Hey...How are you?

What if everyone who said...”Hey, how are you?”...really wanted to know. It would be a different world wouldn’t it? “Not bad.”...could no longer be the standard response if the asker really cared about the askee. There would be follow up questions. “Are you getting enough sleep?” “Are you regular?” People would be late for work because of time spent describing the little gas problem, probably from those frozen burrito supremos, that kept waking them up during the night. Or...
“Hey, how are you?”
“Well, since you’ve asked, I’m quite concerned about my stock portfolio actually.”
And there goes dinner.
Maybe it would be nice though. I mean, everyone likes a sympathetic ear to tell their troubles to. But then again, wouldn’t too many extended outpourings about chronic heat rashes, concerns over whether to go satellite or cable and the heartache of unrequited office romances tend to slow down the national economy? In the end, it’s probably better that we’re the shallow, superficial society that we are.
“Hey, how are you?”
“Not bad.”
And that’s it.
We get a lot more done this way.