Fine! Fine and fine!

Hello readstars! How are you all doing? How was your day and how's life in general? I hope you're doing all great.

Now alot of us here start our articles with questions like in the first paragraph, the first paragraph consists of a list of questions, and normally questions should be answered right? I mean they aren't supposed to be rhetorical questions and I didn't mean for them to be, but I can swear that those who will comment on this article won't bother to respond with "I am fine" or "I am doing great and you?". Since it's a question they have the freedom to answer non-affirmatively too and can say "I am not fine" or "I had a bad day, let me tell you about it: today I killed someone...."

My point? The question "how are you?" is more of a greeting now rather than a genuine question of interest to really know how the person is and we are all expected to reply with "fine". It's just like saying "Good morning to you!" and the other person replying "good morning to you too mate!". If you make an attempt to tell them how you really are since they are the ones who asked first it can be awkward. I mean imagine someone vomiting all the processes they had to go through in a divorce by your simple utterance of." how are you? ". They probably will never want to be around you again because they think you are weird even if they listened to all what you had to say at that time while giving you looks of "I was just trying to be nice".

Since when did it become a global tradition to ask people how they are while you don't really care and expecting "fine!" for an answer? I don't really know but I am damn positive that this has been the norm long before my parents were married, so me being born at that time is out of question.

What about those who really give a beans about you? those who really care about you like your family members and close friends? I think it's only those people who can ask the "how are you?" question without really expecting the "fine!" answer. They are the only ones that truly want to know how you really are. Still, they too can toss the "how are you?" question sometimes and expect you to say "fine!". The way a person asks the question makes you know how to reply to the person. When it is asked in a greeting tone, we by default say "fine!" because that's what they want to hear. That's what most people want to hear, for you to say fine!

The first time I thought about this made me quite sad because at that time I consider asking a person how they are kind of rude. Like meeting a person and say "high buddy, how you doing?" without really caring about how they are doing, even if you do care you don't expect me to start offloading all my problems onto you do you? So I am obliged to say "fine!" even when this can be a big lie sometimes . I still find it rude, even hypocritical in some situations. You seriously do not have to ask me that. A simple good morning is fine. There was even a time I don't answer to "how are you?" anymore and I just go silent. If the person keeps insisting I reply with "I am alive!" in a sarcastic tone.

Living in a place where the people are predominantly Muslim, I have found an alternative to this. I just say "Assalamu Alaykum" to people and they reply "Wa alaikum salaam" and that's that about that. This is translated as "peace be unto you" and "unto you too" and yeah, I think that's less cring to me, at least if I am sad you wished me peace and if I am happy you just wished me more peace since there's nothing like peace overdose. They know it's not necessary to ask "how are you" so they just wish you peace in any situation you may be. I think that's actually way cooler.

I get that's something I will have to live with though since it happens everywhere. "How are you?" is now a greeting so I guess Imma continue treating it that way by replying "fine! Fine! And fine!".

My dear readers, how are you all doing? This is me genuinely asking because I care. I care about all my friends here as I do my friends in real life so if there's anything you wanna talk about then feel free to.

Thanks for reading,

Yours Layly,

♥♥♥♥