A deadpan kind of fellah I know always tells me he’s in great form when I ask how he is. I’m super, he might even say. I narrow my eyes to establish if he really has a royal flush on the scale of feelings instead of a dead hand. I ask him if he’s being sarcastic. “Sure why wouldn’t I be great?” Eh, because you’re a league secretary organising 30 matches a week in your spare time on top of coaching, shift work, studying and having three young children.
I think about all the people who must be at him all day every day and the unbelievable level of guff he must endure. Surely he couldn’t always be in great form. And even if he was in great form, I find it hard to believe that he’d flagrantly tell me that he’s in great form because it’s just rubbing it in for the rest of us who have rarely dared to speak those words.
I can only imagine naturally answering: Marvellous. Fantastic. Wonderful. Even if I could tap into that feeling for long enough to express it, I’d worry people would replace the Bono in the “is a pox” graffiti across the city with my name for being above my station. Being in an open state of delight is suspicious, a form of emotional treachery.
I ask my young, farming brother-in-law and kindred spirit what he says when people ask how he is. “The finest!” he replies. “And are you the finest?” He doesn’t know, he says, he doesn’t actually think about how he is when people ask him how he is, he just answers as quickly as possible.
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How are you? Arra, sure you know yourself. Grand. Fine. Okay. Surviving. All right. These answers are all borderline. You need to carefully observe the tone, the way the person drew or released breath when speaking. You might be able to figure out what they mean by their eyes, their skin, their shoulders. In the main, these words have a silent “not” in front of them.
At a petrol station on the Malahide Road I absent-mindedly ask the guy behind the counter how he is as I pay for the fuel, still reeling at the cost. He has a strong accent, I think from .
“Agh, I’m all right,” he says. “Only all right?” I ask. “I don’t know why I say I am all right when I’m not all right,” he mumbles without eye contact. “Because that’s what we do in Ireland,” I tell him, “We say we’re all right when we’re not all right.” He smiles. “Will you be all right?” I probe. “Maybe some day,” he shrugs.
I feel like asking more, maybe asking him if he needs help, but a queue has formed behind me and I decide it would be a bit weird. I have thought about him and his state of mind 25 times since.
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When the “not” is spoken, it’s a red alert. I remember someone calling me to tell me some bad news about a mutual friend. “He’s not in great form,” she said, “he’s had a stroke.” That’s where not being in great form sits on the scale of responses in Ireland – ambulance territory.
The below-grand words are honest, but exaggerated. Banjaxed. Middling. In bits. Alive. Shite. Wrecked. Rotten. Somehow, these are less worrying than “not brilliant”. If someone says they’re dying you know they’re actually hovering safely just under grand.
The way we ask matters. We sidestep the question sometimes, maybe to avoid listening to people moaning. How are things? What’s the craic? How’s she cuttin’? Story?
Divil a bit. Not a bother. No craic. Nothing stirrin’. F-all. As well as can be.
Normally these are called out while still moving, not really expecting a real answer. The answer to “Howaya?” is more often than not, “Howaya?” There’s safety in that.
Often we do not take any time to discern what people mean by these answers, it is just ritualistic.
My 14-year old daughter told me to manifest a good week for myself last Sunday night. I had to laugh, because I was a shell of myself after two intense weeks of teenage-parental mental warfare. Okay, I told her, I’ll manifest a good week. I actually did have a good week as it happened. A week so good that I texted “I’m in flying form” to my friend when he asked how I was. It felt odd. I waited for a piano to fall from the sky. It’s okay not to be okay, we’re told. What about, it’s okay to be great?
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We should dip our toes into the pool of saying we’re fantastic. Practise saying “I’m great” like wobbling toddlers learning to walk, or Americans. Don’t worry about being a pox. Start with above-grand words. Good. Sound. Mighty. Happy out. Build up to “couldn’t be better”.
The custom, while seemingly redundant because of its ambiguity, is not pointless. When you’re asking, mean it. When you’re asking, give the person a safe space to answer optimistically. There is one way to be assured of a positive response, a tragically underused way to asking how someone is on our beautiful island. Keep this one in your pocket for when you want to give someone a lift when you’re asking after them. Offer it with a twinkle in your eye. Exchange their blush with your smile, knowing you’ve put them in great form.
“Are you well? ’Cause you’re looking well.”
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