"How are you?" as a greeting

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This one has been puzzling me for a while now. I get the asking people in conversation "how are you" but most people not actually wanting to know, just a formality. I also hear this a lot passing people at work in the hallways, like a greeting instead of "hi". There's just not enough time for both people to ask and answer this while walking in opposite directions. If I respond and ask the same of them, no response. If I don't respond... well, it just feels weird not answering a question directed at me.

What DO these people mean??? And if it's a greeting, what's wrong with "hi"?

In my experience, it's sort of halfway between being a "formality," and the person uttering the greeting actually wanting to know "how you're doing."

When I ask somebody "how are you?," I usually desire a short answer of no more than a few phrases, because I'm usually in a rush when I ask the question. It's both a "formality," but with a desire to know how the person is feeling in a general sense.

I would just say "fine," or "I'm okay" in answer--unless the person is a close friend.

Several score years ago, the custom, also mindless, was to say, 'How do you do?'. In answer, the other man should also say, 'How do you do?'.

That doesn't bother me nearly as much as everyone being required to say "good morning" to everyone else until lunch time every single day for life

Good Morning .....even though it's afternoon in NYC.

Just another automatic social behavior people have. If you're not into this automatic mindset (which is the case for most aspies), you'll certainly find them weird and be unable to perform them in the same natural way that NTs do.

Since it is being asked, rhetorically, that also means there is no wrong answer.

I'm with you on the "hi."
I hate "how are you" because I never know what to say, so I echo / echolalia, and it's embarrassing and people look at me weirdly for just copying what they've said. If someone says this to me I have to keep in mind not to think, just respond with "hi" and try to remember to smile. If a response is actually required, I tend to say something like how hot or cold it is out, and that seems to satisfy.

My response to 'how are you' is 'good and you?' People seem to like having the conversation turned back to them.

I was pondering on this question recently when I was at the dentist. When I was shown in to the room the dental assistant asked the usual "how are you?" and I replied "I'm fine thank you," and the conversation terminated, as usual. But I was noticing that the similar introductory greetings that I could overhear in the nearby rooms went differently, with the patient typically responding with "I'm good, how are you?", or some similar reply, and then the conversation developed into a back and forth exchange that often would continue more or less indefinitely.

Even though I have learned, through observations like that, that one is expected to bounce the initial question back with a reciprocal enquiry about the other person, and that a conversation then develops, I just can't make myself do it. It feels to me to be so artificial and forced if one asks someone who is more or less a complete stranger, about how their life is going, and I simply cannot do it.

I was even prompted, after my recent experience, to ask a couple of very good NT friends of mine to guide me through an imagined encounter with a stranger, to teach me how to "play the part" of an NT in the exchange of greetings. We had good fun as they tried to teach me, but I think in the end we could all see that it was hopeless for me to try.

I think one thing that doesn't help, in my case, is that I am also very bad at recognising people. So in an instance like I was describing at the dentist, I'm really not sure whether the dental assistant who greets me is the same person who has been attending to me for the last few years, or if it is a new person that I've never met before. So I am never sure if I should be responding in the way I might if I had known the person casually for several years, or if I should be responding as if we were meeting for the first time. This ends up meaning that I tend to "overthink" the question, and I worry that anything I say in response might be inconsistent with one or other of the two possibilities. By the time I can work out a "neutral" reply that would be consistent with either having met them before or not having met them before, the opportunity for a spontaneous-sounding reply has long passed.

But even with people I know casually but I am sure that I really do know them, I still find it difficult to have a back and forth conversation.

Say that you are horrible with names but would like to get it right.

Mercifully I am retired now but when I worked I went around to a lot of buildings and offices and worked on computers, fixing problems or installing new stuff. I never liked small talk but could handle a single How Are You if I met an acquaintance in a hallway, on an elevator, etc. But the worst situation I ever found myself in was when I had to work on the computer at the front desk of a department, where there was a steady stream of people passing by. EVERY ONE of them, that would be first words out of their mouth--How Are You? Even if they were in the presence of someone else who had already asked me, again How Are You? Needless to say this got under my skin pretty quickly but I somehow was able to maintain. Inside, my first reaction was a desire to make a sign in large letters I AM FINE!! ! Before long the urge I was fighting was running from the building yelling AAAARRRRGGGGG!! !

As I say tho, mercifully, those days are behind me.

I don't have TOO much problem with this, cuz I know it's acceptable to just say "Fine", and keep goin'----HOWEVER, I think it's more "proper", to return the question, and I don't; finally, I think I figured-out why I don't say "How are you", back..... Cuz I don't want them to answer!! LOL

I, like someone else said, have more of a problem with "Good Morning"----it just really almost drives me over the edge, to hear it----I almost always just return "Hi". "Good Morning" seems like a question to me----and, how am I suppose to know if it's a good morning, until a few hours, into it!!

if i answer "fine", i feel like that is curt and misleading/incorrect.

if i answer anything else, then they act like it has to be an entire conversation.

a couple counselors asked mandated reporter questions when i answered "depressed" to "how are you?". even though i disclosed in writing, that i got a clinical depression diagnosis.

and then when i said "depressed", to someone else, he answered "why". but depression is a mental illness, not an emotion. it's like "why are you autistic?". it doesn't make sense to ask. there is no method of knowing. nature versus nurture. precious lil "people" outside of counseling just assume "depressed" means an extreme version of "sad". and then they claim that they themselves are "depressed", when they are not happy. but then they do not claim to be mentally ill. even though depression is a mental illness.

on the other hand, there is a social script, and "how are you" is on it. so if they are just hiding behind a script, then they are not all to blame. i mean, just saying "hello" sounds a bit curt. blunt.

but then "how are you" sounds too vague. it could refer to anything.

I think, these sorts of things are supposed to come intuitively, and without a formula.

But, I have noticed that "friendly" conversation is always supposed to leave an opening.

I prefer to-the-point, and with closure. I will typically say exactly what I want and mean, in a day-to-day conversation.

Most people, I think, want to compromise and editorialize, just to keep it going. Or, you are supposed to guess what their hints mean, and then you're supposed to give hints and not be too blunt. I get a concept of movement and liminality, like following the white rabbit.

It is my saying that NT people think in verbs (actions). It's the trip and not the destination.

AS people think in nouns (trivia, places, labels numbers). aimho.

In Britain it is more common for somebody to ask "Are you alright" as opposed to "How are you"
When asked if I am alright, I reply, "No, but thanks for asking" with a smile on my face.
It does drive me a bit mad when people ask you a question and have no intention of listening to the answer.