Do you ever tell someone you're fine when you aren't?

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Thanks for the advice I might try that.

if someone says "how are you?" i never really bother to think about how i "am" when i reply.

i have a repertoire of three replies from which i choose one when responding to "how are you?".

1. "as well as can be expected under the circumstances"
2. "reasonable to fair"
3. "moderate to mild"

they are just stock responses that i use interchangeably, and i never give any thought to how i actually am when i am asked.

i am a slow learner as to what makes people say and act as they do, and recently i arrived at some observational conclusions about their reactions to my responses.

when i say "as well as can be expected under the circumstances", some people may think i am inferring that very bad things have happened in my life recently, and they become concerned and say the equivalent of "oh dear...what's the matter?"
i say "nothing as far as i know", then i order and pay and leave.

i learned the response "as well as can be expected under the circumstances" when watching some soap opera set in a hospital while i was about 4, and i have always used it as a reply.... even to teachers when i was 5.

the "reasonable to fair" reply is like a weather report that i heard when i was about 4 as well. i think the words were used in reference to the amount of precipitation for the week over our sydney dam catchment areas.

it stuck with me as an appropriate description of "how i was" when people asked me "how i was" when i was rather content.

the "moderate to mild" response i also got from the weather reports when i was about 4, and the words were used with reference to the wind conditions for that day. i thought it aptly described me on days when i was vacillating on the border of being too tired to bother thinking about complicated things, and i adopted it as my third choice of reply that i use when someone asks if i am "OK".

i just say one or another of those three replies every time someone asks how i am.

but i have recently arrived at the conclusion after some recent realizations (after speculation), that i should just say "ok" when someone asks how i am, and that would be a sterile end to the matter.

who really cares if i feel good or not? no one but me.
it is not worth framing much of a reply really to the question "how are you?"

That really is comical. The unintended consequences of echolalia. As an adult, do you see what happened? You picked your phrase out of a genre show where very bad things happen in every single episode. "As well as can be expected under the circumstances" is what people say when something horrible has happened and they are struggling to cope with it. Of course it will be used in a soap opera with some frequency since soap operas are built around horrible things happening to people and the people being forced to cope. It's a good thing you weren't watching a cop show or you might have spent the next 30 years telling people you were "ok considering I just spent 3 hours listening to 3 hookers fighting in the cell" when they asked how you are.

Hmmm, that has some appeal. I'm getting a little bored with "Fine, and you?" Maybe I'll give this one a try...

It could be fun.