How are you?
A simple question, but one that has frustrated me. What makes it hard is there are many ways to interpret it. You've got the pedestrian "how are you?" that a cashier might ask you at the grocery. You've also got the sincere "how are you?" that a close friend may ask you. As it turns out, they're saying two very different things with the same words.
I think this question makes a lot more sense if in your head you immediately replace it with the more specific question that's being asked. I call this "translating". Let's take a few examples:
Situation 1
You're passing a coworker in the hall who says: "how are you?"
Translation: It's nice to see you
In my opinion, this is by far the most common actual meaning of the question. If you think of instead of this, it makes A LOT more sense!
How are you?
Good! How are you?
Good!
translates to
It's nice to see you,
It's nice to see you too!
This is actually a pleasant and nice interaction. It affirms a general positive attitude towards you with a simple greeting. It avoids any awkwardness of "oh are they ignoring me?". What it is not is an invitation to conversation or an inquiry to your internal world.
Situation 2
You're out at drinks with friends, when a good friend asks you "how are you?"
Translation: Hey, it's good to see you! I'm interested in hearing a little bit about your life recently, share a story or something you've been up to.
This is maybe the most "middle" version of this question. The goal is not just a greeting, but an invitation to start a casual conversation. I may share a funny story that happened recently, that work has been really tiring recently, or that I've got some exciting upcoming plans next week. These accomplish answering the actual goal underneath the question, which is not a full and complete assessment of your internal state - thought it may hit on it a bit!
Situation 3
After a hard week, you setup a long, leisurely walk with a close friend who asks "how are you?"
Translation: How are you? (ie., no translation!)
NOW we get to a situation where we are answering the actual question asked, which is akin more to sharing an assessment of how you're actually doing. This is when we share what's going on inside - that we are or are not doing well. This is an invitation for deep connection, sharing, and bond building. Here your friend is really interested in how are am I doing, actually?
These three situations are a few common examples but don't cover all the translations of this question!
How are you is an efficient question
I've come to appreciate how remarkably efficient this question is. With just a couple of words, we can cover a wide breadth of situations. The above situations are relatively clear cut, but others may not be. So it invites the receiver to answer inside of the context that they think is happening, which is a pretty complex and nuanced thing to try to communicate - and would be quite awkward to even try:
Hey, I first wanted to establish what this situation is. Are we trying to connect deeply or is this more of a passing interaction? I know we're not deep friends yet, but do we want to choose to build a more deep connection here? You do want that? Okay great, now with that established let me ask: ...
The ability to navigate this, of course, comes with an assumption of a shared understanding of what's actually being asked and what context we're in. That's the tradeoff for efficiency. I think this part is often what gives autistic people a big challenge with this question - it can be really hard to figure that out!
More accessible forms of this question
If you find this question challenging or want to make it more accessible to people who may struggle with it, I think the answer is simple: be more specific! Let's revisit our earlier situations.
Situation 1: You're passing a coworker in the hall who says: "how are you?"
Say instead: It's good to see you
Situation 2: You're out at drinks with friends, when a good friend asks you "how are you?"
Say instead: Hey, what's something that happened in your week?
Situation 3: After a hard week, you setup a long, leisurely walk with a close friend who asks "how are you?"
Say instead: Hey, I know things have been hard. I wanna hear more about how you've been doing with that?
Translate it yourself
If you aren't given the grace of being asked the more specific question, I think the system to build is to simply do the translating in your head yourself. Answer the question that was actually being asked, not the one that was literally asked. If it bothers you to not answer the question literally asked, answer both!
Them: how are you? You: Good! (Now I'll translate to: "tell me a story"). So this week I...
Finding peace
Until I had these translations, this question was a never ending thorn in my side. My brain wants to answer and interpret questions literally as they are asked - but that is not how everyday communicate works. We use shortcuts, we depend on context, we strive for efficiency. There's something elegant about that efficiency of the question when it works.
I hope this helps!