The biggest waste of words in the English language is: "How are you?"
"How are you?" is a question that is intended to pry into another person's state of being so that we can understand their state and care about them. There’s actually explanations about how to “properly” respond to “How are you?” for people from other cultures, because they don’t understand that has become a polite thing in North America to ask a stranger when you really DGAF.
When a stranger asks, the only acceptable response is "Fine," even when the answer is "Both my kids are sick at home with gastroenteritis and I'm spending my evenings lately staring at a wall, trying to stave off an existential crisis."
"Fine" is a polite lie, like the perfectly curated life on social media or the immaculate house you step into at the beginning of a party. We all know there's yelling and smashed Cheerios on the floor somewhere in the immediate past.
"Fine" is the one-word close of a conversation.
You have no idea why this person is standing here in front of you. A person in front of you is an opportunity for a genuine human connection, however brief. In fact, that need for a human connection might be exactly what drove that person out of their home and into a chance encounter with you.
Instead of wasting our breath, let’s bin the “How are you” and reach out and be nice to someone like this instead:
If the stranger has nothing super cool going on and they don’t feel particularly talkative, they can say "Nah, I'm just going to chill." And you can be jealous. And if they do have something super cool going on, then you can be jealous of that too.
I remember one day when I had a stranger walk up to me and she told me she loved my green purse. I had been completely spaced out and feeling pretty blah. In one sentence, this girl told me I was neither invisible to the universe, and there was something positive she saw in me. It made me feel great. Who wouldn't want this?
Everyone loves to have an opinion, but few people feel invited to share them these days. This is both an instant conversation starter, and a way to find a new read. Substitute “watch” to get movie and TV show suggestions.
THIS is the real question we should be asking instead of "how are you". If someone's looking a bit frazzled and stressed, you might actually use this as an opportunity to make someone's day a little better - or just remind them to breathe - without being a nosy busy-body about the details. It's a great way to find an opportunity to buy someone a coffee and do a good deed for the day. Kind of like Paying it Forward in the Timmie’s drive-thru, but with some face-to-face.
We have an opportunity to keep our children from getting into the habit of asking useless polite questions by doing this in front of them, too. Wouldn't it be great to raise kids that closed the isolation gap we have with one another?
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