"What's Up?"

Originally published on: 07/03/2011

It’s hard to chat with someone without the question “What’s up?” popping up at some point, and it’s slightly irritating because I hardly ever end up saying what I really want to.

How I’d like to respond, depending on the situation:

You will not believe what happened!

I just created the most powerful taser in the world, my boss quadrupled my salary, I met Westlife who sang to me for an hour, all the terrorists are dead, I’m eating a whole tub of ice cream right now, and everything’s perfect.

Everything is so messed up!

My 20 year old dog died, I was robbed on my way back home this evening, my boss fired me and gave my job to that smug moron, I’m out of coffee, I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere, and everybody hates me.

Too much work

I have to write a 10,000 word research paper, paint my room, clean up the mess in the garage, bake mushroom tarts and do so many other things by tomorrow that I don’t even have the time to breathe or tell you about half the stuff I have to do.

The weather is…

*Heartfelt rant about how wonderful or horrible the weather is*

Nothing. I don’t have a life

*Bored whining about how nothing is happening*

I’m not telling you

*Silence accompanied by silent laughter at having sufficiently dissuaded the other person*

The sky

(Another – and probably more annoying – way of saying “I’m not telling you”)

I already told you!

I spent the last 15 minutes answering that very question. How much more do you expect from my life? I’m done talking about what’s up with me, so stop asking me that and at least try to think of other questions if you have nothing to say about what’s up with you.

Luckily I do have friends who I can respond to in any of these ways, but with most other people, that question usually just makes me want to respond with another question: Do you really care?

But since one needs to try and be nice sometimes, I often go with the most vague and mundane reply ever: Nothing much.