Do you run across this intro to a conversation or engagement or are an unwitting party to it?:

Person #1: How are you?

Person #2 (or you): I’m good, how are you?

Person: #1: I’m good

Then they start talking. This usually happens with customer service personnel who are usually instructed to greet people like this to dupe them into thinking they really care about them & their lives, which is how this whole stupid exchange started — just to fool you into thinking you matter, and you fell for it. People are so naive & narcissistic that they believe their feelings matter to other people, when they don’t even really matter to themselves — they just think they do. Most feelings are self-indulgent crap.

When I’m asked something inane as a greeting or otherwise by someone I don’t know, like “How are you?”, “How’s your day?”, “Are you doing Ok?” or “How have you been doing today?”. I simply respond with “Hello”. If they ask me again, I then say “I said “hello”, did you not hear me?” if I’m really not in the mood, or I’ll say “I’d tell you if I thought you really cared how I’m doing instead of it being a corporate instruction to ask me.” Sometimes I simply ignore them. I’m secretly hoping they’ll realize that it’s a stupid game they’re playing.

We don’t need to care or ask how other people are doing whom we don’t know. About 3 million Americans die every year, about 1 in 100, and we don’t cry or even care that people we don’t know died, so why should we care how they’re doing today?

We need to go back to “hi”, “hey” & “hello” as the only acceptable greetings, but I can live with a wordy “good morning/afternoon/evening”. I can live with a “How’s it hanging” as long as the person asking is a straight guy, because it’s an invitation to a sexual encounter otherwise. Also don’t mind “What’s up” or “What’s happening”, even the goofy 70s sitcom of the latter.