Joey’s pickup line for ladies as well as all its derivations we encounter as “What’s up?”, “How’s it going?” and “Hi, how are you?” should never even have a question mark because they are not real questions. The next time you hear this listen, you won’t hear the intonation go up in a person’s voice – because it is NOT A QUESTION – it’s a social convention, nothing more than a neutral longer hello that doesn’t require a reply, it actually frowns upon being given one. It’s an empty dance with no meaning except acknowledging the presence of another person here. We are creatures of habit and have developed these social rituals of a lie we all tacitly agreed upon, a consensus that keeps the status Q.

If you try to answer it you’re breaking this silent social code and are actually being unkind by dragging your partner(s) in conversation into unknown territory. if you tell them you’re amazing they might feel threatened if they are having a bad day, and if you tell them you’re lousy you’ve just rained on their parade if they feel good forcing them into sympathy mode when they didn’t really want to explore the dark end of the spectrum on the day they feel good and you’ve pushed them away – truth does seem to have that effect sometimes. So you’ve learnt very early on to choose the sociably acceptable agreed upon on answer of “fine” which is neither here nor there, emotionally neutral and safe to use, saying nothing to the question that asked nothing.

Is this how you want your interactions to go? You’re a grown up, use the potential of language, tell the truth, say what you feel, even if it is that you ask people not to ask you this question again as an empty phrase and the next time you ask someone how they are mean it and really listen. You cannot control how the truth will be perceived by the other side but you can decide to live your truth, and if the question bothers you say it does. People go about their default behavior and they can’t know what you think or feel if you don’t speak up. “Fine” is no way to describe an experience of being alive, what a bleak beige answer to winning the 1 in 400 trillion lottery of having been born.