How are You?

I hope people know that my grammar is much better in real life than it is on my blog. I got a little embarrassed when I thought about that, because I really do have pretty great grammar. I just type very poorly for my blog. Maybe I should stop... Whatever. 

Anyway, I was thinking about a sort of weird thing that has happened to our language (or maybe culture, or both), and I'm honestly rather weirded by it. It's "How are you?"

I mean, it isn't really a question. It's more like an extension of a greeting, and doesn't actually mean anything probably 95% of the time. When was the last time you asked someone how they were with sincerity and expected a sincere answer in return? Or when was the last time someone asked you? It's probably been a while, right? Because it isn't even treated as a real question. It is a subtitle of "Hello." 

To be honest, I kind of hate it when people greet me with,"Hey, how are you?" Because 1) usually it's in passing and I barely have time to give the conditioned answer of, "I'm good; how are you?" (As of late, actually, I've left off the "How about you?" part and people are sometimes offended by that which is also dumb.) And 2) if I were to honestly tell them how I'm doing/feeling/thinking, they probably wouldn't want to ask me another question ever again. 

"Hi, how are you?" 

"I'm good. How are you?" 

"I'm good, thanks." 

Do you see that "conversation"? That isn't even a conversation. It has no meaning. That was a waste of 15 seconds and it was all a lie. It's part of this other thing that I've noticed people do. People don't talk about important things they're thinking or feeling. People don't talk about important things. Why can't we just ditch small talk and be honest about ourselves, even if it doesn't seem really conventional? The only reason it doesn't seem convenional is because hardly anyone does it. Let's do it. For real. 

The funny thing is, I started replying with atypical answers to this question that I don't enjoy, and people don't really even notice. 

"How are you?" 

"I'm great! How about yourself?" 

"That's great. I'm good." 

Did you even listen to my answer? I bet not. 

"How are you?" 

"I'm okay..." 

"Just okay?" 

"Yeah."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

No you're not. Don't lie to me.

"How are you?" 

"I'm dying inside because I hate the non-question you just asked me. How are you?" 

"Oh, I'm good, thanks." 

Seriously. What has happened to this question? It's purely rhetorical, and people who ask it don't really care how you're doing, because if they did, they would ask you for real.