Comment on Some people have it worse
daggermoon@lemmy.world 10 months agoWait, so y’all don’t have to lie and tell people you’re doing good? This is an American thing?
Hell that’s regional even in the US. Most social interactions in the PNW used “What’s up!” in whatever variation to mean “Hi!” and “How’s it going/are you doing?” meant "Tell new how you’re feeling or how your day/task is progressing“. Honest answers were quite normal. The only people who were bothered were the bourgie types, and fuck 'em in any case.
We also just didn’t talk to unfamiliar people outside of social spaces if it could be helped.
Ehhhhh, this is not standard in all places. If someone asks me how I am I will answer honestly but vaguely. “Living the dream, I’ve been better, meh, good, pretty good.” It’s common for other people to answer the same way, too. The part that’s not as socially acceptable is to go into detail about it if you don’t know the people well/people don’t have follow up questions about it.
Yeah…
I am an American but have had a lot of friends from all over the world.
We are kind of exceptional in the extent of normalized, utterly disingenuous ‘standard social interactions and phrases’ that we use.
We talk like NPCs using throwaway, canned dialogue lines, and if we don’t do NPC talk, well then that is actually viewed as antisocial…
Even though basically everyone else in the world would view this all as the opposite, inverted. Such forced bullshit conversations are generally viewed as bullshit and disingenuous.
I hear ya, but I gotta say, America ain’t nothing compared to Japan in that regards. They have actual standardized stock phrases for all types of interactions, at work and at home. I have been in meetings where some participants literally didn’t utter a single word that resembled an original thought, and it was completely acceptable.
That is very true, Japanese corporate business culture is on a whole other level.
Somewhat ironically, all my experiences with actual Japanese people are via Karate… in the Dojo, very strict, formal, no nonsense.
But uh, just casually hanging out? At least the ones I knew,… much more rowdy, haha.
Unrelated to my earlier Karate experiences, about a decadr after I’d gotten my black belt, and had since laid off Karate a bit… I once randomly befriended a Japanese man… who claimed he had been an actual Yakuza, a Yakushi… he explained to me that he had fucked up some operation, and instead of losing a finger, his superior struck him with the blunt side of the… I guess it would have been a waki-zashi?.. stuck him on the knuckle, and that finger of his was pretty messed up.
He took that, and permanent exile from Japan, over… losing a finger, and then likely just getting killed… he’d pissed off another group pretty severely.
… We then got to talking about Anime, Yokai, and of course Karate… said he was a 4th Dan, 4th Degree Black Belt and uh… yeah, he was very, very significantly skilled in a few basically play fight, not even proper sparring bs we got into a few times.
Initially, he said he wanted me to prove I wasn’t bullshitting about my black belt. Gave him my Style and as much family lineage of it that I remembered… and he then, almost totally without warning, threw a punch right at my face.
I did nothing.
His fist stopped about a half centimeter from my nose.
He laughed, said ‘You blinked’, I laughed, and he believed me after that.
Why would you do that ngl. If someone asks how I am, of course I tell the truth. If they don’t want to know, they shouldn’t have asked.
You’ll be at work, walking opposite direction as a co-worker who you are seeing for the first time that day. You can’t stop to talk, so you only have time for a 1-3 word answer max.
“Not that great tbh, what about you?”
Yeah pretty much. Most of us don’t even ask.
if they’re a friend we will often ask but then we want a genuine reply (which isn’t always given)
Yes. Among friends it’s different.
Wow
That would save so much bullshit if I could just skip that stupid pleasantry.
I tell people how I’m doing now and then to throw people off. Feels sort of like a power play, but they usually seem to think “wow this guy is full of himself.”
If anyone asks me how I’m doing my bog standard response is “Fucking terrible but apart from that I’m OK.”
Squirrelanna@lemmynsfw.com 10 months ago
Hell I live in an area that asks it as a greeting and I don’t lie. Sometimes I sugarcoat it with “could be better” but like, no one ever makes me feel like a dumbass for being honest.
daggermoon@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s also I don’t want to be a downer. If I were to answer honestly i’d say “i feel like shit”.
Squirrelanna@lemmynsfw.com 10 months ago
Then literally just say “could be better”. It’s the truth, and phrased in such a way that a stranger you’re exchanged pleasantries with doesn’t have to feel awkward about it.
daggermoon@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You’re probably right.