"I'm good, thanks. You?"

Two Americans are walking towards each other, in a hurry, and they have the following exchange:

American #1: "Hey! How are you?"
American #2: "Good! You?"
American #1: "Good!"

Two Germans are walking towards each other, in a hurry, and they have the following exchange:

German #1: "Hallo!"
German #2: "Hallo!"

Both Germans smile and continue walking.

Americans are such liars sometimes. You could be in the middle of a horrible breakup, failed a test, and been diagnosed with cancer, but you're still expected to reply "I'm good, thanks. You?" American #1, in our setting, doesn't actually care how American #2 is doing. I realize that part of this exchange depends on how well Person #1 and Person #2 know each other. On average, I had 10 of these "conversations" per day in the states - especially at college. In Germany? Maybe one a week. Maybe.

I wonder why our culture does this. I realize it's a custom, but this custom had to come from somewhere. Are we so concerned with appearing well-off that we constantly lie about our state of being? And why do we ask complete strangers how their lives are doing if we don't actually care? Think about it. If someone replied, "Well, actually my life is shit right now. My boyfriend broke up with me, my cat died, and my friends all told me I'm a bitch. Plus, I think I'm addicted to heroin." How would you respond? Probably with a blank stare before replying, "That's rough. But I've got to go. Bye!" Maybe you don't want to spend time around bitchy, depressed heroin-addicts. But the more likely reason for your shock is that you weren't expecting an honest answer. (This is a completely hypothetical situation and is not based on my life in any way. Calm down, Mom.)

German people are more genuine (for more detail- see "The Dating Game" post from last month.) They don't ask how you're doing unless they care and have the time to hear about it. This was very strange to me the first couple of weeks I was here. I'd see coworkers - strangers, at that point - and ask "How are you?" They slowed down to talk, because they thought I wanted to hear what was going on in their lives. I kept walking. It created a fair number of awkward moments - my specialty in life.

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all." That's how Germans live. Americans think more along the lines of, "If you don't have anything nice to say, talk around it. Make comments about anything else. Be so over-the-top nice about it that the other person will eventually figure out you're lying." A good example of this - my German skills. Correction: my lack of German skills. People here don't tell me that I'm good at speaking German. They'll say I'm good for having only studied for one year, my comprehension is not bad, my accent is alright, or that I've improved since the last time they spoke to me. But nobody, when I tell them my German is bad, will say, "What are you talking about!? Your German is great!"

That would be a lie. A big, fat lie.

One of my favorite things about being in Germany is calling my sister when she leaves work. I hear her go through all the greetings, "Hi! How are you? Good? I'm good!" Her voice gets higher, I can mentally see her fake smile, and I laugh. I can tell who she likes and doesn't like solely by listening to her speak. I can tell who looks like shit, even if she says "Oh you look cute today!" I can tell which person is her boss. I can tell which person annoyed her today. All of this is communicated by how short or long her greeting is. To someone who doesn't know her, they all sound the same. "I'm good!" But they're not.

My question is - why even bother talking to the person that annoyed you today? Why tell someone they're wearing cute pants if they're ugly? Why say "I'm good!" to everyone else, and then talk for half an hour about how bad your day was?

It's not just Maggie, and she's not a bad person for doing it. Everyone (in America) does the exact same thing. When I'm home I have the exact same fake smile and "I'm good!" response for everyone as well.

Americans are weird.


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