Us who don&#x27;t like insincere &quot;how are you&quot;&#x27;s know that it&#x27;s an idiom. We&#x27;re not social retards. But even just going through the insincere, obligatory &quot;fine&#x2F;good&quot; responses is a pain, because they can cause a dissonance and remind you of the mask that you have to maintain in &quot;polite company&quot;.<p>You can&#x27;t just turn off word&#x27;s meanings and associations that conveniently.