conquering the world one oxymoron at a time
September 29, 2006 at 9:02 pm
· Filed under daily grind
Someone seated next to me today asked me “Hey Shan, how’s everything?” I replied, “not so good.” He didn’t say anything further and went back to doing whatever it was that he was doing.
A few seconds go by, he asked, “Wait, what’s that you said?”
I changed my mind and replied, “Oh, just that things are fine.” He said, “Oh cool” and went back to his thing.
He made up his mind what I was going to say before he even asked me “how are you?” that he didn’t bother listening to my answer. Only when it didn’t quite sound like “okay” did he do a double take and wonder to himself, “wait, what did she say?” Once I gave him the answer that he was expecting, he nodded his head as if all the pieces had indeed fallen in place and went about his own business.
Why do we bother asking someone “how are you?” when we don’t really expect them to tell us how they REALLY are? Even when I’m feeling crappy, I always answer “pretty good, how are you?” when someone asks me how I’m doing. I do it out of habit; it’s an automatic response that I don’t even think about. What a worthless phrase. “How are you?”
Do you REALLY want to know?
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ali wrote @ September 30th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Hahah, In all the English classes Ive taught, I always dont let my students answer How are you with fine. We learn the other more interesting words and I make them use those. Hehe I dont think they use them outside the classroom though.
That’s one of my pet peeves too. I think I’ve scared numerous people off, because I always answer truthfully. A happy face on campus would pass, and throw a “Hey! How’s it going!” at me. To which they’d get either
a) I’m exhausted,
b) I feel like sh_t,
c) I want to get out of here! or
d) I feel very lost.
How many times did folks want me to elaborate? None. I wouldn’t complain if I weren’t willing to return the favor. Any time people seemed down, I’d always give them the time of day. And they were happy to take that time as long as they didn’t have to give it back. Please define “selfish.” Hmm.
You know, one time I was cooking eggs for a mutual friend of ours. We had both gotten in late, and she asked how I was. Before I could finish the sentence, she literally had walked out of the room and was completely oblivious to what I was saying. Tell me that’s not weird. My point is: I feel your pain.
Yoni wrote @ October 3rd, 2006 at 12:54 am
When I first came here for college, I thought people were actually interested, and so I would start answering. With time I realized “how are you” is nothing more than the natural extension of “hey.”
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