How are you?
Time and again, as I've talked to international students here, one of the things they always comment on is how odd it is that we use the question, "How are you?" as a common greeting. They relate the travails they have expereinced learning that it's not actually a legitimate question. They say things like, "At first I would actually start to tell the person how I was doing, but I noticed they just kept walking past me. So I figured out that they didn't really want to know."
We had a Kenyan student here a couple years ago who seemed to misunderstand the whole greeting thing, but after I thought about it, it shed some light on this "how are you doing?" charade. This is how our greeting each other would go:
Me: Hey there Hezekiah!
Him: Good! Good!
He had obviously heard the oft repeated salutations:
Person 1: Hey, how are you?
Person 2: Good, and you?
Person 1: Good.
I mean, may as well skip the whole "How are you?" part, since it's just a bunch of BS anyway. Seriously, it bothers me sometimes. Maybe it bothers me more when I really actually want someone to care how I'm doing, and all I get are these empty greetings that semantically seem to offer some care, but are just hollow salutations.
I personally try to never ask that question unless I actually am willing to break my stride and show that I am actually open to a real answer. And for a while I refused to answer that question dishonestly. No, I didn't give each person a run-down of my entire emotional state, but I would either simply nod and not verbally answer or I would answer with a verb rather than an emotional state. Example:
Person: Hey Bethany, how are you?
Me: Just going to check my mail. Have a good day!
This worked for a while, but then a few people began to pick up that I wasn't actually giving the right response. They would say, "That's what you're doing, not how you are!" (As if I was oblivious to this.)
Maybe you're all thinking: "Oh gosh, Bethany. Does it really matter? It's just a formality of everyday life that doesn't mean anything. Stop blowing it out of proportion." But yes. It does mean something to me. And I really would like to figure out how to somehow get out of the linguistic habit of saying things out of politeness that I don't really mean. And I would like to figure out how to be honest in answering without having to blow someone off, tell them how I actually am, or piss them off by deconstructing what is just a normal social nicety.
We had a Kenyan student here a couple years ago who seemed to misunderstand the whole greeting thing, but after I thought about it, it shed some light on this "how are you doing?" charade. This is how our greeting each other would go:
Me: Hey there Hezekiah!
Him: Good! Good!
He had obviously heard the oft repeated salutations:
Person 1: Hey, how are you?
Person 2: Good, and you?
Person 1: Good.
I mean, may as well skip the whole "How are you?" part, since it's just a bunch of BS anyway. Seriously, it bothers me sometimes. Maybe it bothers me more when I really actually want someone to care how I'm doing, and all I get are these empty greetings that semantically seem to offer some care, but are just hollow salutations.
I personally try to never ask that question unless I actually am willing to break my stride and show that I am actually open to a real answer. And for a while I refused to answer that question dishonestly. No, I didn't give each person a run-down of my entire emotional state, but I would either simply nod and not verbally answer or I would answer with a verb rather than an emotional state. Example:
Person: Hey Bethany, how are you?
Me: Just going to check my mail. Have a good day!
This worked for a while, but then a few people began to pick up that I wasn't actually giving the right response. They would say, "That's what you're doing, not how you are!" (As if I was oblivious to this.)
Maybe you're all thinking: "Oh gosh, Bethany. Does it really matter? It's just a formality of everyday life that doesn't mean anything. Stop blowing it out of proportion." But yes. It does mean something to me. And I really would like to figure out how to somehow get out of the linguistic habit of saying things out of politeness that I don't really mean. And I would like to figure out how to be honest in answering without having to blow someone off, tell them how I actually am, or piss them off by deconstructing what is just a normal social nicety.
posted by bethany at 9:37 PM
3 Comments:
B - I totally agree with you - now that I am working with people again, I find that I am once again misusing "How are you?" I would typically get to the point and just say what I need, but then I saw that in office culture it was rude. However, I do still believe that "How are you?" is reserved for wanting to know HOW someone is doing. Similarily, I am learning that to answer the question honestly as well. I want to see if someone stops in the hallway if I do:
INT. OFFICE - DAY
Coworker approaches on the opposite side in the hallway as Michelle looks up.
COWORKER
Hey, how are ya?
MICHELLE (smiles)
Pretty moody, thanks.
COWORKER
Good, good.
I remember talking about this topic at a BCF meeting once. I was told you have to ask the person 3X before you can convey to them that you really want to know HOW they are doing. Each time you have to stress the HOW to make your message more effective. As an exercise at that meeting, we turned to the person next to us and tried to practice asking the question 3X. What's funny is that I turned to a person I don't really know too well and didn't really want to share HOW I was going. Maybe not sharing HOW you are doing also has to do with the person you are talking to and whether or not you want to get into a "messy" conversation with them.
I think it would be funny if instead of emphasizing the HOW in your question, you picked a different word to emphasize.
Person A: Hey, Person B, how are you doing?
Person B: Cool.
Person A: No really. How are YOU doing?
Person B: Oh me? I'm cool.
Person A: But how are you DOING?
Person B: Do you mean "What am I doing?" I'm going to the DMV to change my name. "Person B" is such a generic name.
Person A: No no. How ARE you doing?
Person B: Do you have a voice immodulation disease?
So I'm in the line at the grocery store. The clerk produces the standard, "How are you?"
Me: neutral response ... "I'm OK. Thanks."
Clerk: "Just OK. Oh, that's too bad."
Now I go to the auto-checkout station, where if I say I just broke my leg when I slipped in the ketchup and I'm gonna sue for $20 billion, the thing will answer, "Thank you. Have a nice day."
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