I happened to reflect on the common usage of the “How are you?” Is this a greeting? Of an expression of interest? Of a curiosity? … (The list could fruitlessly go on for a long time, but I prefer to cut it down to the essentials since the problem is not destined to find such a trivial solution).
In truth, the hiatus that divides expression from meaning is always bridged by the role that the other plays within the human community, reason enough to give up any autonomous effort and seek refuge in the linguistic welter that culture, willy-nilly, continues to determine.
If someone else asks me, “How are you?” whether it is a greeting or part of a framework of interest aimed at something unknown, the only thing I can infer is that he or she has recognized me as being able to provide an answer to the question (an optimistic option) or, in most cases, as a “peer” who will pretend not to perceive the final question mark at all and perhaps respond in a completely incoherent manner (who, after all, is the ultimate holder of consistency?).
The first hypothesis is rare. We quickly notice when the interlocutor is waiting for an answer. If we tend to evade it, he (or she) will prompt it and perhaps add a few remarks about our outward appearance to make more pregnant the meaning that such questioning was intended to disclose.
The second option, however, is the most common (unfortunately). Sometimes, I was even confronted with interlocutors who did not even wait for a shred of an answer and went straight to the second statement/question (How are you? I feel hot today…).
This is undoubtedly a masterpiece of signification: since it is impossible to detach expression from meaning, the latter is compressed like a sardine and located in that tiny interstice that separates the externalization of one idiocy from the next. I mean, it’s just a matter of speed. However, since the gift of time is commonly regarded as a measure of the level of genuine interest, in this case, we are faced with moving to the limit (trending toward zero) of the expense one wishes to incur in the relationship in question.
I, by my nature/culture, cannot be part of the second set. I confess I greatly suffer from the trivialization of the question, especially to the extent that it, through recognition of the other, hides its true nature: “Since I am taking an interest in you by asking you how you are doing, I would very much like you to do the same with me.”
Ostensibly, this might seem like self-interested behavior, but the more profound (and inescapable) truth is that it underlies the fundamental structure of human relationships. The other should not ask me how I am to enrich his or her baggage of knowledge but rather to give me a sense of my being constantly subject to it (the other).
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