Today I went surfing with Thomas and got to know him a bit better. The thing that really stuck in my mind from everything we talked about was people asking him:
"How are you doing?"
How are you doing... To me the proper response to it is... good how are you?
How are you doing for Thomas means, I havent seen you in a long time and would truely like to catch up on all of the details that I missed in my absence... the proper response to Thomas is a very very lengthy conversation about all of your doings in the past year....
Very strange. I never really thought about it before but the way I see the statement is thats just what you say in response, there is no ryhme or reason to it you just say it. Almost like when someone sneezes you say "Bless you" Your not actually blessing anyone nor do most people mean that, its just the proper response to another action. Thomas says, to him saying how are you doing is only when you really CARE how the person is doing and usually it is meant for someone you have not seen in a very long time. So when he meets people for the first time and they go "Hello thomas, how are you doing?" or when he was doing work in the US and people casually walk by going "how ya doing?" It just confused and bothered him as to others it was a waste of a sentence or a completly irrelavent question.
This way one of those things that really got me thinking about how others percieve me and what "normals" do not carry over to other cultures. Have I been doing anything embarrassing like that with people? Should I not approach people so easily or is there some kind of social boundary? What are the social barriers... am I breaking them? Man I feel like I have the ugly American mentality now....
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