Fair… When people ask me how I am I say I can’t complain, because I can’t… It’s not socially acceptable

You can have canned questions too, but I find that makes the whole thing feel even more empty. Personally, I like to talk about the weather not being normal, or about store prices rising and such. Just little observations that any sane person would agree is both true and a problem

It’s my own version of checking if they’ll make friendly noises… If you can’t acknowledge the world is falling apart or think Trump is going to magically fix it, we don’t have the common ground to keep talking. I’d rather sit there in awkward silence

I think a lot of social situations become easier once you flip it around and ask what outcome you want out of it.

Maybe it’s ok to have deeper small talk. Maybe when people don’t respond with friendly noises, they’ve failed your friendliness test