How are you

“How are you”?

People will probably ask you this question A LOT!

Most of the time, we use this question as a polite way to say hello, and you don’t need to say anything about how you are really feeling.  Say one or two positive words, thank them for asking, and ask them the same question. Any of these answers will work almost all of the time:

“Great, thank you. How are you?” (very positive)

“Good, thanks, and you?” (positive – this is the most common answer)

 “Fine, thanks. How are you?” (a little less positive – I’m okay)

Your answer will depend on the person who is asking, and how well you know them.

What to Ask Instead of ‘How Are You?’ During a Pandemic

Everyone’s doing badly. 

We need better questions to ask.

Every conversation I have these days with someone who doesn’t live in my home—every time I call my friends or family member, every reporting phone call—kicks off with a brief, awkward, accidental .... “Hi!” I say. “Hi!” the other person says back. “How are you?” I ask next, out of habit.

So……..

Really How are we? 

People are sick and dying in alarming numbers all around us. Maybe we’re lucky enough not to be sick or dying. Everyone we know is in danger. Our future, our financial future, our jobs, are in jeopardy. And still we grim truths with the usual way “I’m good! You?”

The expression “How are you?” at the start of a conversation—which is normally understood in almost every culture to be a polite way of expressing concern for a person’s well-being, and to which the socially agreed-upon response is “I’m good,” “I’m fine,” or “I’m doing well”—hits differently in the COVID-19 era. 

The coronavirus pandemic and its effects are dramatic and widespread enough that it’s safe to assume everyone’s life has changed in some way.  And the polite expression of concern for a person's well-being, “How are you?” is not an honest inquiry in search of an honest answer. 

To ask “How are you?” in today's time, is either to make the conversation very gloomy, very fast or to force someone to lie straight to your face and say they’re fine. We need better questions to ask….but how??

In COVID-19 era,  “How are you?” “I’m fine” exchange has typically been a bit of a deceptive one. Linguistics professor at the University of Florida, explained the dialogue is an “adjacency pair,” or a short two-person script that is performed in a particular order. One type of adjacency pair is “question-answer,” and another is “greeting-greeting”—while “How are you?” “I’m fine” may seem like a question and an answer, in practice it functions more like two greetings. “Even though it looks like the person is asking an open-ended question, we treat it as a closed-ended question, in which ‘good’ or ‘fine’ is all that is ... preferred/expected”.

Saying “I’m fine” when the honest answer is “I’m sleepless, tense, and full of dread because my whole life is oriented toward trying desperately not to catch a deadly disease” can feel like an outright farce.

Given that the particular stress of the current moment stems from illness, this is also probably the worst possible time to be a society that uses “How are you?” “I’m fine” as the standard two-person greeting. 

“It’s hugely important. It’s what’s on everybody’s mind.” In some cultures , a common greeting exchange goes something like “Have you eaten yet?” “Yes, I’ve eaten bread / rice...or something” Asking “How are you?” out of politeness during a pandemic is like asking “Have you eaten yet?” Not only does the question draw all involved parties’ attention to the terrible circumstances at hand, but the expectation of a polite response negates the possibility of an actually informative answer.

There are contexts in which “How are you?” is usually a polite way into a conversation about something else (work, health, for instance), and then there are contexts in which you really are asking for an update on someone’s emotional and psychological state. In those conversations where “How are you?” functions as a perfunctory greeting and nothing more, it’s time to just drop the question altogether and ask something else, something that doesn’t send the respondent off to plumb the depths of how they’re doing in the middle of a global pandemic only to resurface with “Oh, pretty good.” Other questions might work better as a conversational warm-up or quick check-in. 

Nowadays in my own conversations, I like to go with “What’s your day been like so far?,” which moves the long-term circumstances into the backdrop and asks for only a small, trivial morsel of information.

If we want to take the extra step to show our loved ones that we’re really asking, though, and not just greeting them as we might have done in normal times, reaching for a question that more explicitly asks after their emotional or psychological well-being might help. “How are you coping?,” for instance, signals that you don’t expect whomever you’re talking with to be doing great, and that you are genuinely curious about how they’re handling things. “What’s been on your mind lately?” suggests openness to a deeper conversation. You might also follow up on a worry or concern they’ve mentioned before, and check in on how they’re feeling about it now.

Life is filled with uncertainty, especially at times like this. While many things remain outside your control, your mindset is key to coping with difficult circumstances and facing the unknown.

However you choose to start your conversations during quarantine, perhaps the most important thing is to ask a genuine question that invites a genuine answer. One of the kindest gestures we can extend to others in a time like this is to make clear that they don’t have to pretend they’re fine.

I would love to hear from you...how you are asking “how are you” or........something like that....

♥️jyoti 🌷