What's the right answer to "how are you?"

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I do the exact same thing. Forgetting to ask "how are you" back to the person who asked me about it. Probably for the same reasons you mentioned. I think it's all very confusing.

I used take this literally, and then found out that there were ceremonial greetings. The proper answer "Fine, and you? " Is pretty much just a ceremony. You have the option of saying something more.

Well, for decades I understood the standard of replying with "Fine." But until I read this thread I never even thought about the "and you?" part.

I learned something today.

I'll take the track of how it was explained to Sheldon as "an unbreachable social convention."

I did this a lot when I was younger but I figured out years ago what the correct answer is when people kept giving me strange looks and getting really uncomfortable when I answered honestly.


I do this as well but if you answer "I've been better" or something like that you need to be prepared to talk casually about is bothering you because they will then feel obligated to reply "Oh.. what's wrong? " Then you will tell them and they will just say "Oh, well I hope you feel better soon!" because they are simply trying to fufill their social obligation most of the time and don't really want to get into it. I do this sometimes and talk about something semi-light hearted like my dog being a brat and making a mess in the house. This is the kind of bad news people can handle. Telling them something like that you're really depressed or something serious will just make them feel unhappy and uncomfortable and they will want to extract themselves from your presence asap.

Btw the above applies mostly to casual aquaintences. Friends and family sometimes genuinely want to help and discuss things. But people just don't want to hear serious stuff in casual conversation with someone they met in the hallway.

Yeah I made that mistake more often before but since I'm still confused about the whole thing I tend to avoid the question altogether. Which might be a bit weird as well.

Haha I love that quote

I find it a tough one... mostly I go with 'good thanks, you?' but sometimes co-workers have replied 'you always say that'.
So sometimes its a formulaic greeting, other times they actually want to know how you are.

Interesting. I've never been given any signal that my stock answer is incorrect other than the time I mentioned where I had been sick. It is just a ritual and can be modified slightly in various circumstanses but I'd say that 99% of the time I give the exact same answer and it goes over well.

This is the question that annoys me most. I know I am supposed to say "Fine or Good, How about you?" to just be polite. But if I do not feel well (with my health problems, etc. about 50% of the time!) I might say EXACTLY how I am feeling.
These days I say "Been better, but been worse!" which ends up satisfying most of the casual ones. Except for the anal retentive types "Huh? What? EXPLAIN THAT!".

Sincerely,
Matthew

I'm super, thanks for asking.

Jason

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tASyDBlJwg4[/youtube]

Redacted

Last edited by nat4200 on 21 Apr 2012, 1:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

"Fine thanks, and you?"

They aren't actually asking how you are. What they are doing is acknowledging that you are another human being in their vicinity. Ignoring you would be seen as a hostile act by most people.

And that is exactly how I arouse so much hostility without even trying.

I think you hit the nail right on the head with this. I mostly don't care about having to answer 'Fine, and you?' I just elaborate when I feel like it, and that's most of the time. I'll tell 'em when I don't feel good, I'll tell 'em when I feel good, and they're gonna like it! It's the only way I know how!

I've also noticed it as an acknowledgement... analogous to saying "hi". Sometimes people don't expect a reply. This seems to be more common in people who are passing; for example, pass someone in the hallway at work, and they might not even want a reply other than hi back to them. I've seen this if people are in a hurry... it's more polite and acknowledging than simply saying hi, but they might be in a hurry, so at least you get the point that they're not ignoring you, but they have to get somewhere.

I have found that a variation on 'how are you?' is to say 'alright.' This is meant as a question as in 'are you alright?' and you are meant to reply in a similar way. It is not meant as a statement of fact e.g something or someone is all right, as I originally thought.

I'm almost 30 and until this summer I had no clue how to answer questions like "how are you?"
When I was really young I either ignored the question (because I didn't know how to answer) or just start saying what really was on my mind witch could go into an hour long monolog. But painfully I learned that's not what they really want.

For most of my life after that lesson I just replied with "fine" or "good"

This summer it finely clicked I learned to say "Fine thanks, and you?" (It feels so fake) And that's where all the conversations dead end.

I still don't even know why people ask questions they don't really want answers to.

Last edited by Ecl713 on 19 Mar 2012, 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.