I am currently pondering whether our society has come to the point that we have traditional greetings. I mean, I know we already have some sort of one -- but it's not like in Niger where you say the exact same thing to a person every time you greet them. Usually it's "Hi, How are you (today)?" and usually someone says "I'm doing fine/great/good/adjective, (thanks), how are you?".
I'm just wondering because it seems like when I say anything other that "I'm good how are you" I receive some sort of comment on what I've responded with...sometimes good, sometimes bad.
For instance, my viola instructor asked me today "How are you?". I said "I'm good, I'm a little tired, that's all". To which he said "O...you'll live". And it's not that it was mean or anything -- he's a really nice guy. It's just that I didn't want my tiredness to underplayed I guess because I was really tired. Anyway, it stuck out to me.
And I think that's why I usually just say "good" or "fine" because of this fact -- which sometimes I'm lying! But, it just seems so rigid now that I feel like I can't really say anything else. Or maybe it's because later I think about and worry about every little thing I said or did. I'm getting better -- but for a while it was very time consuming. Anyway, just a thought I had.
2 comments:
I think that our society asks in order to be polite, but doesn't want an answer. I think of my Aunt whom no one asks how she's doing, because she will give you a list of complaints in response. People like that ruin it for everyone. I know that most people don't really care how I am, so I give a canned answer.
i hate when people you barely know ask you that.. especially at work.. i get asked "hey how's it going?" or "how are you?" by a million different people everyday and all i ever say is "good" fine" "tired" .. dumb answers like that b/c it would be considered rude to say anything too negative.. to bothersome. and most the time when people ask me that they just keep walking and don't even wait for an answer... b/c they know that it will be fine or good.. b/c anything else would be out of the routine.
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