Don't you 'how are you' me, young man.

Why do we feel it's necessary to ask 'how are you' all the time? Why is this a standard greeting? If you're just passing someone and they ask 'how's it going' you are obliged to ask them the same thing and if the response is not short they will be out of earshot by the time you finish your exchange. It just doesn't make sense. And typically there are few people that I really care how they are doing. That might make me a bad person, but at least I'm honest. If you ask someone how they are doing and they say 'terrible,' I mean what is the best reply to that anyway? I'm sorry? All we really want people to say is 'fine' or 'good' so we can go on with our lives knowing we shallowly reached out to someone else and did our part at being civil. I find the response, "Not too bad" to be funny when you really think about it. This is a positive response in our exchange. It's basically saying I'm bad, but I could be worse. That is very uplifting but it means I don't have to pursue this line of questioning.

I think the whole 'how are you' question should just be thrown out unless you really want to know. I like when people replace it with 'what's up' because you feel no reciprocity whatsoever for ignoring their rhetorical question.