Do you overthink things so much you don't know how to react?

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I used to answer these questions literally on purpose, just because it was unexpected. Then again, I tend to be honest about them too. When I go to a customer's house and they ask how I am I usually say "Pretty good". This is because I can't outright lie and say I am happy, fine, etc, nor can I say the truth (I'm suicidally depressed today because I know I will never find love and happiness, and how are you?) so I use a bit of vagueness. As for my literal answers, I had a few of them, including: adequate, mediocre and terrible. It was my way of rebelling against the meaninglessness of certain forms of small talk. It always used to irritate me that people could have entire conversations that meant nothing and were comprised entirely of stock answers meant to fool the listener into feeling like all was well and nothing needed to be done.

One answer to my own dilemma may be to do the talking. Saturate the conversation with other topics, so that questions like the one I gave as an example are less likely to come up.

I've learned (through painful experience) that you have to keep moving in life. You have to at least appear that you have a goal and are moving someplace. If you appear to be a "sitting duck" then others will step in and will commandeer the discussion, perhaps saddling you with questions and topics that you simply would rather not open up.

These can be uncomfortable topics - or just simple things, like the dreaded and overly broad "How are you?" or "What did you do today?"