‘How Are You Doing?’ Isn’t a Trick Question

When your friends ask how you’re doing, tell them

Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash

“I’m doing alright, how about you?”

For years, the answer was nearly automatic. A friend or co-worker would ask how I was doing, and I didn’t even have to think about it. I’d spit out the same mechanical response and move on.

Sometimes it was accurate, but mostly not. There were days I was feeling fantastic, days I was nearly broken, and everything in between. Regardless, the question rarely even reached the conscious part of my brain, even with my closest friends. I had no more desire to share my successes and happiness than I did my failures and sadness.

Worse yet, it wasn’t intentional. I wasn’t planning to hide my feelings from friends. Due to some combination of insecurities, introversion, and emotional laziness, evasion had become my default setting.

The first time I realized I was doing it was roughly five years ago. I had just arrived at a good friend’s house for dinner and drinks. We sat down, opened a beer, and started catching up. Unsurprisingly, he asked how I was doing, and my stock answer came popping out while I dedicated my mental energy to the beer in my hand.

“Cass, you could have a spear sticking out of your side, and you’d still say everything’s fine.”

My initial response was laughter. Aside from the humorous mental image, I didn’t take it seriously. I figured there was a kernel of truth to it, but that it was an exaggeration.

Later that night, my mind wandered back to his comment. Was it more accurate than I wanted to believe? As I mentally rehashed my last several social interactions, I realized it was nearly spot on.

My next step was to create justifications to myself. I rarely had much exciting news to share, so the answer wasn’t that wrong. My life was generally pretty good, so I shouldn’t be complaining. And the question was a formality, anyway, a ritual with little importance.

Obviously, these excuses were flimsy and didn’t stand up to even five minutes of serious introspection. I was evading a basic question that most of us answer several times per day. As I probed my reasoning, I realized there were two main…