How should one respond when someone asks you "How are you doing?" at the start of the conversation?
“How should one respond when someone asks you "How are you doing?" at the start of the conversation?”This is such a simple question when it is asked of me. I know that about 98% of the time the person asking the question doesn’t really care one way or the other. The question, for them, is a social convention that is actually meaningless.However, I’ve given it some thought and I finally came up with what has become my typical response.“How are you?/How are you doing?”Me: “I’m doing amazingly well, how about you?” (sometimes augmented with “I’m doing awesome and amazingly well, how about you?”I don’t know why but, for some people, that answer surprises and somewhat shocks them.“Well, I’m doing ok but wow, nowhere near as good as amazingly well.”I started getting these responses and that made me think deep thoughts. Serious deep thoughts.It’s like this, it’s up to me to choose how I feel about my day. Sure, there could be some mitigating circumstances that are bad but, in the end, I am the master of my destiny and my feeling and emotions. No one else can do what I can do. I make a conscious decision that today is going to be an amazing day. Whether it lives up the hype or not, my feelings about the day rarely changes.You can be in a shitty mood or a sad mood or whatever floats your boat. I’ve had enough days where I woke up and chose to be in a crappy mood. Screw that. I don’t have time left on my clock to waste it on negative feelings and emotions. The day itself and the circumstances may suck but by God I will still be having an awesome and amazing day and I will share that with anyone willing to ask me for it.
What is the meaning of "how are you doing"?
Why this question is in the “Meaning (philosophy)” category beats me.“How are you doing?” is a common casual greeting in American English (often elided to “how ya doing?”, or “Hi, how ya doing?”), and is a friendly and usually rhetorical question (not requiring a serious or honest answer) about a friend or acquaintance’s general state of affairs. It’s generally answered with an offhand “Great”, or “Fine, how ‘bout you?”It would be unusual to reply with a less-than offhand answer to anyone but a close friend, i.e., “Not so good, now that you ask…”However, when someone asks a person in poor health “how are you doing?”, it can also be an inquiry into the state of that person’s health, or medical recovery: “I heard you just had hip replacement surgery last month—how are you doing?”
What is the difference between "How do you do?" and "How are you doing"?
I do not agree with the answers given so far. In British English, at least, “How do you do?” does not at all mean the same thing as “How are you?” In British English, “How do you do?” is the standard formula used when you are introduced to a person for the first time; you shake the person’s hand and say “How do you do?” The correct response is not “I’m fine” or something like that. The correct response is to repeat the phrase back and say “How do you do?”The meaning of “How do you do?” in British English is similar to “Pleased to meet you” in American English. It is only used the first time one meets someone. To say it on a second or later meeting would be a mistake, because it would suggest that you have forgotten you met that person before.Language is constantly changing, and many British people these days will say “Hi!” or “nice to meet you” or something like that, but “How do you do?” is the formal way.“How do you do?” looks like a question, but it is not used as a question. By contrast, “How are you doing?” is an actual question. Sometimes it is asked as a genuine enquiry: “I heard you’d been in hospital. How are you doing?” In these cases a genuine reply is in order. Other times the person just asks out of politeness and isn’t really interested in how you are doing, in which case the standard reply is “Fine, thanks. And you?” or something along those lines.