Passing time!
Do you think it’s more rhetorical when somebody ask, how about you? Or do you consider it a more caring question asked in a manner that the person is truly concerned about your well-being? If you know the person it’s probably more likely you think that s/he really cares about you and want to know how you are actually feeling physically, emotionally and mentally. But let’s say you don’t know the person too well, you just saw each other casually on a few occasions; does that question coming from that individual rings sincere? How would you know whether it is or not? You’re certainly not going to question another person’s sincerity… someone you don’t know very well. But s/he could be as sincere as the person you’ve known for years. Just depends on your own interpretation, right?
Let’s look at it another way and suppose that someone who you meet in a social setting replied to your greeting with “how about you?” after you greeted the person with “how are you doing?” But let’s say also that s/he knows something that you don’t… something about health or medicine where s/he can look you in the eyes and thinks that everything may not be alright with you and the question is asked out of concern for your health and well-being – but you have no way of knowing this – and genuinely wants to delve deeper into your personal health, physical and otherwise. Would you be offended? Quite possible, but does that mean that the other person did not care?
Your lack of knowledge about the other person’s profession, skill and ability to help may very well be the cause of you responding in a negative and inappropriate way to someone who actually cared about you in ways that you didn’t even know. Want to talk about it? Leave a comment. Thanks!