Hello, How Are You?

Don't you care?

I was reading an excellent Substack article by Jeanette Winterson, over a cup of Istanbul espresso this morning and pondering on a question I have written about before, that Jeanette wrote about in Mind Over Matter. Check it out for a great read.

Last night I was at the bar before the rugby (wasn't that an awesome test against Ireland?) and the girl on the other side of the counter looked at me and asked "How are you?"

We were total strangers and it was simply a polite greeting.

I stopped, looked into her eyes, almost as dark as her black Covid facemask, paused, and said "I'm good thanks. How are you?" Not in that perfunctory way, like passing someone in the street with a "gidday", or a raising of the eyebrows, but as an obvious question.

She paused and looked back at me. It was like a moment of 'shall I tell him how I am? No, but I think that was a question.'

"I'm good thanks. What can I get you?"

I used to experiment with responses to "How are you?"

Most often, my stock response is "I'm great, thanks. How are you?" People expect that response from me, even when I'm not great.

I remember one day I was talking to a sales rep for one of my resellers, and I responded with "I'm great!"

She looked me in the eye with surprise and expectancy, saying, "Why? What happened?!"

Sometimes, when I'm in a more cynical frame of mind, my response might be, "I'm very, thanks." To justify my cynicism, the autonomous response is often, "That's good."

In these difficult times, it's important. The last 2 years have been tough, with lockdown, vaccinations, mandates, masks, working from home, or losing a job, and being too scared to sneeze or cough in a public place.

Now to add to the misery, we have inflation and probably a recession, rising costs of everything from petrol to food, and mortgages. We hear about the Russian invasion and the toll it is taking on Europe and Africa, not to mention the people in Ukraine, which reminds those of us whose parents or grandparents went through WWII, of the words "We will remember them," and "This must never happen again."

So chances are, that the person you are greeting or responding to, is not really "fine", or "great". They might not want to share their story, but at least they will know that their friends, acquaintances, or a random person in a bar, acknowledges them, and cares, even if just a little.

We are all in this together.

How are you doing?