These are not “shameful secrets” Maarten van Doorn, and you know it.

I’ve had an analogous experience, in which the woman I’d been dating for two years asked me, “How are you?”

I wanted to tell her how I was, and I can understand why she was asking me — not in the perfunctory grocery store cashier way, but in a legitimate “I want to begin a conversation with you,” way.

It seems like a reasonable request.

It is not.

Because I, like you, are a deep thinker with a brain that is always running at high rpm, sometimes “How are you?” presents like a goddamn homework assignment. As if I could take a minute to assess how I am and offer a condition report to my date.

The fact is, how I am is irrelevant.

How Are You? (I don’t care).