How Are You?

An Essay

By

Elene Y. F. Bratton  

 

How are you?” is easy when you’re doing great.  It’s like going to your high school reunion with a beautiful spouse, being president of your own company, driving a Rolls Royce and wearing a size 8.

 

But what about for those who are struggling in our lives or have had some tragedy befall us?  How does that question impact us?

 

Part of the problem is that I can’t really tell when someone is sincerely asking “How are you?” and want an answer to the question and when it is simply part of a greeting spoken as part of a perfunctory development in our social structure.  Sometimes it is easy to tell like when the person has actually moved beyond you by the time the question is completed.  But sometimes it is not easy to know if the question is sincere or easy to answer in the time and place in which it is asked.

 

Hence the wondering of this essay! How do we greet each other appropriately according to our social norms and how to we sincerely convey that we want to know how someone is?

 

I would really like to find a new question to be posed when someone really wants to know.  I would like to find a new phrase to be given as part of the greeting if it is necessary to say more than “hello” or “good morning”, which I would also argue it is not. 

 

For a person who is not “fine” (which by the way AA defines as fearful, insecure, neurotic and emotional) it is a struggle to endure.  It is so overused that it is cliché and to answer in the expected way causes the hurting person more pain. When the question is thrown out there by people who are doing their social duty but who really don’t want to know, it causes the person who isn’t fine to have to take stalk of how they are doing. 

 

Even if this is not verbalized to the question asker-who doesn’t want to know, it is now a question for the not fine person to ponder within themselves. Most often by the time the hurt situation is recalled, the asker-who doesn’t want to know, has moved on in space or conversation.  Sometimes that person has actually responded back to themselves by imagining your “fine” response, you’re asking the same question and responding to that telling you how they are doing.  It goes like this:

 

“Hi, how ya doing?”

“Hello” (thinking about the question)

“I’m doing well, thank you” “So, I wanted to know how that project is going (blah, blah, blah

(still thinking but trying to move on with the conversation)

I’m almost done (did you want to know how I was????)

 

Meanwhile the person who is hurting is having to relive all that has broken their heart (well my child is sick, my mom died last week, I lost my job, I have to have surgery on my knee- how do you think I’m doing????)

 

Some people will push you for an answer when you try to avert the question.  They ask how are you, and being denied the fine they are expecting ask it again and again until you are forced to say something.  Then they act like you are a “b” with an “icth” if you let them know you don’t really want to discuss that with them.

 

Often I’ve experienced these situations with complete strangers like clerks and receptionists who don’t even know me and with whom I don’t want to share even if they were sincere.

 

What makes it really important is that there are people that really want to know how a person is doing, but most people (at least me) can’t tell who they are because the question turned greeting phrase is so over used.  People who loved me and wanted to know how I was coping after the death of my son, Jamie would ask me and I was so incensed by the question that the sincere and the ones who just wanted us to be OK, so they could be comfortable. Would get the same response.  I hurt several people including my brother because I couldn’t take that question.  Even after two years it is difficult for me.  Most every grieving parent I know agrees, the question brings angst to an already difficult social environment. 

 

I am advocating for a greeting that, rather than asks a question (which you don’t want to hear the answer to or don’t have time to really listen to), that a statement be made. 

“It’s good to see you”, “I’m glad you’re here”  “Glad you could make it” or you could simply say hello and leave it at that. 

 

If you are sincere and really want to know:

 

Sit down with the person.

Be with them.

Acknowledge that you know things have been rough

Say something like “I’m here and I’d really like to know how things have been for you”. 

 

Bereaved people aren’t the only one’s who have trouble with the question.

 

Poet Charles Bucowski says it this way in his poem

 

Problems in the checkout line

 

Often in the supermarket checkout line

The cashier will ask me

“how are you?”

and I’ll answer something

like, “not so good, I’ve got

hemorrhoids, insomnia, vertigo and

the battery in my watch is

dead.”

 

There’s never a response, it as if

They haven’t heard, they just keep

Ringing up my purchase.

 

I am not attempting to take out my

frustrations on the supermarket

employees

but when they ask me

“how are you?”

I’m usually not doing very well and there’s nothing that

makes me feel worse

than to say

“fine”.

 

I’ve tried another way.

when the ask

“how are you?”

I say, “it’s never been so

good! it’s unbelievable! the money’s

just rolling in! I don’t understand it!”

 

But they dislike this reply

more than the

hemorrhoid, insomnia, vertigo

bit.

 

So I’ve tried a third way.

when they ask that same question

I say,

 

“you really don’t care”

 

again there’s no reaction, they

just go on

ringing up my purchase

and I understand this lack of response:

they really don’t care,

and I think that’s good.

we all ought to r4ealize that it’s

nothing to be ashamed of

and it makes buying

groceries

the same as

anything else:

what we need is what we want and

what we want

has very little to do

with anything

else.