The bane of many a person's small talk or family reunion: the dreaded polite status inquiry. Is it a sincere question about wellbeing, inviting a peron to share confidence and give the questioner a chance to be concerned and supportive? Is it an icebreaker, an invitation to bring up something relevant to one's life as a lead-in to other conversation? Is it a polite noise for signaling in-groupness but not any promise of time/shits given about wellbeing??? It could be any of them, depending on who's asking and how! That's context, baby! Good luck guessing right! It's a safer bet to assume polite/rhetorical mouth sounds as a way of gauging willingness to get along... but not always. And I've brushed aside questions from really concerned relatives because I assumed they obviously didn't really care, they were asking to be polite, etc etc. I bring this up partly because Father's day and seeing some extended family and getting asked The Question too many times where I couldn't tell which level they were asking on or how they felt about my reponses... Partly because I nearly picked a fight with my mom for texting me with that question asked so sadly and lifelessly with no hint what was going on in her life... and partly because I just realized that I never ask a fried on Plurk how they're doing, even though they ask me. (It's funny because I play self-absorbed Papyrus to their concerned and enbling and depressed Sans, and I suddenly felt my IC/OOC line was dangerously blurry.) So.... How do you handle the question? Answering it, asking it of others, and dealing when the conversation veers really far out of the scripted call and response exchange?
I think in nearly all instances I just say "I'm fine" regardless unless I know that the person wouldn't mind listening to me gripe about things, which happens rarely.
that's basically what i do. though with me, it's more to shut down people talking about it with me if i don't feel like talking with them. and if they don't accept "i'm fine" as an answer, i then go more blatant about it and say "sorry but i don't feel like talking [about that/right now/to you/any other relevant variable]." and i don't really ask people how they're doing, except when it feels like Make Polite Noise Time, since i don't want to put them on the spot or ask too much of them and assume that if they want to say they're not feeling alright, they will initiate it themselves. also, @swirlingflight, you (specifically - 'cause while i won't bite other people's heads off for asking, i don't feel like i can promise anything about how i'd respond to them) can ask me "how are you?" if that's ever something you want to ask and i'll try to either answer the question or give you the more straightforward version of the shut-down-the-topic answer ("sorry but i don't feel like talking [about that/right now/to you/any other relevant variable]."). and swirl, sometimes i don't talk about it with you when i'm feeling upset 'cause i know you have difficulty with interacting with people's feelings and it feels unpleasant for you. i know this is not optimal but i don't really know how to strike a good balance yet and the thought of bringing my feelings up makes me feel guilty. like, i'd be putting you through emotional torture just to make myself feel better and reassure myself about how close we are to each other.
"I'm fine" is pretty much what I say to. I usually use "alright" but they're nearly synonymous here. Short, positive-ish but open-ended answers. People who are asking as social ritual don't get an honest response they're likely unwilling/unable to handle. People who really want to know can probably hear the lack of conviction, and give a followup like "well you knoe you can always talk to me if you need to." I think I made the thread partly in hopes of hearing alternatives, and partly as a chance to gripe (and hear others' griping) about social rituals. @unknownanonymous message received and acknowledged that it won't hurt, and woukd probably help, for me to ask you! I can make a point of asking. That'll make sure we both affirm the "yes I can ask" "yes I can say" things. And gets me doing it, getting better at telling when I can't handle emotions. It woukd be a kindness and convenience, y'know?
:D okay. and thanks! i've wanted to bring this "not talking to you about stuff that's upsetting me if it isn't directly related to you and you don't bring it up first" thing up for a while, but this was the first opportunity i felt like i could without being too much of a burden on you. which goes back to my tendency of trying to suppress my negative emotions in order to avoid losing my the relationships i enjoy and avoid hurting people. a tendency which is a thing 'cause i feel like i can control my emotions well and don't feel them that strongly. though when it comes to the feeling-negative-emotions thing, i just realized that, for me, they manifest mostly like sparks and crackling and tension and tightness, are mostly fear and anxiety. and that the way my emotions feel for me and how that seems different from other people's descriptions doesn't mean that my negative emotions are weaker. it just means they usually don't drown me or burn like raging fire or explode, that they aren't dramatic and flashy and epic unless i hit my breaking point (though sensory overload, too much stress, too many negative emotions, etc.).
from my experience in my part of texas, most people (even strangers) are expecting a short but very positive response to "how are you?". the most common one is an emphatic "good, good" with the first good being kinda higher pitched and slightly louder than the second one. if you don't immediately follow up with "and how are you?" you can get some offput looks. probably about half of the "how are you"s i've ever gotten have even been walkbys. they don't expect you to stop b/c you've got somewhere to be, but you still gotta say "good, good" as you keep going. it makes people happy for some reason.
It's that in-group pinging thing. "I'm a person are you a person?" "Yes I'm a person." "Yes! Good!" It's a little "Same hat!" but not as adorable. :( The trouble I run into at family gatherings is, they're not random strangers. Some of them mean it as thr polite acknowledgement disguised as status inquiry, but some of them mean the nquestion itself. I've added to a few relatives feeling helpless and afraid for me, since I wasn't saying when I was in a bad way. So how to figure out which mean it, at the time of asking rather than in retrospect...?
