How are you? Great thanks! You?

How do you deal with the dreaded 'How are you?' when everything's far from fine?

Everyone knows the only acceptable answer to “How are you?” when it comes from anyone other than a close friend or trusted confidant is some variation of '“Great!”, “Alright thanks!” or “Chugging along!” — or if you’re feeling a little edgy, “Oh, you know, living the dream!” You might not be any of those things of course, but it’s hard to come up with a pithy, upbeat and socially acceptable response that accurately reflects your current state, and Carly from finance probably isn’t expecting to hear a laundry list of your woes as she plucks a cup out of the cupboard to make her morning cup of tea.

So how do you deal with the dreaded '“How are you?” if you thrive on honest, authentic and meaningful exchanges with people, and you’re not actually doing that great right now? Or perhaps you feel personally fine, but you want to acknowledge the wider shitshow that is the world at large in some way. And not because you want to centre yourself in problems that don’t directly affect you, but because you’re a human who cares about other humans.

A while ago a colleague asked how my weekend was, and within about three sentences I’d moved from talking about taking my kids to a football match in the pouring rain, to the climate crisis, to worrying about them being conscripted into the army for a future war and despairing that I’d brought them into the world in the first place. As she slowly backed away from me towards the compost bin, I made a mental note to keep it a little lighter next time.

But is anyone really OK right now? Or are other people just better than me at compartmentalising and hiding their despair? Maybe I’m taking the question too literally and I should just treat it like a simple “Hello!” and say hello right back. Maybe we should all stop asking each other questions?

Over the course of a day I see tragedy after atrocity interspersed with skincare advice and massive sandwiches and adverts for peachy pink toothbrushes that stick neatly onto your bathroom mirror and I want to scream HOW ARE YOU ALL JUST CARRYING ON HOW ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE BUT FEAR FOR THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY?

But I do exactly the same. I talk to friends and flit between the current horrors of the world to moaning about the price of butter to how grateful we feel to how tired we are and how we all want to retire to cabins in the woods as soon as possible. I sit on the edge of the sofa about to get up as the news comes on and watch the headlines then say with tears in my eyes to my husband ‘what is going on in the world? What world will our boys live in?" Then I get up and rinse their bottles out for the morning and put their backpacks by the door, going into their room to kiss their heads on my way to bed.

Because what else can we do but carry on? We can’t just call in sick to work and sit in the house all day because we’re paralysed by the bleakness, can we? (Has anyone tried?). We can’t sit in the gloom all the time. We’ve got to embrace the joy and the silliness and the sheer mundanity of life, too. And, uncomfortable as it is, those of us who are currently doing fine need to talk about all the people who are far from it.