know? Do I lie and keep the peace, or do I open up and bring you down?
Anyway, I’m doing fine, how are you?
“I’m alive” is an appropriately ambiguous answer, imo.
Living the dream
Translation: existential woe, thx for asking
Same old, same old
Translation: still stuck in some horrible cycle
How’s it going?
It’s going.
Translation: I’m like 3 bad days away from totally losing it.
The longer the ooooh at the front the less time you got
Another day in paradise.
Translation: Fuck this world and everything in it.
How’s it going?
Good, good, how about you?
Translation: Let’s not talk about my shitty life.
It’s a greeting, and an invitation to open up if you like.
I’m autistic and I get this. You can learn this stuff. Just respect we’ve got a culture here. Obviously “How are you?” is a symbolic hello.
It’s like a health check. When you hit /api/health/ it probably doesn’t report all the details like number of users created today, count of files in the S3 bucket, whatever. It checks that shit’s basically working, it heard your request, and now everything is 200 OK.
(No, you can’t return a 204 no content in this metaphor because that’s not what the client is expecting. If they don’t get a 200 back, they’re going to think something is wrong and investigate.)
I’m just assuming some of you are like backend developers and this metaphor will make sense to you.
How do I return a 403 to the person asking
I prefer the 418 response
“I am not allowed to tell you”
Maybe they’re shy and don’t complete the sentence. They wanna know “How are you so handsome?”, but don’t dare to ask such personal questions.
That sounds like an accusation against either your intelligence, or your standing in life.
the answer is always “fine” and possibly a “how are you?”.
“How are you?”, is basically an open question of “what have I done lately? where am I headed?” It’s an invitation to politely level some burden at least, but this also includes taking in some burden of the friend.
Someone recently hit me with, “What do you have going on the rest of the day?” and I stood in stunned silence for way too long.
I’ve adopted, “Nothing, it’s great!”
I usually just say “recovering from this” and gesture vaguely at everything
Weeping and wailing
I alwas answer those questions with a “why’s that?”, makes them actually asknwhat they want while you think of a lie.
You’re not gonna trick me into hanging out with you this time!
I like asking coworkers near the end of our shift, “What’s for dinner?”
as little as possible.
thats easy, answer like this. it works like a charm im sure
what do you do for fun?
answer: no
how are you?
answer: also no
Oh how much I wish people would actually understand this reply.
no
no
Try to give the minimum acceptable response like, “fine” or, “nothing,” and MFs think you’re being mysterious and keep pressing.
Can’t win!
Like my Uber passengers who will not stop asking until they’ve nailed down exactly where I’m from.
No matter how slowly and gradually I trickle the information out they just don’t get the hint.
“Are you from Denver originally?”
“No but I’ve been here about ten years now. This feels like home to me”
“Where are you from?”
“The Midwest”
“Which state?”
“Indiana”
“Which city?”
“Terre Haute”
“Oh yeah which part?”
… three hours later …
“Which bedroom is yours?”
“Which side of the bed did you sleep on?”
Why tho
Autism would be my guess, except that I’m autistic and now that I’m in my 40s I have some social skills under my belt. Maybe autism combined with zero drive to learn and adapt?
I just hate being asked what I do for a living. What’s the point? So one of us can be like “Oh…” and subconsciously feel below the other person?
I used to do that before I knew better. Now I slap my knee and say “so how about this crazy weather, huh?” whilst maintaining fierce eye contact so that they’re pressured into not rolling theirs. I’m a much better person now.
I don’t get the below part honestly. No matter what you do, your job is probably needed. If you’re not paid well, that’s not really your fault.
No one has ever belittled me in the past so it’s not as though I’ve been ridiculed, but I recall years back when I had just immigrated to Canada and had started out as a grocery clerk/stock guy at the grocery chain I manage at now. It was my wife’s convocation (CPA) in a very upscale gala sort of environment. We were seated at a large round table with several newly designated accountants and several distinguished CAs, CPAs and other professionals.
Naturally at some point I was asked what I do, and I had to state in front of everyone that I was a stocker at a grocery store. Nobody laughed or anything like that, but there was that awkward kind of pause where the table recognized that I was not accomplished. I remember feeling more humiliated in that moment than I probably should have. It was a blow to my self-esteem, and not the only time I’ve felt that way in my life. It’s why I don’t ask others what they do. Imagine being unemployed or something in that moment. Just kind of brings you down in front of others needlessly, and it sucks because there genuinely is nothing wrong with being a stocker.
I respond to that with, “Oh you know, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.”
Better to have them look down their noses at me all night thinking I’m unemployed than endure hours on end of questions like, “I inseminated my horse with my own fluids so I don’t have to pay income taxes now, right?”
Oh, the burden of other peoples thoughts~
I always find it weird when someone asks for my, or answers with their, profession. Because that usually says very little about someone. A better question is what someone likes to spend their free time with.
Most people have something they are passionate about. And the weirder, the better. Because weird hobbies are something that many feel judged for. But engaging positively with someones isopod collection, really tends to get people out of their shell.
It becomes something to bond over and it’s much more interesting than “train conductor”.
“i enjoy engaging in small talk with people i’ll probably never see again, and being sarcastic.”
One of my pet peeves about being an Uber driver is when people’s only method of conversation is “getting to know you”.
As if we’re college roommates and we’re gonna be best buds. No dude, in 9 minutes I’m dropping you off and we’re never seeing each other again.
I kind of get it though because most people don’t have enough conversations to develop good conversational skills. I’m lucky as an Uber driver because I get to have conversations all day.
What kind of conversation would you prefer from a passenger?
Started a punk band as a teen. Favorite song I wrote Called Lost Opposum. I feel this deeply.
I’d listen to that shit
I just go with straight up riddles
There are two guys standing in front of a door, one always lies and the other is always on his phone, which one is closer to reaching self actualization
The one who is sleeping with the other’s wife?
Close - they’re actually the same person, there is no door, and you’re having a stroke
goddammit, not again
and “why are you digging around in that trash can?”
Bitch you’ll know when I find something.
Opossum lifestyle, deal with it.
This triggers me.
Stop putting us in memes!
How would I know? Those are way too hard, ask me about the last digit of pi or something else.
4, then 2
Forget the riddles. I hate meeting people who throw physical threats at me such as, “I’m a hugger.”
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