"I'm alive" is an appropriately ambiguous answer, imo.

It’s a greeting, and an invitation to open up if you like.

I’m autistic and I get this. You can learn this stuff. Just respect we’ve got a culture here. Obviously “How are you?” is a symbolic hello.

It's like a health check. When you hit /api/health/ it probably doesn't report all the details like number of users created today, count of files in the S3 bucket, whatever. It checks that shit's basically working, it heard your request, and now everything is 200 OK.

(No, you can't return a 204 no content in this metaphor because that's not what the client is expecting. If they don't get a 200 back, they're going to think something is wrong and investigate.)

I'm just assuming some of you are like backend developers and this metaphor will make sense to you.

Maybe they're shy and don't complete the sentence. They wanna know "How are you so handsome?", but don't dare to ask such personal questions.

the answer is always "fine" and possibly a "how are you?".

"How are you?", is basically an open question of "what have I done lately? where am I headed?" It's an invitation to politely level some burden at least, but this also includes taking in some burden of the friend.

I've adopted, "Nothing, it's great!"

I usually just say "recovering from this" and gesture vaguely at everything

I alwas answer those questions with a "why's that?", makes them actually asknwhat they want while you think of a lie.

You're not gonna trick me into hanging out with you this time!

I like asking coworkers near the end of our shift, "What's for dinner?"

Weeping and wailing

as little as possible.

I used to do that before I knew better. Now I slap my knee and say "so how about this crazy weather, huh?" whilst maintaining fierce eye contact so that they're pressured into not rolling theirs. I'm a much better person now.

I don't get the below part honestly. No matter what you do, your job is probably needed. If you're not paid well, that's not really your fault.

I respond to that with, "Oh you know, a little bit of this and a little bit of that."

Better to have them look down their noses at me all night thinking I'm unemployed than endure hours on end of questions like, "I inseminated my horse with my own fluids so I don't have to pay income taxes now, right?"

Oh, the burden of other peoples thoughts~

I always find it weird when someone asks for my, or answers with their, profession. Because that usually says very little about someone. A better question is what someone likes to spend their free time with.

Most people have something they are passionate about. And the weirder, the better. Because weird hobbies are something that many feel judged for. But engaging positively with someones isopod collection, really tends to get people out of their shell.

It becomes something to bond over and it's much more interesting than "train conductor".

Oh how much I wish people would actually understand this reply.

Like my Uber passengers who will not stop asking until they’ve nailed down exactly where I’m from.

No matter how slowly and gradually I trickle the information out they just don’t get the hint.

“Are you from Denver originally?”

“No but I’ve been here about ten years now. This feels like home to me”

“Where are you from?”

“The Midwest”

“Which state?”

“Indiana”

“Which city?”

“Terre Haute”

“Oh yeah which part?”

… three hours later …

“Which bedroom is yours?”

“Which side of the bed did you sleep on?”

One of my pet peeves about being an Uber driver is when people’s only method of conversation is “getting to know you”.

As if we’re college roommates and we’re gonna be best buds. No dude, in 9 minutes I’m dropping you off and we’re never seeing each other again.

I kind of get it though because most people don’t have enough conversations to develop good conversational skills. I’m lucky as an Uber driver because I get to have conversations all day.

The one who is sleeping with the other's wife?

I'd listen to that shit

Stop putting us in memes!