"It's nice meeting\to meet you!"

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Does anyone else have great difficulty bringing themselves to say this particular phrase when meeting someone for the first time? When someone says it to me, I usually just respond with "Yeah" or "Yes" and it's more of an acknowledgement that they've said it than an agreement. It wouldn't feel at all genuine to say it because I don't know enough about the person to know if meeting them is nice or good or whatever. I can't bring myself to socially bullsh*t someone. For the same reason, often a person will very quickly discern my true impression of them, especially if I don't like them. It's nothing I'm consciously doing that gives me away, except maybe keeping conversations with them as short as possible.

I don't have much issue with these things anymore, because it's a casual nicety that doesn't hurt anyone. These things drove me nuts for a long time, until I learned the value of (some) subtlety. If I really don't like someone, or if I'm really angry then I still won't speak or even make eye contact with them. Everyone is a big bundle of merits and flaws, and it helps me to just roll with it unless someone is being aggressively negative in some way.

I'm usually only inclined to say it after having talked to someone for a while and having decided I actually enjoyed meeting them, so it's more of a goodbye than a greeting to me. If someone says it to me, though, I usually just say "you too". It's pretty unlikely someone who was being intentionally rude would say something like that, so I'm not too bothered about whether it was actually that great to meet them.

There's nothing wrong with not liking someone, by the way. Pretending that you don't and being passive aggressive is, in my mind, far worse than just being honest about it because of the lying involved.

I also use it more as a goodbye than a greeting. As far as I can tell, no one seems to think that's odd.

I don't think I use this term unless I am legitimately happy to meet someone. If someone says it to me, my response is usually, "yeah, you too."

I say that honestly. New people are usually interesting. I may be overloaded by socialization, and I may be an extreme introvert, but a human being is a wonderfully complex thing and i can't help being quite curious.

I don't say it.

I don't say things like that either.

I just think of it as a code.
"Nice to meet you" means "I don't hate you."

Yes this, sometomes I just become non-verbal and others I can just lunch into an full on Q&A session(usally only if special intrests are involved) while forgetting to say hello or learn their name, the last one can lead to an embarrising moment later and often the other person as I find out later sadly had no intention of talking to me like that and that leads to an akward break off by them. Your right though some people are really interesting.

I tend to make a better effort to say things like this in a more formal business setting vs. informal social setting, although, if I find myself at a gathering with friends where their norm is to greet & meet people like this - then I'm much more likely to do it, and after a while it just becomes more routine like you're automatically following a set of social rules. It's not really all that difficult, and I suppose I could make a better effort to do it more often and more naturally, but I suppose like many I avoid these types of interactions and greetings because they're not intuitively natural and I'm feeling anxious at the time. But like anything, practice makes perfect.. and if I have to do something like this, I can do it very well. If I have to pull it off in terms of a business or sales meeting, or at some important function, I've learned a number of coping mechanisms over my lifetime to pull it off reasonably well - if not even very well, but I know that I can't sustain it perpetually and that it can become very.. draining. One of the best descriptions I've read that just feels right in describing socializing via intellectual processing vs. intuitive natural flow of things is that you're able to put on an amazing act, literally like an actor giving their all to the best performance of their life, but then afterwards you feel very mentally exhausted and drained as it takes a tremendous amount of energy and focus to overcome all of these social faux pas in real time, while coming up with the best possible actions and reactions to things in as close to real time as possible.. then it's time to retreat into solitude to recharge. That description has helped me not only make sense of the way I interact with people, why & how, the internal mental mechanics of it etc, but also to be able to learn to do it better and better, too. I'm OK with being different & the way that I am, truly, and getting to know this particular aspect of myself is enabling me to become an ever better actor with lower stress and anxiety for it. Who knows, maybe in time I won't even become so drained afterwards, but in the meantime I'm OK with giving a stellar performance and then having to recover afterwards - especially since I now know why; it makes it all OK & easier to embrace the process of doing it, and learning to do it better and better with practice.

Usually if someone is polite enough to say "nice to meet you", then I genuinely feel it was nice to meet them. It's just a trend, not a rule. But I will always respond in kind when someone says something like that. Otherwise they may feel snubbed.

I usually say hi on my way to visually find the nearest way out of the social situation

I say it if it is actually nice to meet them, i.e. a pretty girl or someone i have heard about that i actually would like to meet.

I know I should reciprocate but often I forget and just say "yeah", and then I end up feeling bad because that sounds arrogant! "Yes, it is nice to meet me. I'm awesome."

I often say it myself, doesn't cost anything and makes the other person feel more welcome.