I’m Fine, Really 

I just passed by a guy I know. Well, I don’t really know him. I don’t even know his name, but we see each other around.

I said, “hey, how ya doing?” Like we all do and I expected in return, “fine, how bout you?”

I got “good”.

That was it. At first I thought how rude. Then I realized it was just a more honest response. Maybe he wasn’t good, but he didn’t care to hear how I was doing. So he didn’t ask. Honest.

We all lie in these situations. We say “great”, “fine”, “good”, etc and sometimes we don’t really feel that way. And then we ask in return how they’re doing and we don’t slow down to listen. So asking in the first place seems disingenuous.

Maybe we should just go with a silent head nod as our greeting. It says all we really want to say.