posted
I hate this question. I hate this question. I hate this question.
How am I supposed to respond to it? I've never received a clear answer for the 15+ years I've been inquiring about the expectations regarding this question. I can never tell if someone is just saying "hello" in a different way and is only expecting a counter-"'sup", or if he wants me to tell them what I'm thinking or what I've been doing recently.
It seems that half the time it isn't even a question! I don't seem capable of formulating a satisfactory response without putting a lot of thought into it, since the weird construction of the sentence makes it hard to make a grammatically-correct answer. Because it takes me so long to mull over the context of the phrase, I end up leaving people hanging, which is too-often interpreted as my not caring (which is quite the opposite from the truth).
I do pretty well with other questions such as "how are you?" since I can craft an honest answer using the grammatical conventions I'm used to. However, my honest answer is occasionally less uplifting than the trying-to-be-friendly inquirer was hoping for, so when I'm not feeling well or have been struggling with something, I take a similarly exceptional amount of time to craft a more creative response, which sends be back to the same place as "what's up?".
I have tried to cope in different ways. In elementary school I made lame literal puns by responding "the sky" or "the ceiling." Naturally, this ticked people off, so I abandoned it after a while. I experimented by just replying "I'm good," which causes me to cringe inside, but it never gets a conversation going and results in awkward pauses as either I or the other person tries to think of a way to segue into a talking point. When I realized this, I tried responding by rambling about my life, but that doesn't work because people seem to either expect brief answers or just don't care that much.
Though it seems like a trivial subject, it is something I struggle with. Because I never know how to respond to this friendly and innocent question, I always end up coming off as a jerk to doesn't have the decency to respond, when the reality is that I just don't know how I'm expected to respond, and take an inordinate amount of time to construct an answer.
This has had a negative impact on my social life, with so many people becoming offended by my slow responses or annoyed by my attempts to quickly reply something mindless. It is clear that my inability to handle such a common greeting is one of the key reasons I have trouble making new friends. To those who know me, I am patient, humble, a good listener, thoughtful, and considerate, but as soon a new guy asks what's up, I get typecast as rude. Don't get me wrong; I have quite a few very close friends with whom I can carry cheerful and meaningful conversations without incident, but when someone I haven't known for long asks the dreaded innocuous question, I am frequently misinterpreted, which leaves me at a disadvantage in new settings. I especially hate this because it offends people who are trying to be friendly, which is not, I think, very fair. Asking me "what's up?" sets you up for either offense or annoyance, and me for desperation and humiliation, and I can't figure out a way to prevent it.
What, exactly, am I supposed to do/say when someone asks me this question? Does anyone else have this apparently uncommon inability to respond to an innocent greeting in a socially acceptable way?
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
My knee jerk response is "Your cholesterol", but I've learned to keep that one inside.
My personal theory is that when someone asks that question, they are opening it up for you to talk about whatever the heck you want. So I tend to just start talking about what's on my mind, or what I just did or am about to do.
Or, if I'm not in the mood for a conversation and don't want to seem rude, I say, "Oh, you know, just thinking about life, the universe, and everything."
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I always just reply "Not much. What's up with you?" even when I actually do have something else to say - I usually wait for another opening or just continue on after that phrase. Weird. I don't know where I got that from.
Posts: 315 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
Just raise your chin a little and say, "Hey."
IMO, when you're asked, "What's up?" you're not being asked to give an account of what's up. You're just being asked to acknowledge the presence and equal social status of the other person. By extension, you are being told that your acknowledgement is valued. Stop being annoyed with it and quit trying to answer literally or flippantly. Let it happen, and then feel free to have a normal conversation with the person if you're stopping to talk. If you're just passing by someone you know, let that be the entire exchange. That's all that is expected. Don't make it any more complicated than that.
There's a security guard at my work who is somewhat famous for saying "How ya doin" to everyone he passes. I just say "hi," because that's what he's saying to me.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
There's a three main criteria to look for when you are asked this question:
1) Did they say 'sup or "What's Up?" 2) Have you been standing next to each other for 10+ seconds, or are you just walking by each other? 3)How well do you know the person?
If you are both walking in opposite directions when the question is asked, all you're expected to do (if your goal is to follow social norms) is to reply either "'sup" or "nothin' much" or a similarly nonextensive acknowledgement of the greeting. It's the equivalent of saying "Good Afternoon." This is a pretty hard rule. You don't stop to engage in conversation unless you have something to talk about that you would have stopped them to talk about regardless of whether they said "What's up?"
If you don't know the person well, or if they say "'sup" instead of "What's up," it's more likely that they expect the short answer as well. But if you've been standing in line at the grocery store for a 10+ seconds, you have the option of opening up a conversation anyway.
If you know the person well they usually expect you to give a brief description of your day, unless your day was genuinely fascinating and you had something interesting to share.
This is all assuming you WANT to follow social conventions. My actual typical responses, assuming someone I know reasonably well or whom I do not know much at all and don't expect to have to deal with consequences of being weird:
If they say 'sup while we're both walking: "I'm walkin'"
If they 'sup while we're both standing: "I'm standin'"
If they say "What's Up" while we are either not moving or walking slowly apart: "Up is the direction opposing that of the nearest and strongest source of gravity." (When I use this in circumstances where I actually have time to carefully pronounce the whole thing so they can understand it, they usually actually appreciate it as funny, as opposed "the sky" which is neither clever nor amusing).
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
There is not a literal answer to the greeting "What's up?" that is clever enough to not make you sound like a nerd. The very act of answering literally is all it takes.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Were we trying to avoid being nerdy? I don't recall making that claim. Nerdiness does not inherently oppose cleverness nor humor.
My experience is that if I actually pronounce it carefully, most people laugh (genuinely, as far as I can tell). If I say it too fast then it just comes across as nerdspeak that is annoying rather than funny. If I run into you in real life I'll try to avoid it, but assuming C3PO doesn't live in a radically different social arena than I, I think he'd have generally good results. (That said, I was not actually recommending that phrase, it's just what I personally say because I enjoy it).
Another option:
"Up is a movie by Pixar about Death and Acceptance."
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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I prefer this because if they were going for the ships-passing-in-the-night short-version, they just say, "Not much" or an equivalent phrase and we both go back to what we were doing. If they are looking for a conversation they'll tell me what's happening in their life, and the conversation proceeds to be a conversation.
Posts: 368 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
When someone says "What's up?" to me, I either say "Not much" or "The sky". Depends who it is.
The worst, though, is "What's the good word?" My late grandfather used to say that every frikkin' time he'd see me or talk to me on the phone. I don't even know how you're supposed to answer that. "Fine"? All it did was make me uncomfortable. I finally started saying, "I don't know the answer to that question." Or "I have no idea."
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Were we trying to avoid being nerdy? I don't recall making that claim. Nerdiness does not inherently oppose cleverness nor humor.
Nerdiness is inherently opposed to comfortable social interaction with the people who say "What's up" as a greeting. I thought that was C3P0's problem.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I guess I should feel thankful that I have no problem deciphering and responding to any of these things?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Ah. (Okay, time for honesty: I sorta read the first half of his post and then assumed it was generally a rant against the silliness of the phrase. I DID struggle with the same issue in a similar manner for a while, so I got just far enough that I assumed our situations were identical and then guessed at the rest. Apologies. ).
So in that case, see the first 75% of my initial post. Or Advice for Robots, whose name I just noticed is particularly funny in this context.
I don't think nerdiness is the problem per se, it's lack of social skills, period, there just happens to be a corrolation between nerdiness and lack of social skills. But I will agree that successfully being a nerd during casual conversation with the general populace requires more practice (and is useful in more limited situations) so I wouldn't recommend it if you're still struggling with not sounding forced in the first place.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:I always just reply "Not much. What's up with you?" even when I actually do have something else to say - I usually wait for another opening or just continue on after that phrase. Weird. I don't know where I got that from.
I do exactly the same thing. I treat it as an expected exchange rather than an actual question.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:The answer to "what's the good word?" is "mandibular."
I posed this question to my colleagues at work. We agreed the good word was "narwhal." It think it would be amazing if this became a nationally accepted social convention. Although responding with any random cool word (preferably a different one each time) would be pretty sweet.
quote:"Chillin."
This is actually pretty good, provided you can say it with a straight face. Depending on who you're talking to it can be either ironically silly or serious. The difference between rude and playfully silly can be pretty subtle though.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:I always just reply "Not much. What's up with you?" even when I actually do have something else to say - I usually wait for another opening or just continue on after that phrase. Weird. I don't know where I got that from.
I do exactly the same thing. I treat it as an expected exchange rather than an actual question.
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: I usually go with "your mom"
The point of my asking is that I don't want to sound unfriendly or rude.
I say "your mom" in the most loving way I can.
I'm just kidding here. I agree with what lots of other people have said. I tend to take "what's up" as a form of "hello". My response will usually either by a form of what's up right back to them, or simply a "hey" or sometimes a "not much" depending on who said it. I'd also say that there tend to be two distinct ways in which it used, one as more of a "hello" and the other as more of an expected social exchange. I prefer the "hello" version.
Some people actually want to know "what's up", but in those cases it might be used in a more, "hey, what's up with you man" type of way. and even that written phrase can be interpreted in two different ways, one in which someone is genuinely curious as to your state of being, "what have you been doing since we've last seen each other" or in a situation where someone is put off in some way by your behavior, "what's wrong with you, why are you acting this way?"
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Raymond: I hear you. I was never willing to descend into full nerdiness, but I was as socially inept as you can get (still am to a large extent) and so I had to fight long and hard against the impulse to follow the greeting "What's up" with some sort of clever response. Realizing I was doing it wrong was an important first step. Believe me, I had to learn by rote every bit of what I said in my first post. I have none of the instincts that would let me naturally give the correct response to that greeting.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Defenestration is the single best word, I agree. But it's overuse as the best word has diminished its awesomeness somewhat.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
I have a friend who teaches at a collage, so he is often asked "Whats up?" in our classroom/lab (Our department has dedicated labs that we just hangout in). He loves to answer "Acoustic Ceiling Tile!"
Posts: 503 | Registered: May 2005
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