Pain looks great on other people

[grumpyolddog]

It doesn't sound great though.  It sounds boring.  I have just received an object lesson in why default questions for the sake of politeness suck.  I answered the telephone with "oh hi, how are you?".

And I received answers.  In abundance.  None of which I cared about.

I'm going back to being rude.

Comments

[blearyboy]

The reply to "how are you?" can be positive or negative, but the golden rule is that it must be short. "A bit shit, but what can you do?" is acceptable.

[grumpyolddog]

to be fair, the answer was "I've gone blind" which is a bit of a shocker. But I didn't need all the rest of the details, particularly regarding hospitalization etc, when the person in question barely knows me and rang to speak to someone else anyway.