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Anyone do this?

csuguy

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You know how you can get of a habit of saying various greetings and what not - they don't really mean anything, but are more or less expected. For example-

"Hi, how you doing?" "Good you?" "Good!" - whether each is actually doing good is irrelevant, it's just a standardized greeting.

Well, I've noticed that recently if I start the greeting it goes something more like this:

"Hi, how are you doing?" "Good, how are you doing?" "Good, you?" "... good...."

lol - so basically I've gotten to the point that I pay no attention whatsoever to what is actually is being said and just respond with an automated phrase. I'm trying to stop myself - I've done it like 3x and after I do it I'm like "... wait... did I just do what I think I did?" lol.

So, has anyone else here experienced this kind of... automatic response before?
 

Ermine

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That would constitute what I say in all conversations unless I'm actually interested in the people I'm talking to, about 30% of the time.

However, unless people remember something from a previous conversation with that person, I think most people need that kind of verbal foreplay, the "hi, how are you doing" before they can say anything remotely original in a conversation.
 

EloquentBohemian

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When someone asks, "How are you doing?", my pat answer is "Breathing".
 

loveofreason

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When I can't stomach the auto-good response I often reply "Well I'm alive. That's something I guess" then think to myself hmmm alive - that's debatable.

*sigh*

But I think everyone goes on autopilot with these conversations. It seems more often than not when I say "hi" the other replies "good thanks" ??? They've heard me say "how are you?".

Either my enunciation is really terrible or people don't listen. Probably both.
 

Sapphire Harp

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I find you can get closer to an actual situation if you repackage the 'how are you' question and ask them a second time. It usually makes them stop and think 'oh wait, you -actually- want an answer...'

Of course, that's only useful assuming you want the answer. I often find that would be asking for more than I'd care to get... at least at work, anyway.
 

Fleur

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Well, I rarely bother myself with greeting someone. Perhaps it shows that I'm rude, but I don't understand the actual meaning of this ritual.

Once I get in discussion with my mother about this, and her greatest point was "While greeting someone you show your respect towards the certain person".
Then why does it feels more alike to "you have to greet people because you're supposed to do it"? Parents teach their children to greet others because it's polite. They doesn't say that "if you respect other people, you should greet them", but "you must greet others". The child grows up with this obligatory, teaching it to next generation... and so it continues. No, it's not a matter of respect.

(I'm more annoyed at question "What are you doing?" - like the person, who asks it, couldn't see it himself/herself.)
 

FusionKnight

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I just heard two co-workers doing this over my cube wall right as I was reading this!
Hahaha!
 

Raku

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Most of the time I can't be bothered with conversation so I just go with it. Sometimes its fun to see the reaction if you reply with how you're actually feeling. 'I'm depressed and sad' usually leads to people trying to skip the subject and gets them pretty confused, because noone actually replies to the question honestly.

I also think of 2 analog modems doing their handshake when overhearing it from time to time. Playing the sound in my head can make me smile. I've yet to try and make the actual sound and see the reaction tho. I don't really want the attention it gets you, but I want to see reaction.
 

severus

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I usually give a short "fine" and don't ask them back. Ah, custom. I hate when people ask what you're doing via phone too. I'm not actually going to tell you. I'm likely to say "nothing" before even thinking, giving some smart ass people the impression that I literally sit in my house and do absolutely nothing all day.
 

FusionKnight

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I occasionally answer, "sitting in a chair, talking to you!"
 

punkguy104

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It can sometimes be fun to ask a diffrent question to intentionally trip them up!

ie: you ask "what's up"....they say "good"
 

Waterstiller

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I want to round up INTPforum.com's finest and most sadistic minds to create a dark sitcom that would act as viral deconstruction of polite society. The goal being the end of all social graces.
 

FusionKnight

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You know, in the end, it might actually turn out to be a much more graceful society... :p
 

Fordy

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I don't like it when almost complete strangers ask how you are, when they don't know a thing about you. It's like, why would you possibly care how I'm feeling? Most of the time, if I don't care about talking to the person, it's just a swift "yeye am fyn ta u?" (I love mocking people who type like that. :p )

If it's a friend that's asking, I'll usually try and answer honestly, or say something that will spark a conversation. I hate the awkward silence that follows "Im good, you?" "im ok" when someone speaks to you.

When I speak to people, I always like to vary and spice up my greetings, by asking something other than their feelings.
 

Switch

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That's why you spice up the conversation a bit.

'Hi how're you doing?'

'Horribly, and you?'

Just to make people awkward, it's too fun to do.

Waterstiller said:
I want to round up INTPforum.com's finest and most sadistic minds to create a dark sitcom that would act as viral deconstruction of polite society. The goal being the end of all social graces.
That would be far too fun.
 

Nightingale

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My auto-pilot means that I often end up telling the clerk at the grocery store "You, too" in response to "Thank you for shopping at Fred Meyer." :o
 

Reverse Transcriptase

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My auto-pilot means that I often end up telling the clerk at the grocery store "You, too" in response to "Thank you for shopping at Fred Meyer." :o

Haha, my uncle wished me good luck at college and I almost said "you too" automatically. I do that a lot.

Waterstiller said:
I want to round up INTPforum.com's finest and most sadistic minds to create a dark sitcom that would act as viral deconstruction of polite society. The goal being the end of all social graces.

That would be far too fun.
You're saying that it's possible to have too much fun? pffft! You fun-regulator!
/dark sitcom

Yes yes yes.
 

Weliddryn

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When people try to greet me with the phrase; "How are you?" I typically reply with: "I don't know." I than try to analyze how I am feeling at the moment and come up with nothing- I don't really feel anything. Anybody else?
 

Jordan~

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I tend to answer honestly. Which is usually "Euch, not too bad, I suppose...", or sometimes "Miserable..."
 

Wisp

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@Weli
I do.

Also,

What's up?
The sky.

Or, depending where I am, the ceiling, the stars, etc.
 

Ermine

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Another thing I sometimes do to ward people off:

Hi! How are you?

How am I? Hmm... Let me see. I am because my parents decided to get married and get busy...

Afterthought: What? They asked me how I came to exist. That really is how it starts. What's wrong with being frank?
 

Weliddryn

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That is my classic answer to that question, Wisp. I usually don't even remember what they are really trying to ask.
 

Jesin

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Another thing I sometimes do to ward people off:

Hi! How are you?

How am I? Hmm... Let me see. I am because my parents decided to get married and get busy...

But there you're really answering "why are you" or "how did you come to be", not "how are you".
 

Jesin

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If I heard someone I knew trying to pull that, I would probably jump in with a comment similar to the one I just posted.
 

loveofreason

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An exchange like that could be the INTP version of a secret handshake.
 

Ancalion

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By far the most efficient hello is staring with the :| face after someone says Hi. Eventually they go away.
 

Wisp

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@Jesin. The secret INTP handshake:

1) How are you?
2) Well you see, 30+ years ago, my mother and father dec-
3) BULLSHIT! No existentialist quandries! How are you DOING to day?
 

vash22

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"Hi, how are you doing?" "Good, how are you doing?" "Good, you?" "... good...."

wow, thats brilliant. I noticed the stupid autoanswers at a young age and have always hated them. I think ill mix things up by using that. thank you!
 

EloquentBohemian

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In the process of needing to avoid small talk and retain one's necessary solitary frame of mind, the most efficient response to "How are you?" is "Contagious."
 

Sciosa

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Usually I pause, assess my mood, and respond appropriately. By then the conversation has usually moved on without me. I get back to reading. All is well with the world.

Sometimes I answer with "Dying." if I'm not paying attention. I'm not sure where the reflex came from. Residual emo-whine, perhaps.
 

Fedayeen

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I like to jump right into a conversation. I get straight to business. Unless I am bored, and am talking to kill time, then I start with "yo"

Also its not quite the same thing, but when people start a conversation with something like "whats up?" or "how is it going?" I always wonder if they are actually asking a question or just saying hello, most of the time I answer the question, and I don't really get a response back, so I think that they just meant hi.

One friend of mine would always start a conversation with "wassup?" and half the time I would answer it as a question, the other half I would take it as a hello. Then one time, I asked him which he meant by it. He didn't even realize it could be a question. He just thought it was a way of saying hello.
 

Venture

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When someone greets me with the question of my well being I almost always reply with hello.


Have enough of killing floor nobody........
 

Fedayeen

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Have enough of killing floor nobody........

No. and i've spent 105.3 hours on it, and 14.3 on the killing floor SDK (the level editor) according to steam.

Only thing thats going to get me to take a break from it is infamous in 3 days
 

Venture

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No. and i've spent 105.3 hours on it, and 14.3 on the killing floor SDK (the level editor) according to steam.

Only thing thats going to get me to take a break from it is infamous in 3 days

How does a 20 year old do that when a 15 year old that is Charter Schooled play that much?

I get sick of Video Games after a couple of weeks.
Then come back to play it twice as much.

I've never had more than 48 hours in two weeks before.
Or more than 30 hours in two weeks for a single game.
 

Fedayeen

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How does a 20 year old do that when a 15 year old that is Charter Schooled play that much?

I get sick of Video Games after a couple of weeks.
Then come back to play it twice as much.

I've never had more than 48 hours in two weeks before.
Or more than 30 hours in two weeks for a single game.

I typically have under 5 hours, since I spend most of my gaming on my ps3. most of that is only since friday when the game came out.

EDIT: last friday, so I guess 1 week
 

Venture

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I typically have under 5 hours, since I spend most of my gaming on my ps3. most of that is only since friday when the game came out.

EDIT: last friday, so I guess 1 week

A...a.....a PS3!?!

How could you have so much time to devote that amout of time on video gaming, when two years over the age of consent?

I shoud be doing that :mad:
 
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