How you doing?

"Hi, How you doing?" these are words I struggled hard all my life to say. Whenever someone visited our home, I would have a scheduled session followed by it from my parents. Because, I would not have uttered those comforting words to them. For the same reason, I restrained myself from attending phone calls to calling door. It was hard for me to greet someone whom I didn't know. Most of the time, I went through the sessions calmly and sometimes counter argued saying, "I see them in good health. Then, why should I ask them." Sometimes I went further and said, "These formalities look phony to me".

Once when I was in elevator, the door opened and someone just had entered. He just glimpsed at me and asked, "Hi, How you doing?". I was surprised and overwhelmed to see a stranger asking me that question. I was kind of taken back instead of responding instantly. When I was about to respond, I lost eye contact with that person. Again, I was in embarrassment of not answering at the right moment. Similar incidents of receiving greeting from strangers happened frequently. The harder I tried to respond, every time I missed the eye contact in milli, micro and nano seconds. It really took me very long time to understand that it was not about the question and it was definitely not about the answer. But, it was worth going through the embarrassment to break the invisible layer of ice between me and a stranger. I told myself, "why do a stranger always comfort me? why cant I comfort someone instead? May be thats how a person moves from 'unknown' to 'known' category.". I learned a valuable lesson. Though I didn't ask every soul passing by me, but at least I tried to ask when my eyes met someone. It was awkward moment. Still, it is for me. But when Joey Tribbiani says it effortlessly, "Hey, How...you...doing?" in a flirting sense. Oh yeah, it is worth that embarrassment.

I am just kidding, that is not part of the lesson.