Originally Posted By: Anne327

Also, some people get evasive whan you ask them how they are doing; they say "fine" and then change the subject. This gives me the feeling they don't want to talk about something bad going on. As Ellemm says, they may not trust or like the asker, but then why talk to them in the first place?


No, I just admitted that a few of my 'fines' are to people I don't feel like having a long conversation with. Just because someone asks you a question doesn't mean you have to go into detail if you don't want to. I don't tell people a lot of stuff anyway because I'm kind of private that way. If people are going to know a lot about me, it's because I have told them, not because they have pried it out of me. That's just me. Other people are comfortable giving a lot of details; I'm often not. It's just me.

But truly, about 90 percent of the time I assume that the "How are you?" question in a casual social setting is supposed to be answered with "Fine. And you?" or "I've been worse. How's by you?" I honestly don't consider it to be a serious question, just a social nice thing. Maybe I'm all wet on this and have completely misread the signals.