I believe that part of the problem - at least in my case - is that typical person immediately sees 3-4 possible generic answers to such questions.

For me... It's like opening Pandora Box and have the brain flooded with not just answers but long chains of interactions, where none leads to anything positive. A "simple" question is like like an abyss that's gonna suck you down and exhaust you while you're trying to escape it so much, that you feel like lying down and trying to remember that air is meant to be inhaled again after it's exhaled...

There was this scene in the original Terminator movie, where the robot sees the spinning list of possible answers to "cat question". For me, this list doesn't stop. Even when the conversation is already finished, the list continues to spin.

I'm old, but it took a lot of time to network/socialize. I know there's books/material to socialize now. I have learned to grey rock, and just go neutral with giving a response to most situations.

This is a learned thing. No one teached us this back in the 80s or earlier. Life isn't easy, we learn as we get older. Yes, it's hard, but if some random person asks about your day, just say "great, how about you?". Put the focus back on them. Let them talk. Just listen. Oh, their grandma passed away last week? "Damn, I'm sorry to hear that. Let's remember her legacy, and know that she lived to her fullest."

We are all still animals at the end of the day. You can make mistakes! Learn from them, and move on. Learn as you go.

I just answer honestly. I don't have time to be a fake person.

"I am functioning within established parameters."

Seeing all of these posts that I agree with in this community is really opening my eyes…

My 4 year old daughter was diagnosed with autism and I’ve been learning so much just through her and some of the readings I’ve done.

Excuse my ignorance, but is this a trait that is passed down? If so, I’m trying to figure out how did I make it this far in my life without the proper coping mechanisms.

In Finland nobody asks you that and if somebody does, everybody gives a direct and correct answer. It is one of the perks in any Finn that makes it hard for us to discuss with Americans if we're not used to them.

Now I understand why I don't have a problem with small talk. The people I make small talk with aren't assholes!

Dan's final comment succinctly calls out the situations which irk me the most. You asked me how I'm doing. I answered honestly... and now you're going to judge me for that? Yeah, nah. I'd rather just not answer at all, thanks, instead of dealing with that bullcrap.

Which, over the course of time, led me to the analytical conclusion that more often than not, most people don't actually care how -- or even if -- I answer at all, unless I make the "mistake" of answering honestly when I'm not feeling perfectly peachy. That's why I almost always answer with something vaguely nonsensical when asked how I'm doing by random strangers, such as, "Howdy, howdy!" Most of them are so locked into their autopilot that they only ever hear that first syllable, and immediately think I just asked them how they're doing... so they reflexively toss back their obligatory, "Oh, I'm fine." Once in a blue moon, one of them will skip a beat and realize what I actually said just after their reply, making the passing interaction vaguely uncomfortable for them. Which, you know... is actually just fine by me, since that's how I feel almost all the time.

This is why my default response is now either “alive”, or in the case of “how’s it going?”, “it’s going”

Hey there, how's it going?

"Good!" - feeling alright

"Hanging in there" - feeling a little rough but pulling through

"It's going" - bad/tired (existential)

For me, I realize that I need to just say a couple of words to make it a pleasant exchange, but not being able to really share my feelings feels frustrating, kinda like how a kid feels frustrated when they need to moderate their feelings. A lot of the time I'm really exhausted and unhappy too so that makes it worse that I can't vent and have to moderate myself cuz I'm in a perpetual state of trying to keep my mask from slipping from burnout

Many people like Americans say as a trained friendly greeting "hi, how are you". Other people like Chinese say "hi, have you eaten (had rice) yet". They both simply need to be viewed as greetings. Neither actually want to know your full life story of your eating habits or the many bad things that may have happened to you in your day week or life.

Don't try it here in Germany. Often people will try and test you and tell you a long story of many bad things to see if you "care". But it is in fact missing an important cultural contex. It is not that they don't care if you have eaten or that your wife is dieing of cancer... It is that is not what they were truly asking. It should be interpreted simply as a friendly greeting such as good morning. It is as inappropriate to responding to good morning with, "no it isn't. It's a terrible morning. I had diarrhea this morning and my cat died". The lady at the grocery store doesn't need these details and was simply being nice.

since in most other languages people don't ask "how are you" would this problem exist in other languages?

I’m not neurodivergent, but small talk is fundamentally a conversation with no other purpose than to maintain, build and express social relationships. There’s no substantive information being passed. So I guess it is a concentrated dose of some people’s worst nightmare.

By the way - there’s nothing wrong in a brief truthful answer if you a feeling a bit down, or you pulled a muscle in your neck or whatever