How Are You Doing? Do You Really Want To Know?

The phrase, "How are you doing, today", has now become a simple "hello". I've tried actually telling people, getting strange reactions, like i'm speaking some foreign, inappropriate language. Then, I just respond "hi" back, since it's a greeting and this usually triggers some response that either i'm a psycho or they get it, it's just a greeting. Yet, repeatedly asked this question, and repeatedly lying can lead to repression and inability to recognize those feelings. So, if this is happening now, how did it come to be?

When did this phrase become so impressionable? Well, there is history behind it. This conventional greeting was used mostly after being introduced to someone, as in And this is our youngest say “How do you do” to Mr. Smith. Although it is a question, it requires no reply. Originally, in the 1600s, this expression was an inquiry after a person’s health or standing, how do you do meaning “how do you fare?” Today we usually express this as How are you? or How are you doing? or How goes it? or How’s it going? Even more general are the slangy locutions How are things? or How’s tricks? All of these greetings date from the first half of the 1900s.

So, that being said...Why not just go back to "how do you do", of course with a bow afterwards. It seems much more like a greeting, rather than this oh no a personal invasion of my feelings! I guess not everyone has the time or patience to stop their business and be a shoulder for someone else. To me, that seems like necessary human kindness. Has the world gone cold? Am I the only one who is so lame, they can't seem to make many in-person friends, or is it the Seattle Freeze?

I've always wanted to live in a small town, where everyone acts like family. But, here in Washington, forget about making friends, everyone is frozen like ice, at least in person. The only way to make a friend anymore is through an app! So, now we're "dating" for friends? Why is everyone taken fear to the extreme?

In a Seattle-based Pemco survey, half of PNW's don't even want to talk briefly to people they don't already know. So, how do you get to know anyone? About 40% of the poll’s 1,200 respondents in Washington and Oregon said it’s not important for them to make new friends. “You’ve heard of FOMO (fear of missing out), right? Well, here, we see a lot of JOMO: joy of missing out,” Wing said. “People here say, ‘There’s a party I’m not going to, and I’m glad I’m not going to it.'” A whopping 49 percent said they don’t even want to interact with people they don’t know. So, what is important to them? Without friends, all you have is work and money...Seems like a pretty miserable life to me. No wonder people in WA don't want to answer, how are you, because their answer would be..."Desperate! I have no friends!" I think I need to move...Where's my small town?

So, if you were to answer the question, "how are you today", what would your answer be? Fine? Is anyone ever really...Fine? People try to hide their real feelings because they want to block them even from themselves. Telling a complete stranger when you already hide behind a disguise? I don't think so. We all have negative beliefs about ourselves, and somehow we make ourselves believe that if we reveal those "bad" qualities, then we will become them, or even worse be judged and shamed for even having feelings at all. We all walk around in a body of fear. That sounds more dramatic than you make think it is. But, if you were to answer the question...What would you say and how would you feel about saying, dare I say, the truth?