Covid lockdown: Why we should stop saying meaningless pleasantries like 'how are you?' – Laura Waddell

We should by this point have come to an agreement about the question “how are you?” Not to ask it.

“Fine, fine!” I smile with gritted teeth, gesturing vaguely to my surroundings, as if to say without words, and so avoid the creeping note of hysteria towards the end, “There’s a global pandemic, chum. It is all around us. So are germs! How is anyone right now?”

Few really expect a genuine response to “how are you?” There’s no oomph to the question, no soul. It’s just three stubby little words that take up space, imbued with all sustenance of packing peanuts, but puffed with vowels instead of air. Except there’s nothing actually underneath them, and certainly not that sweet dopamine jolt that comes with ordering unnecessary objects online in a desperate bid to enrich our habitats, tossed through the letterbox as a zookeeper might throw a watermelon into the hippo enclosure.

“How are you?” in the workplace is an attempt to fill the void. And there’s a lot of void to fill. It’s a sound with which to break the silence while everyone on a Zoom call gets their bearings. I say silence, but more accurately it is the sound of one person muttering crotchety unpleasantries unaware their mic is turned on, or worse scenarios (I will let you use your imagination), while everyone pretends they can’t hear it.

“How are you?” might as well translate to “I acknowledge your presence. Once it is socially acceptable to move on from this initial insipid greeting, we will commence business.”

I hate to utter the phrase, but back in normal times, the question was used in much the same way. A doling out of customary banal pleasantries, with no real interest in the answer; and if it’s your line manager who is asking, both of you will be generally relieved when you answer as expected by not telling them exactly what you’ve been up to since your last check-in.

All you need to do is mumble something that sounds law-abiding, showing you can be trusted to not take your work card on a three-day bender, and, well, normal.

It's not possible to make eye contact properly on a video conference call (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

That was all fine. As I said, we all know the dance moves. We could go through the motions in our sleep and, having rolled out of bed straight into morning meetings in a shirt and pyjama bottoms, many of us probably just about do.

What isn’t fine is that the game is up. It’s all a facade. We knew it all along, but it was hidden. In the before times, if someone asked you how you were, chances are it had either been a while since they last asked, in which time anything could have happened worth enquiring about, or you had at least left the office.

“A quiet night in” could be respected as a choice. Now, in lockdown times? You have been nowhere, and done nothing new, and neither has the person asking, and we all know it.

And yet still the question bubbles out of mouths, like social pleasantries are a mania there’s no known cure for, and our mouths contort to its will like those of our ancestors did before us.

“How are you?” a colleague asks, and just as they brace themselves to hear you say "fine” yet one more time, perhaps embellishing with an option from the set menu of phrases (“can’t complain”, “just the same”, “ach you know how it is” or, for the zany, a little chuckle and “never been better!”), everyone feels a shiver of awkwardness.

That’s the hollowness. The void. And this glimpse of darkness repeats all over again when you return the question, wincing at forcing your conversational opponent to choke out an equally meaningless answer.

But some enquiries do prompt an honest response. It’s usually down to tone, but even more so who is asking. If it’s a good friend, let’s call them Amanda or Henry, they do really want to know.

When things are going badly, if depression has reared its head and everything has piled up and trying to get through the day has been particularly frustrating and left me feeling raw, I will answer truly. It all comes tumbling out over a few cathartic paragraphs, and then I invite them to do the same.

The answer to “How are you really feeling, though?” is often familiar, although the details differ. Outside of really serious bad days, when time feels suspended and schedules fade from view, we are going through the frustration of Covid simultaneously, feeling the same rhythm of ups and downs.

Sometimes, though, all I have the energy to send or receive are memes. A gif from Kate. An interesting Wikipedia link from Claire. Nonsense, assorted, in the group chat. This is the vibe exchange, and it’s no less valuable than spelling out how we’re actually feeling.

It tells the story in shorthand; a snapshot of a mood, an acknowledgement that we’re all just trying to while away the remainder of the pandemic, and that we’re all bored of it. There’s no better way to waste time than with friends, and the best friends are those you can make eye contact with and, through some psychic sync up, just get what the other is thinking.

Except, we can’t make eye contact right now. Not really. We’d be looking at different points on different screens if we tried.

So a video of a chicken playing the xylophone, or some plush bedding from an aspirational homewares brand, or an article about the ongoing adventures of fake German heiress Anna Delvey, or a Tiktok about urban legends delivered by a freaking out teenager, or the Wikipedia page for North Sentinel Island, or a picture someone has drawn of a photograph of a cat sitting weirdly, will just have to do.

And most of the time, there’s a mutual understanding. The message is read. The recipient is typing. We’re connected.

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