What's the right answer to "how are you?"

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Same here. I think people ask to be polite. They don't really want to hear "I'm glad you asked. I'm actually doing terrible".

Fine, and how are you?

What you wrote is absolutely true. I leaqvnvcaldjncasd! lvrflar! I can't bear the awkwardness of asking back! I tried! I tried asking in return! But it sounds so wrong! Every time I tried it was so jgvdfrnvdkv frustrating! kjvvrne!

(sorry for the "jnvdknlnv" but I just finished a terribly awkward courtesy phone call to a relative and retvwreqverqvw)



It's as if they are not able to start a conversation in a sincere way. They expect you to say something that is really just a conventionality, and are disappointed or offended if you don't answer or ask the right things.
To me it would make just as much sense if conversations started with "My kitchen table started levitating" "Oh, well, I saw a cat driving a car".



If it's something I want to know, I always try to get that information indirectly rather than by asking (if I can avoid it).
If I ask, it's about something specific, concrete and is a problem that persist when I'm asking.

This is fascinating! I admire your mind.


It depends on your tone and your expression when you say "Fine" If you saiy "Fine, thanks! " or something as opposed to "Oh, fine..." with a straight or somewhat meloncholy expression common to many of us when feeling neutral (added extra words for emphasis of the difference between the two phrases) then people can interpret those two things completely differently and the second one will make them think you aren't feeling well and are being tactful about it. Most people wouldn't answer "Terrible" to "How are you" even if they were in the hospital recovering from some sort of ailmnent. "Been better" or "Hanging in there" or "Ohhh... alright..." are more common ways to say "not so good" And even "not so good" is more common than "terrible"


I'm wondering if this has more to do with alamgamation, as most NT behaviors do. Humans are herd animals and have strong instincts of "joining" "bonding" "belonging" and their little rituals are ways to assure eachother that they're on the same page together. Like dogs sniffing eachother's butts. No offense intended, I actually love dogs. It's just that canines have their own little reassurances to do when they meet eachother too. "You're a dog, I'm a dog, we have the same perception of our relationship .. ok carry on."

Last edited by myth on 27 Mar 2012, 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

Nah they don't really ask me that. But saying I'm fine thank you is the way to go.

This taught me something new. I would have thought "hanging in there" meant good.

Until you wrote that I always thought "hanging in there" means you're doing pretty well. What a shock. Seriously.

"Shove it, Goatlicker."

Thinking about it, "How are you?" isn't a greeting used by close NT friends. Well, maybe sometimes, but they tend to phrase it differently, and mean it more.

It's instead a greeting for friends of friends, for associates, or for people you're newly acquainted with or forced into meeting (for work, let's say).

On that basis, I wonder if the "How are you?" ritual is actually a way of keeping distance, like a verbal barricade? Or of assessing risk, based on the friendliness of the response to this fairly non-commital greeting? Or even a way of asserting or evaluating status, based on the nuances of the replies?

Ha, I just walked into the conference room at work where several people were obviously working on a computer problem. I said to one guy "What's going on?", and he said "Oh, Hi" back. I then explained that it wasn't a rhetorical question (or a greeting) -- I really wanted to know what was going on!

Where I work it is common for most employees to greet with, "How are you?" When I am asked that greeting I usually say, "Pretty good," or "Not too bad." Those have become my scripted responses.

A few weeks ago I overheard some NTs talking in one of my classes and one of them remarked that if someone asks that answering "fine" is "passive-aggressive." Perhaps this only applies in situations where there is an expectation of interest in the answer, but in the context it didn't seem to me like that was the case.

And to think I always either say "fine" or "fine, how are you?"

I wonder how someone would respond to a pun about the other person being "fine" too.

The response I tend to give at this point is "I have a kitty".

This manages to be a reasonable answer for everything from happy and excited through miserable.

When its someone I'd trust with giving an more descriptive answer to, I'll do so (which often means that they get "I don't know").

If it's a cute lady I say: "I'm good, or at least I try to be."

I usually say, "I'm okay"...which generally IS the truth. If I am horrible, people can tell and never ask "how are you", and I don't know what great or fantastic feels like, so I don't go to that extreme. I'm okay works nicely. And then, if I care, I add "how are you?"

Ugh, everyone seems to ask this question here...couriers, supermarket attendants, random people on the street... My automatic response is ''I'm good, thanks. How are you?''

...Once I said it before the girl at the supermaked checkout had actually asked