my least favorite question

How are you doing?

This is probably the most commonly asked question in our society today. It's freely said from checkers as I pay for my groceries. It's often said as I walk past other moms at school. And now it's asked by people that I used to be close with.

I think that the majority of time "how are you doing?" is asked rhetorically. The asker is not looking for an actual response. They are just simply engaging in a typical verbal exchange. There's usually no effort or sincerety behind it. It's just a sort of habit that people have picked up.

It's not a harmful question. In fact, it's actually nice. The difficulty comes when you want to give a response other than "fine". That's where the anxiety builds. A seemingly innocent question turns into a mountainous dilemma:

• Should you just say "fine" even if you are not and move on?  Doing so feels like a betrayal to your aching heart and you know that this is a lie. But, you also know that this person really doesn't care what the response is. They really don't want to know the answer.  They are just tying to be kind.

• Or...should you be honest and say "not great" or "today is tough"? To be honest, this is how I often respond and it is definitely uncomfortable. It's an uncommon and unexpected response. The ask-er doesn't know what to say to that. You can visably see a baffled look come across their face as they process your words.  Most often, it's a conversation end-er because they don't know what to do with it. Once in a while, someone will say "I'm sorry" but no one ever asks why.

This question was the reason that I had anxiety every time I left my house the first year. I didn't know how to respond to it. It seems pretty lame to me now, but back then...it was huge. At present I am usually fine answering this question. I choose to be honest with my heart and my response changes from day to day. Most days I am actually fine so I don't have to pretend. But when it's a tough day, I don't pretend that it's not.


My difficulty with this question now is when it is asked by those that I used to be close to. Let's face it, close friends don't usually ask us this general of a question. They may ask how our week went. Or how an event was. But they rarely ask how we are doing. As people attempt to re-engage with us, this is the question that we are asked. I am guessing that they want to know if we are "better" now. I am guessing that our once close and now distant relationship makes any other question uncomfortable.   I don't know the real reason, I just know that I become uncomfortable...instantaneously.


To be honest (which I hope that you know I always am on here), I don't really want them to know how we are doing. To avoid answering, I usually turn the question around in a hurry and ask them something in return. I do this because I think that how we are actually doing is privileged information. If I say that we are still struggling....that information will likely be broadcast out to other friends and family. If I say that we are doing good, again that information will be broadcast out like a news story. In reality, the answer to that question is too complex to verbally respond to. The only people that really know how we are doing are the people that engage with us on a weekly basis. The people that are actually "doing life" with us. The people that see what our life is like.  The people that take the time to talk with us.  I'll be honest...there aren't many of them. But those few are pretty much the only ones that I will ever give an honest response to.