Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Who cares how you're doing

In modern America, a popular greeting in business, pleasure, or home life is: "How [are] you doing?"

99% of people will respond "Good. You?"

That other 1% of responses is usually someone telling you that their car broke down, they just got diagnosed with cancer, lost their job, or they're having a psychotic break and telling you the Reptilians have arrived.

So...one usually hopes to just hear, "Good".  No person you're having a formal greeting with at work, while paying for services, or at a club/bar really wants to hear about your personal trials and tribulations.  This greeting has become a sort of vestigial formality from small-town periods when everyone really wanted to know what the rest of their neighbors were up to.

It kind of strikes me as weird in today's fast paced techno-urban society.  People usually just mumble it quickly and continue with their business.  What other humanistic formalities still exist that don't make sense in modernity?




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