How am I? I'm not fine. No one is fine.

Stop it with your insipid, vapid small talk. I can no longer abide your prattling chit-chat.

Alone in a crowd.
(Image credit: iStock/spfoto)

An acquaintance walks by at the grocery store while you're hazily caressing the avocados and asks you how you are, because it's only polite. "Oh," you say, dropping the avocado, "I'm fine, how are you?" "Fine, fine," they say, and everyone moves along.

You pass that coworker you kind of know in the hall and exchange nods: "How are you doing?" "Fine." The world is no better place for it but no worse, either. It's the smallest of small talk.

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Jen Doll

Jen Doll is the author of the memoir Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest. She's also the managing editor for Mental Floss magazine and has written for The Atlantic, Esquire, Glamour, Marie Claire, The Hairpin, New York magazine, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review The Village Voice, and other publications.