I’m 8. How are you?
I had an interesting debate about how-are-you post, so I will expand it a little. As I said, I do not like questions like “How are you?”. It is not a simple question. It is annoying. And there are at least three possibilities what you really want to ask; (1) you would just like to say Hello, I have better things to do. Say hello then, not How-are-you. Because then I must say, Fine/ok/thanks and with repetition that makes me feel very stupid. And everybody can predict the end. If I do not feel like I will tell you something and we don’t want to talk, we will not. (2) You would just like to say Hello, I would just like to talk to you. If I am wanted to tell you, you are my friend or something like that, I will tell you anyway. No need to ask me how I am. (3) You are really interested and I am willing to tell you, then, sit down and listen. “Grab a beer and relax” mood. So, if you are interested how my dog is (even if I do not have one) and if my pain still persist, if my uncle is still alive, why don’t you just ask so. Bottom line, I wouldn’t be crying if all the people would have forgotten the how-are-you question.
On the other hand, it is just how-are-you question it is not they would like to kill me or something. Maybe we could have a sort of mood meter or something similar. We would just put our feelings in some kind of degrees, from 1-10. If 1 is very ill/can not talk/very bad mood/pointless life/nearly dead/… and 4 is small control of life/living in a semi-bad dreams/… and 7 is ok/fine/nothing is bad/just something bothers me/… then totally euphoric about something/someone is 10 or what? I was never good at putting the feelings in numbers but I could try.
posted by itn@ @ 12:55 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
"How are you" is a phrase, it's a pick-up line, a way to either greet someone or start a conversation. If you take it as such it stops being annoying. You simply return with a phrase "fine," "never better," "I shall live," whatever. If the other party really wants to know about your health, they will ask.
You might remember that we've been taught at school during the elementary English, the phrase "how do you do," which has an answer... well, "how do you do." I haven't heard that in practice, neither from the British people or anyone else, but if you go places, you might be surprised the function and the presistence of the (variations of the) phrase. For instance, if you go to a supermarket in the USA, it is likely the person at the cash register will say, "hello, how are you?" Now, explaining in response to that phrase about your health and mood will give you a few odd looks and embarrassing moments. In this case, it is just a phrase, not an actual query! Now, should you find yourself a longer distance to the North of that, say, in Canada, when a cashier asks you that question, they are actually genuely interested, and you might find yourself conversing with that person while paying for the goods.
The bottom line is, the phrase is not likely to go away, so you just accumulate some appropriate answers to have them at hand, should the question occur, without fretting about. On the other hand, if you find yourself with a beer in your hand in that instance, well, in that case it's up to you.
:) Interesting. Good point.
But absurdities such as this one do make us feel alien, there is also some jeopardy to slide into dizzly neurotic sphere. I find myself snappin out when people greet me with "how are you" when i know they've got nothing to say ... Don't then, spare us that awful feeling of split poles, unable to reach a level of a worthy chat.
60%(briefly), if not more, of communication in general is sheer nonsense & that sucks.
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