I remember being a kid, and when i’d meet adults (relatives i hadn’t seen in awhile, parents’ friends, etc), they would always ask, “Hi Audrey, how are you?” “I’m fine,” i’d say. They’d try again, “Well, how’s school?” “Fine.”
These were inane questions, i thought. What was i supposed to say? Why do the adults ALWAYS ask the same questions?
Now, whether i like it or not, i’m an adult. And i find myself asking kids the same inane questions. And the kids always say “Fine.”
What i know now is that adults try to make conversation with people based on what they know about each other. If i know someone just got back from a 40th birthday skiing trip, i’ll ask “How were the slopes?” It’s basically the same question as “How’s school.” Except an adult will usually say more than “Fine” since they realize that the goal of this verbal interaction is to try and find some common ground on which to have a conversation.
I started thinking about this when trying to have conversations with some 19-23 year-olds that i know. They’re still not very good at “conversationalizing.” You might think “How was Amsterdam?” would elicit some response other than “Fine” but not in this case.
Sometimes i still catch myself saying “Fine” to others’ inquiries about myself. I want to be better at “conversationalizing.” So i think a new goal of mine will be to try to come up with a response other than “Fine” any time i’m asked a question, especially the inane ones.
April 1st, 2010 9:55 am
George Carlin has a great bit on this. He came up with a ton of responses other than fine for the “how are you” question. The one I remember most was moderately neeto. It’s probably on utube somewhere, if you can find it, it’s definitely worth the view
April 2nd, 2010 9:55 am
Often, when I ask patients in the hospital how their day is going there response is, “fine.” To which, I respond with something like, “So, what does fine mean when you’re in a hospital bed?” From here, most people feel they’ve been given permission to dump on me the stuff swirling around in their head. But it’s one of my ways I’ve discovered to stimulate conversation.
The other method is to basically employ empathic responses. These are difficult for most people, because in conversation we want to talk about ourselves. (e.g. Someone tells me they have a dog at home which they love. My normal response to that would be, “Ooh, I’ve got dogs too!” But an empathis response might be something like, “Then you must really miss your dog while in the hospital.” Empathic or active listening almost always gets and keeps conversation going.