"Are you OK?"

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Personally I always find those kind of catch phrases such as "are you ok?" or "how are you today?" are said with such little effort sometimes its worth just grabbing the person who asked if you are ok or how you are and saying "no! I'm feeling awful please help me!" and watch as the blood rushes away from their face in abject horror for having dared to ask such a question in such a candid way

Ok no one else does that?

Well what can I say in this line of work you do develop a dark sense of humour

People ask me "Are you Ok?" or "Are you all right?" all the time. I hate it. It was especially annoying when I have had meltdowns in class and then everybody asks me that, one after the other, as if they do not know I have just been asked it. I should charge them for it, then I would be rich as hell...

And yes, I hate it when people ask me "How are you?". It makes me not want to talk to them. I just grunt "fine" and then they seem at a loss. Mostly annoys me, but the last part makes me feel a little better.

I recall one incident when I was waiting outside of class, the teacher had not come yet, other people were waiting around me and lots were shuffling past in the hall. My eyes were tired so I closed them, then people around me starting asking "are you all right?" and poking me. Even some random guy walking past stopped and joined in. I replied several times "I'm fine" and closed my eyes again, but they kept on doing it. When I headed into class I was in a thoroughly bad mood and held my head and lay it on the desk. A classmate started poking me and asking me, then I lost my patience, screamed and flung my pen at him (it was in my hand at the time). The teacher started getting angry then noticed I had just burst into tears and took me outside to cool down.

I am so lucky that I go to a very tolerant school...

I used to lean against poles where no one else hung out at school fora bit of time alone, but people would keep stopping and asking me if I was all right.

There was this girl in my French class who kept asking me too...

As to their intentions, I am fairly sure that on most, if not all occasions (the ones listed here are not the only ones) people were genuinely concerned, but just too dim-witted to realise I wanted time alone. People NEVER understand that I want to be alone sometimes...

You might appear tense and/or preoccupied by something.

I just want to marry a women and move in with her right now...

The worst is, "Cheer up! It might not happen!"

I may, or may not, have occasionally snapped back viciously with, "It already did, a$$hole!"

Why on earth would a perfect stranger say that to someone? I never would. Usually, I think, it's well-meaning but can they not see that if someone truly was upset, it would be a horrible thing to say, and if someone wasn't upset, it would be patronising? I don't understand the thing with constantly verifying other people's state of being - though I have had to learn to adopt it.

I'm going to go against the view of some people here and say that you should take these questions in your stride. People who get to know you will be more aware of the differences in your body language and will come to read you differently than other people. Being rude or snappy with them in response may sever potential connections you could have with them.