How's it going?
May. 7th, 2002 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1I hate that question, along with its variants like "How are you?" Do people really care to know the answer? If they don't, then why do they bother to ask me? Are they being curious, or being nosy? Are they trying to engage me in small talk? Are they keeping a scorecard on me?
I really hate it when people at work ask me. I'm a very private person at work, and there's a good portion of my life I feel I need to conceal, especially with religion, politics, and the groups and organizations I belong to. My experience with "work friends" is that it is a circumstantial relationship; once I or the other person leaves the company, we never see or hear from that person again.
Many years ago, I was having a bad day. Many years ago, someone walked by me and asked, "Hey Jim, how's it going?" I said "Lousy!" They said "Good!" and kept walking on. I've since come to believe that people really don't care about my answer to that question.
Now, if I don't care to answer, I have several stock answers which I use as my response, like "It's on a need-to-know basis", "I'm awake and I'm alive", or if I'm really ticked, "How I am is none of your business". I've used it with telemarketers, and I had responses from "Whatever. Have a good life." (after which the telemarketer hung up) to "You need to talk about it; it does you no good to bottle up your feelings like that."
Sometimes, after hearing my response, a few people have told me that they care about me, or say that they're my friend, but I didn't (and still won't) believe it. I probably wouldn't believe it until after they actually take a bullet for me.
There are many times where I just want to be left alone, and I want to leave other people alone. I've grown accustomed to being alone that I'm numb to the pain. I'm alone but not lonely. And asking people how they are when they don't care to know the answer is, for me, yet another one of those annoying things that humans do
I really hate it when people at work ask me. I'm a very private person at work, and there's a good portion of my life I feel I need to conceal, especially with religion, politics, and the groups and organizations I belong to. My experience with "work friends" is that it is a circumstantial relationship; once I or the other person leaves the company, we never see or hear from that person again.
Many years ago, I was having a bad day. Many years ago, someone walked by me and asked, "Hey Jim, how's it going?" I said "Lousy!" They said "Good!" and kept walking on. I've since come to believe that people really don't care about my answer to that question.
Now, if I don't care to answer, I have several stock answers which I use as my response, like "It's on a need-to-know basis", "I'm awake and I'm alive", or if I'm really ticked, "How I am is none of your business". I've used it with telemarketers, and I had responses from "Whatever. Have a good life." (after which the telemarketer hung up) to "You need to talk about it; it does you no good to bottle up your feelings like that."
Sometimes, after hearing my response, a few people have told me that they care about me, or say that they're my friend, but I didn't (and still won't) believe it. I probably wouldn't believe it until after they actually take a bullet for me.
There are many times where I just want to be left alone, and I want to leave other people alone. I've grown accustomed to being alone that I'm numb to the pain. I'm alone but not lonely. And asking people how they are when they don't care to know the answer is, for me, yet another one of those annoying things that humans do
