When your friends ask how you’re doing, tell them
“I’m doing alright, how about you?”
For years, the answer was nearly automatic. A friend or co-worker would ask how I was doing, and I didn’t even have to think about it. I’d spit out the same mechanical response and move on.
Sometimes it was accurate, but mostly not. There were days I was feeling fantastic, days I was nearly broken, and everything in between. Regardless, the question rarely even reached the conscious part of my brain, even with my closest friends. I had no more desire to share my successes and happiness than I did my failures and sadness.
Worse yet, it wasn’t intentional. I wasn’t planning to hide my feelings from friends. Due to some combination of insecurities, introversion, and emotional laziness, evasion had become my default setting.
The first time I realized I was doing it was roughly five years ago. I had just arrived at a good friend’s house for dinner and drinks. We sat down, opened a beer, and started catching up. Unsurprisingly, he asked how I was doing, and my stock answer came popping out while I dedicated my mental energy to the beer in my hand.
“Cass, you could have a spear sticking out of your side, and you’d still say everything’s fine.”
My initial response was laughter. Aside from the humorous mental image, I didn’t take it seriously. I figured there was a kernel of truth to it, but that it was an exaggeration.
Later that night, my mind wandered back to his comment. Was it more accurate than I wanted to believe? As I mentally rehashed my last several social interactions, I realized it was nearly spot on.
My next step was to create justifications to myself. I rarely had much exciting news to share, so the answer wasn’t that wrong. My life was generally pretty good, so I shouldn’t be complaining. And the question was a formality, anyway, a ritual with little importance.
Obviously, these excuses were flimsy and didn’t stand up to even five minutes of serious introspection. I was evading a basic question that most of us answer several times per day. As I probed my reasoning, I realized there were two main reasons for my behavior.
First, I was entirely too comfortable living in a shell. Due to times in life where real friends were few and far between, keeping to myself had become a habit. Socializing at a surface level was fine, but I had partially lost sight of what it meant to connect with another person.
The second reason was more powerful and far more of a revelation. Part of me believed no one else actually cared. Everyone has their own emotions to deal with, why would they need to hear about mine, too? If someone had just told me what a terrible day they had, how would burdening them with my problems help?
Logically, I understood that it was bullshit. Friends listen to each other. Having their own lives doesn’t negate their desire to provide an ear, a comforting embrace, and what help they can. Insecurity is a powerful beast, though, and has an uncanny ability to obscure such rational views.
I set out to rectify this, which was easier said than done. On good days, it was relatively easy to say as such. I was in a better mood, and sharing positive news and feelings was a breeze. Friends even playfully chided me for my newfound desire to answer the question.
Old habits die hard, though. As time went on, I slid back into a pattern of evasion. Frustrations in life were part of it. I had little desire to talk about my failing business partnership, especially in any real detail. As that situation worsened and my stress heightened, it was appealing to spend as little time as possible talking about myself.
Once the business finally ended, much of my negativity dissipated, but it had left its mark. I had almost entirely returned to my emotional hermitage. Worse yet, I was comfortable there. I wasn’t mentally prepared to talk openly about how I was feeling about what had just happened. Nor did I want to discuss how my freelance venture was progressing, or where I saw the future headed. On any given day, “I’m doing alright” was far too easy to say.
I awakened to this habit once again this past weekend, more powerfully than before. I had been socially distant for the past several weeks. Multiple friends reached out to ask if everything was okay. I, of course, said things were alright, I just had a lot going on. That wasn’t a total lie, but it certainly wasn’t the truth.
I flew up to the Bay Area this past weekend to spend time with a small group, including my best friend and closest confidant. Once we started catching up, she clearly knew I had a lot on my mind, and I knew she had caught on to that. I was reticent to get into much detail. I let on that I was dealing with some frustrations, but that it wasn’t a big deal. To her credit, she didn’t call me out for being full of shit. I deserved such a response but thankfully didn’t receive it.
I realized that she genuinely wanted to hear the answer.
Instead, she carefully prodded me when I seemed more willing to talk. She waited until we had some time away from the group to get more bits and pieces from me. She listened to parts of the story. She knew I still hadn’t really gotten down to the core issue, but patiently waited for me reach that point.
I didn’t feel as though it was a revelatory moment when I finally answered. There was nothing unique about the phrasing of the question that finally prompted me to really respond to it. Instead, I realized that she genuinely wanted to hear the answer. She wasn’t just being polite, and she cared about my mental health in spite of everything else she had going on in life.
As I told her how I was doing — how I was actually doing — I felt a tremendous emotional weight disappear. She provided some incredibly perceptive advice, as she usually does, but that was a bonus. The act of telling her how I was doing because I realized she genuinely cared was remarkably powerful. There’s an ocean of difference between rationally understanding that others want to know how you are and truly believing that someone cares.
I can’t guarantee I’ll never regress to telling people I’m fine again. I’d be hilariously naive to think I won’t struggle with this on occasion. However, I’m armed with the indelible memory of how good it felt to answer the question honestly. More importantly, I have friends who will keep asking, even when I slip up.
If you ever find yourself being evasive when someone asks how you are, stop. Tell them how you’re doing. You may not have a powerful moment of revelation. Hell, it may not even feel pleasant to answer. Even if you derive no satisfaction from being honest, it’s a silent admission to yourself that someone else cares.
Eventually, that feeling will completely sink in, and you’ll want to delete the phrase “I’m fine” from your vocabulary.