How are you I am fine

How are you?

How are you doing?

How’s life?

What’s going on?

What you upto?

How’s it going?

And the list goes on and on and on. These are the questions that are usually posed by people you meet. It just pops up, no matter when, where or how you meet them. And every time I am asked any of those questions I have this urge to retort something like “There is a 54 legged beetle on your face” or “Your face looks like a pug”, but twenty three years of being a social animal twists my tongue into saying “I am fine”.

There lies my point. The person asking these questions very clearly knows the answer, but they still ask you. For several years I thought that these people really meant it, but after some sense was knocked into my head I realized that they don’t care one bit about whether you are fine or not, they just want to ask. And they expect “I am fine” as a reply.

So one fine day, I decided to control my mouth and started answering “Magnificent”, “never been better” or “Fabulous”. This threw people off guard. They are fine as long as you are fine, but if you are “absolutely stupendous” they become nervous. I am not sure if they are nervous because they didn’t want me to be better than them or if some “How are you, I am fine” mechanism in their head went cuckoo. This triggered another series of questions ranging from “How come?” to “That is being overtly optimistic don’t you think?”

To be quite honest, I hate questions. It makes me use my brain, which I don’t like. So to prevent myself from getting bombarded with these extra questions, I decided to stop answering them. This was also a very bad idea. They started asking MORE questions! They now pretended to be concerned and asked if anything was wrong or if everything was alright. So I had to again mumble some answer or nod my head.

Like I said before, I am a social animal. I didn’t want to go around hurting people, lest they form clandestine groups to pound me while I am asleep. I mean, what would happen if I said “I am not fine. Now give me forty thousand dollars. I have a family to support” or “I am miserable, now go to China”. Will they really do it?

Right now I have this pretty neat trick going on, which seems to work pretty well. Diversion. I divert the topic or their attention into something else. I reply something like “Did you watch the football game last night?” or “How was your trip to Timbactoo?”. This intrigues them, because now they will be talking about their glorious self for a very long time. By the end of their talk they are too exhausted to listen to you, so they just say “bye, take care” (Ah! “Take care”… I could ramble about this line too. But never mind.)

So for all those people out there plagued by this question, there is the solution! But, in case you have a better idea or if you are a seasoned mad man, let me know how you handle it.

(Thinking about it… A “Waggly woogly beeeeee” or “Pffft booop eeepperr” would also be a terrific reply. This would completely stop people from approaching you!)