= How are you? =
And now for something completely different.
I really like reading and writing about text formatting and
communication protocols and life at the command line. But I am
also a human with a truly messed-up quantity of interests.
So while Gopher is still my newest obsession, I'd like to
intersperse some other stuff in my phlog. Like this comment
[1] on Hacker News that caught my attention the other day:
> I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual
"hey, how are you?".
[1]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17694553
The replies seem to fall into one of two camps:
Camp 1. Those who agree that dealing with "how are you?" is
an irritation
Camp 2. Those who feel the need to explain to Camp 1 that "how
are you?" is a meaningless pleasantry
As you might have guessed from the way I phrased Camp 2's
position, I have my tent pitched over with the other lovable
losers in Camp 1. (We have boardgames and plenty of marshmallows,
so don't be shy!)
Hey
Don't assume too much about me from just that one fact. I do
actually find value in a lot of the social pleasantries that we
use day-to-day such as "thank you" and "you're welcome."
Truth be told, I think having these stock phrases is very helpful
because they give us a conventient way to tell another person,
"hey, I'm also a regular human and not a simulacrum that was
just now dropped off by the mothership of my lizard-like race
of erotic space mutants."
(Of course you can easily *fake* these interactions, which is why
the erotic space mutants have been so successful at integrating
themselves into every strata of our society.)
So why is "how are you?" such a sticking point? What's your
problem, Ratfart? Why can't you just recite the script we all
know so well:
** THE STOCK SCRIPT **
Person 1: "How are you?"
Person 2: "Good, and you?"
Person 1: "Good."
(By the way, I'm well aware that this exchange, in fact, this
*whole post* may be US-centric or otherwise regional.)
Well, the problem is that you can't *always* follow that script.
Which means I have to think about it, and that, in turn, is
an annoyance. That probably sounds ridiculous without some
supporting examples...
When it doesn't work
Okay, so two situations come immediately to mind in which the
stock script either doesn't apply or doesn't work:
1.
First, when an old aquaintance asks "how are you?" there is
a good likelyhood that *they are actually asking a question*,
albeit a low-quality question.
There are all sorts of verbal and non-verbal cues we unconciously
use to tell the difference, but the point is that a response
*may* require a real-ish answer. Depending on the delivery,
the stock response of "good" might come off as rather brusque!
2.
Second, when you see someone while on the move and they greet
you with a quick "how are you?", it may be impossible to perform
the standard script. This happens a lot when I'm passing someone
while in opposite flows of foot traffic.
There's just enough time to shoot a "good!" back their way,
but then you can't follow it up with the "and you?" part, so
you're left having not completed your part of the script which
means...you're the bad guy who didn't ask them how *their*
day was, you insensitive beast!
Sometimes I blurt out, "good'n'you?" all in one syllable so
that the response is back in their hands as they continue to
drift further out of earshot. Ha, who's the insensitive beast
now, sucker?
Either way, not being able to complete the script is awkward
for somebody. And for what?
It's disingenuous
People are quick to point out that most folks don't actually
care about the answer when they ask "how are you?"
*I fail to see how this is a selling point!*
The question is inherently empathetic but an honest answer is
neither required nor even desired. In fact, unless you're feeling
particularly great, the person asking is actually requesting
a LIE.
On purpose.
But, sure, they're "just being polite."
Madness.
Better alternatives
We already have some wonderful words like "hello" and "hi"
that just...work! They're fast, they're easy to respond to.
Add a smile and they can be as friendly as you like.
If hello and hi are too short, you can also greet while
simultaneously address the continuing rotation of the planet
by bidding someone "good morning", "good afternoon", and
"good night".
Even when you fail that one by saying the wrong time of day, it
actually works even better because then you both have something
to laugh about. We all do it, so it's funny.
There is an endless sea of fantastic English words you can string
together to greet someone:
"Nice to see you"
"Wow, it's hot out here, right?"
"Howdy"*
"Good day to you"
"Greetings"
"Ahoy thar"
"It appears that you are alive"
"Have some whiskey" (offer whiskey)
Some of these will give a person pause, but none will leave
them with the feeling of failure one gets from an incomplete
"how are you?" exchange.
* Yes, I know "howdy" is short for "how do you do?" but the
big difference is that it *does not have an implicit question
mark*! "Howdy" is made as a declarative statement of greeting.
(The appropriate response is, "howdy yerself, pardner, have
some whiskey!")
To be clear: I don't think people who use the dreaded greeting
are bad people - they're just running on autopilot. I just
think there are *better* greetings.
Introversion
I think it's relevant, so we might as well establish this:
I'm an introvert. Surprise!
I suspect many others in Camp 1 are introverts as well, but
they're too shy to tell me.
Hardy har...har?
No, I think introversion comes in a lot of dimensions and all
of those dimensions are on a continuum. No two introverts are
exactly alike and it's impossible to collect them all.
My brand of introversion has these traits:
* prefer a very small number of very close friends
* actually don't mind presenting in front of groups (say,
classroom size or above)
* can be very sociable with strangers for "sprint distances"
if I'm mentally prepared for it
* will happily engage in profoundly deep long conversations with
people with shared interests
* schmoozing with new people is exhausting
* will go to almost any length to avoid awkward social situations
Right, so I'm not some sewer-dwelling subhumanoid super freakout
that you're afraid to introduce to your "normal" friends.
(Though I *could* be, oh yes!)
Buuuut I'm also not a natural "people person" who is always tuned
in and ready to make personal connections with everyone I meet.
Therefore, while I'm perfectly capable of dealing with "how are
you?" (and other ill-thought interactions) day in and day out,
my threshhold for being made to fell awkward is probably lower
than the average extrovert's.
Slow thinking
The Hacker News-posted article that started this train of thought
was not about introversion, though. It was about slow thinkers.
("Slow" in this sense simply refers to the speed - not the depth
or clarity of thought.)
I absolutely loved this quote by Charles Darwin in the top
comment posted by HN user 'techstrategist':
> "I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which
is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance, Huxley. I
am therefore a poor critic: a paper or book, when first read,
generally excites my admiration, and it is only after considerable
reflection that I perceive the weak points. My power to follow
a long and purely abstract train of thought is very limited;
and therefore I could never have succeeded with metaphysics or
mathematics. My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to
make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have observed or
read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing,
or on the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can
generally recollect where to search for my authority. So poor in
one sense is my memory, that I have never been able to remember
for more than a few days a single date or a line of poetry."
Darwin articulates so well the feeling and reason for being
*eventually* very competent while being less impressive in the
immediate moment.
It could be that introversion and extroversion have nothing to
do with a person's acceptance of the "how are you?" greeting,
but rather the person's preferred speed or mode of thought.
If I'm lost in thought on a hard problem, I might stare blankly
at you for a moment before I realize you've asked me a question
at all. Maybe I change gears slowly. Or *maybe* deep thought
just works that way and some of us tend to be in it more often
than others?
At any rate, asking a slow, deep thinker "how are you?" may result
in some delay where a simple "hi" may not. Why do you want to
mess around with deep thinkers like that? What's wrong with you?
Don't you know they have important work to do?
Asking questions in general
I also struggle with "what have you been doing lately?" This is
a completely different problem: I don't know how to summarize
all of the things I've been trying to cram into my days into
bite-sized nuggets for mass-consumption.
So I say "not much."
I hate doing that because at any given moment, I'm probably
neck-deep in ten different extremely specific hobbies, all of
which I'd *love* to discuss in length. But to do that, I'd have
to figure out if the other person is interested.
Like this Gopher stuff. I would happily talk somebody's ear
off about this stuff. But negotiating your way to the topic
with a complete stranger would take some time starting with,
"so you know about the Internet, right?"
I wish we could just exchange cards with people with a list of
hobbies and interests:
"Ah, I see you're into Beast Master cosplay as well!"
A question that *always* produces *great* conversations, in my
experience, is, "have you read anything interesting, lately?"
But that backfires horribly when the answer is, "no." On the
other hand, this is a sign that I'm not speaking to a person,
but rather to one of those erotic space mutants.
Anyway, now we're steering into actual ice-breaker territory,
which is a totally different thing.
Other awkward exchanges
Even the witless dolts who defend "how are you?" know the awkward
pain of this exchange:
Vendor: "Ah, weasel juice. That'll be 4 credits."
Patron: "Here you go."
Vendor: "Enjoy your weasel juice!"
Patron: "You too! ...er, I mean, thank you."
We know why this happens: you're running on the "have a nice day"
script which looks like this:
** THE STOCK SCRIPT **
Vendor: "Have a nice day!"
Patron: "You too!"
Somebody went and changed the script on you!
I've been burned by this enough times that now I'm on the lookout
for it. I've decided that the well-meaning vendor is really
"to blame" for this situation. If you deviate from the script,
you're going to trip people up.
Conclusion
It's a small thing. I don't lose sleep over this. But I do
my part.
Them: "How are you?"
Me: "Eating balls!"
NO, no, bad Ratty!
No, it's simple: I just practice what I preach. I never greet
people with "how are you?"
But I *do* perform a little "nonviolent resistance" by changing
the script on the "how are you" greeters:
Them: "How are you?"
Me: "Hi!"
Nobody bats an eye. They weren't actually asking a question.
It's still friendly. I smile and everything.
*But* I get to walk away knowing that I didn't have to *lie*
and I didn't leave the exchange half-played by telling them how
freaking great *I* feel without asking *them* in return.
I simply exchanged a crappy greeting with a quality one and left
the world a better place than I found it.
* * *
Community notes:
There is so much rich content on Gopher that I find myself with
multiple windows on multiple desktops open at all times with
half-read pages and lists of phlogs. I'm starting to get a
better feel for who some of you are and you are my kind of people.
I think what I should do is create a page (or two or three)
of annotated bookmarks with some of my favorite articles and
phlog posts from the Gopherverse - my way of keeping track of
some of the outstanding content while also doing my part to help
keep alive the "hand-made" aspect of Gopher that makes it feel
so alive and personal.
