When phone callers start with "How are you?"

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I find it's easiest to treat all conversations like I'm a telemarketer... in that I have a script.

Sure, it's a little more advanced than, Hello Mr/Mrs (insert name here), How are you today? I'm (insert your name here) and I'm calling from (wonderful/horrible company). Can I interest you in our (product no one really needs) today?

But it's a script none the less. A nice non-commital response I've found is when someone says how are you? (or variations thereof) to answer with the day of the week. As in... "How are you?" Answer: "It's Wednesday"... they'll read into it what they want and pretty much allow that to stand and let you get on with what you want to do.

I should adopt a pithy response to throw back that's not too caustic.

"Don't ask if you don't want to know."
"Don't ask - don't tell!"

or just complete silliness...

"watermelon, and you?"

You all are making me laugh out loud. I guess I touched on a universal aspy sore point,

When I started my first job, one of the people there would pass me in the corridor and say, "How have you been?". It puzzled me to no end that they seemed to stop and look surprised when I gave them an account of the few days since I'd last seen them.

Now I just say "Yeah, good" without thinking about it. It's such a strong habit now I say it when I'm sick, or recently when a close family member was in hospital. (Got an awkward "Umm, I thought so-and-so was in hospital?". Oh well!)

I just respond with "fine." regardless of how I actually am and that's it.

Great idea! *lol*

I usually just say "Fine."

Cultural differences... I moved to another part of Germany (Bavaria) a year ago and here it's common for prople to say "greet god" (sounds even more idiotic translated) and I'm alway just keeping myself from saying "Yeah, I'll do that next time I meet him." I mean, why can't they just say hello like everyone else?

It kills tme to say "Fine when I'm dying inside, so I say "You don't wanna know", and most of th time they'll ask what's wrong or say "really?" or laugh and expect me to go on or something. They all feel like s**t where I am... maybe not as much as me but I'm lucky in a way to be surrounded by depressed people!

I mentioned this reply to my daughter's social worker. I thought it was so true about wanting to say what you feel with the essense of who you are and trying so hard to rein in all that spontaneity and aspy personality in order to get along in a NT world.

In Germany, you are apparently supposed to go through the motions, without the lips really touching, but ALMOST!

<sigh> Yeah, I hate the "How are you?" questions when I'm feeling down. In my experience, people typically really don't want to know the answer, so for the stock question I give a stock response of "Fine" or "Good" or whatever, just to get past it.

But I too generally feel even worse when the answer it a stark lie. And I avoid "You don't want to know..." and answers in that vein because that practically compels the person to bother you even more about it. I've also tried, "I wish not to discuss it.", which just tends to put people off. I've also tried more cryptic variations for answers like, "I know not, I simply am." or the rather morbid, "I'm alive, apparently." And if I really want to freak someone out, I'll look down at myself confusedly for a few moments, then look back up and say, "Biped, humanoid, male, with period casual attire for early 21st century Earth." or something like that; there are several variations.

Lately I've been playing around with Big Gay Al's typical response, "I'm super, thanks for asking!", but I say it very flatly, just to confuse, and then quickly skip to something else; I suppose that's my way of slapping that question down in a subliminal way.

Good fortune,

- Icarus is super, thanks for asking!

It's like a dance that NTs do but it's built on lies and superfiscial attitudes. There's a guy I hear on the radio who frequently answers, "I'm fine but I'll get better." I like that one.

My friends now me better than to ask how i am. They know that they are going to get a sarcastic answer.

"better than you." or "i'm bleeding out my butt a little but i'm ok"

What's even worse is that I've recently realized that, unless you're passing in the hall (in which case sometimes it seems to be ok just to say, "Hi," as you walk by, leaving the 'question' unanswered, you are supposed to respond with "I'm fine, how are you?" regardless of whether on not you care. Then, if the other person is really being 'polite,' they'll say, "I'm fine, thank you for asking."

*snarl.*

so you're socially forced into lying, then forced into asking about something you don't care about, to which the asker responds with a lie, and then you're *thanked* for participating in the process. It's like being thanked by a mugger.

I used to get told off when I was younger for not asking how the asker was. So they'd go "How are you?" I'd go "Fine" or "Ok". No "And you?" at the end. Because I simply didn't care. I do it now, but only to ppl I DO care about, and know that they care about me and it isn't just a formality any more.

Anyway - FINE = Frustrated Insecure Neurotic Emotional

So I'm usually fine.

Person: "How are you?"
Me: "I'm fine. Do you want to speak to my Mum?" (I rarely get phone calls)

If it is a call centre:
Stupid call centre idiot who makes 3 billion calls a day: "Is this Mrs. Ellinas?"
Me: "Go away!"

I just tell them that I'm doing fine. On a really bad day, I tell them that they don't want to know.