On asking questions

You've probably all encountered those questions that are repeatedly asked over and over, to the point where, as much as you appreciate the concern of the asker, annoy you to death because it's the 10th time someone has asked and you've given the same boring answer every time. Usually these questions are some form of "How are you?", but in a more attentive way, like "How have you been?" or "What are you doing during break?" or "How is [insert name of school here]?"

By adding little details, the asker prides themselves on seemingly knowing what is up and happening in your life. In some ways this is pretty considerate, but if it goes wrong the conversation may go like this:

"So when are you going back to school?"
"Um... I graduated five years ago."
"So... how's work?"
"...I'm unemployed."
"Now would be a great time to travel!"
"I have no friends."

At this point you both feel extremely embarrassed and you have failed to be considerate about your friend. In my opinion, the reason most people ask these mundane questions (myself included) is that they do care (however little) about your life and wish for you to tell them something cool about it. Thus, keeping a few interesting stories at hand would make the encounter go a lot smoother.

Since I am not as fast-thinking in actual person-to-person interaction, I cannot come up with the eloquent prose you read on the blog in an instant. So when people ask me these questions my brain interprets it and I answer them literally. A second later I realize I probably should have said something more interesting. But doesn't "how" imply an adjective?

"How has your break been?"
"Good."
"How's Berkeley?"
"Hard."
"How are you giving me the lamest answers?"
"Dunno."

Maybe if they had said something like, "What is the most fun thing you did that was illegal in 48 states?" or "What is the coolest thing you bought exceeding $200?" I would have thought longer and come up with something more appealing. As such, I need to teach my brain to interpret questions like "How's school?" as "Tell me about that time you tried to study for a test but was interrupted by a slew of naked people."

Of course, these interpretations would vary with audience. With anyone older than the age of 30, "How's school?" would interpret into "Tell me your greatest academic achievement so I can go home and tell my kids and compare them to you."

So it is up to both the asker and the askee to make something more of general vague questions. As I proved above, the askee should think of some interesting stories beforehand. The asker, depending on how much facebook stalking they have done, may choose to ask more personal questions. This depends on the extent to which they want to reveal the level of their stalking. Such questions can range from "How do you have so many presents in Farmville?" to "Why is there a picture of you passed out with hieroglyphics on your face?" to "Why do your wall-to-walls with so-and-so go all the way back to 2005?"

Having said all this, I don't want you to get the wrong idea that I'm silently seething while you're making small talk about the weather. It'd just be nice if both parties deferred a little from generic question/answers, because we all know the answer to "How's home?" is "Sooo relaxing and sooo much food it's sooo awesome." Because you know what you get when you have an actual conversation that's not about how hard school is and how bored you are and what you ate for lunch? SECRETS.