It’s a phrase that people say all the time, and answer with the standard response of their choice with varying levels of apparent honesty. Good enough, ok, fine, very well, fantastic. The response is usually related to the person’s personality.
It sounds very simple, but this question is often highly grating to autistic people on a fundamental level. Those in the neuromajority will uncritically accept this conventional exchange of words and accept it’s “just what you do” – despite knowing that the question is not asked expecting an honest answer.
I’m one of the autistics who will always be annoyed by it, and I realise there are two main reasons.
I’m wired for literal meanings, and a lifetime of dealing with people generally not saying what they mean has left me confused and eventually cynical. The “How are you?” social handshake is sitting at the bottom of that edifice of misdirection. My mind just asks why this convention is maintained when it is completely redundant in terms of information, and adds nothing beyond “hello”.
As a compromise between actually describing how I am at length or saying something short but technically untrue I might say “tired” or “ok” if I’m close enough. I’m never quite sure if my evasions or failing to come back with “and you?” come off as vaguely rude.
Perhaps at its mildest it’s a chore like cleaning the kitchen – vaguely unpleasant but generally necessary, and resulting in less satisfaction than having a clean kitchen afterwards.
There is likely and element of these rituals having to be negotiated in a state of severe spoon (energy) deprivation and there is something more pressing in mind than dealing with a verbal handshake.
Will it always be resisted internally or can I learn to say something like “good enough” without thinking about it every time? I don’t know, but for the time being – unless someone asks me the question and I know they really want to know – it will keep setting off a short moment of conflict where I wonder about saying something real or not.