Joel, my interpretation is that we are constantly managing difficult lives and in some ways life becomes more complicated as we get older. (We may have kids, or health issues, and are managaing relationships, bills, mortgages or rent, whatever.) People still don’t always have time to engage, especially the casual co-worker or passerby. So in much of our interactions, what can we do but say to quote Steph, “Fine. I’m doing fine, thanks for asking.” And if one can mean it, like she suggests, that is a victory! In other words, my interpretation of the blog, is that with age comes perspective!

I love the idea of us transition in our “higher selves.” The last couple months I have felt that way myself. I am completely nonreliguous, but do feel like the meanings that matter to me in life have become more clear and I understand more of the many tools I have to respond to them. So… Wow! Being a “formerly” actually rocks! (So long as we can keep the boat afloat…)

I feel less fine than I did back then, which has to do with being more tuned in to the complexity around me, and the emotional variations inside me, and to turning 40 and wondering whether my life is everything it’s “supposed” to be. So I FEEL farther from “fine” than I did then.

As for responding to the question, I guess I’m a bit more comfortable giving a “real” answer to the question than I was when I had just graduated from a second-choice college. Although I can’t quite follow your arc: you’re saying you were honest at 21, less honest from 22 until you became a formerly, and you’re more honest, but actually fine, now? I thought this whole concept was binary, BF and F (Before Formerly and Formerly).

But I don’t think Formerly status is really the main “driver” (as accountants say) of “how are you” responses. Instead, I think it’s intimacy of the relationship, and openness of the askee. One’s overall approach could change over time, but I think most people have a basic personality type their whole lives.

For example. My first cousin died at 21 in a car accident 5 years ago. The whole community focused on the family for a few weeks or so, and then went back to their normal lives, and in some ways expected his family to do so too. I’ve talked to my aunt (his mom) about the experience of talking to people a year, two years later, or even now. People ask “how are you?” It’s very clear to her that most people don’t really want to know. So she says “fine.” A few people (not all of whom are close to her) really do, so she talks about how she’s feeling, the loss that is still acute years later, and how it affects her everyday life.

This seems like an extreme version of a universal phenomenon, one that is only marginally age-dependent. Maybe when I was 21 there was no one I trusted enough that I could really expose myself in response to a “how are you?” I’m not sure. But I think you’re right when you identify the lesson everybody learns: “unless the person asking how you were was your mother or a friend who genuinely wanted the answer, you were simply supposed to say, ‘Fine, thanks.’” Yet that’s a lesson people learn at different ages, and seems unconnected with settling into ourselves at our age.

Speaking of which, I was chatting recently with a therapist who said that in his experience, around this age, people generally transition into their “higher selves,” a concept I didn’t fully understand, but which seemed to be some sort of becoming a more permanent version of one’s self. He didn’t use the word “formerly,” but maybe that’s what he meant.