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Comment by geocrasher | Hacker News Reader

When my wife was dying (she has since passed away) and nobody could figure out her illness, she'd be in the most wretched pain, in the ER again, and she'd be retching awfully and almost uncontrollably.

A doctor would walk in, having heard of all this already and ask "How are you?"

Sometimes she gave them the benefit of the doubt, and sometimes she was a bit less charitable.

My point? Americans (as she was), Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, Japanese, Kurdish, Bolivians, Icelandians, Koreans, Germans, Chinese, Scottish, Irish, Australians, Austrians, Swiss, South Africans, Egyptians, Mixolydians, Bohemians, and even Canadians all agree one one thing:

Being asked "How are you?" is the LAST thing somebody wants to hear when they are suffering.

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But in this you can also see the difference between an American and many others. I find the "how are you greeting" very tiring nomatter how I am. When I am being asked the question I internally go through an assessment of, how am I today, how interested is the person, how much do I want to share of this. It takes significant mental effort.

When I was a teenager I did a one year high school exchange to the US and for a long time I really struggled with the daily "what's up?". I was going through the above internal dialogue more than 10 times a day struggling to come up with an answer. Even, when I learned to just answer "yeah what's up" internally the dialogue would often still be triggered.

I’m very sorry to hear that, for both you and your wife.

I hope any healthcare for your wife was eventually able to manage her pain and make her at least comfortable.

Thank you. For the most part she was, but it was a pretty awful thing that happened so there was only so much that could be done. But I appreciate it. The last year of her life saw her getting the best care she'd ever had. Unfortunately, it was hospice care. But it was in home, and my adult daughter and I took care of her til the end.

I have a difficult life and I'm growing very tired of this question. I've even had to ask some of my neighbors not to greet me that way.

Indeed. People do not realize how destructive it is. The other one that really irks me is "let me know if you need anything!"

1) You are putting it on me to tell you that I need something, right in the middle of my need. 2) If you're my real friend you don't need to say that, I already know I can call you 24/7/365 3) Your willingness to help is nulled by your lack of initiative.

The best thing anyone ever did was call me and say "I'm at Costco. What do you need? And don't say 'nothing'. I'm going to bring you something, and that's that." That whole pizza and frozen burritos were bad for me, but the last thing I needed on my mind at that time was cooking. And that's what true friends are there for.

So don't say "If you need anything let me know!" It's borderline passive aggressive.

I hope this doesn’t come off belittling but my only reaction to reading this is that some people can find a reason to get upset over anything.

I independently had the same thoughts as geocrasher during similar experiences (and haven't told my friends the question annoys me), and I would say your reaction is uncharitable. Just because you can't relate doesn't mean "some people can find a reason to get upset over anything".

I have the same reaction as jwilber. If I think you are in a healthy state of mind, then “let me know if you need (or want) anything” is sufficient initiative. Even if you are my kid/SO/parents/siblings.

I would put it this way - in my way of thinking and cultural assumptions, any given relationship, close or not, one has a sense of whether asking favors is possible, and what sort are reasonable. Or else a sense of uncertainty about it.

The statement "let me know if you need anything" has a different meaning depending on what it was reasonable to ask already.

It adds no information, due to the meaning of "anything" being entirely contextual.

If I know that they know that the relationship is fairly close, affirming it is a nice thing to do, especially if I'm feeling badly.

But if the relationship is not so close and/or I'm uncertain whether it's appropriate to ask a favor, I can imagine feeling antagonized by the form of an offer which is not really an offer or clarification of where we stand.

If there is ambiguity, there remains ambiguity, is how I see it.

> The statement "let me know if you need anything" has a different meaning depending on what it was reasonable to ask already.

That’s the purpose of the statement. The person you’re saying it to should have a vague idea of what is a reasonable ask depending on relationship, and if not, they will just get denied. But it is genuine.

If I’m at a store, and my coworker asks me to grab a pack of gum, I’ll do it. If they ask me to go to a store 15 min away for something, I’m going to say no, but they probably would not ask me that anyway. But if a close family member asks, I would go to the different store.

I don't believe you. How are you is almost never an honest question and you know it

Exactly my thoughts. One thing is to expect some understanding from people (and specially friends) but another thing is to expect them to be mind readers. People have their own lives and if you don't express your needs, unless they are very obvious, you shouldn't blame them for not taking them into consideration.

@geocrasher seems to not realize that the people around he/she could be taking a cautious position to avoid getting into his/her business without it being requested.

> Your willingness to help is nulled by your lack of initiative.

I understand your point and i know it's a difficult question to deal with sometimes, especially during depression.

But remember that you're not those people's top priority. That sentence means you are allowed to ask them for stuff, but it doesn't mean they're going to drop everything and take you into their care right now without you taking a few steps on your own. They consider that you have enough of your own agency.

Your willingness to be helped is nulled by that same lack of initiative on your part.

A trick is to find something easy to ask for, as a go-to response to that. For example, the next time someone says that to you, you could answer:

"Actually, life has been tough lately, a beer would be nice".

The problem is that a lot of the time it feels like meaningless platitudes. Like they feel they have to say something out of politeness but don't actually want (or able) to help you.

What would have been better? To just say "I'm sorry you're having a hard time". If you don't mean something, don't say it.

Are you assuming/implying that the people who say "let me know if you need anything" don't actually mean it? Because I don't believe that's generally the case, especially if they're actually friends and not just random acquaintances.

I don't personally say that sentence outside of a work context; usually I would say "call me if you need to talk", but I won't take proactive action unless I believe my friend either wants me to or need me to.

At the end of the day, someone makes a choice to interpret this as a platitude. How about taking up the person on their offer?

Let me try to explain - I've had cancer at a relatively young age, so heard that a lot. I wasn't visibly sick, i just knew there's a chance I'm gonna die in the foreseeable future from it.

Unless the person saying it had access to some experimental treatment my doctors don't know about, there really was nothing they could have done to help me. I knew it and they knew it.

So while I didn't get angry at them (because I knew they said it because didn't know how to react differently), it did annoy me as it was basically an empty promise.

It seems like it's hard to understand how "let me know if you need anything" is hard to hear unless you've heard it hundreds or thousands of times.

I'm sorry about the situation you are/were in. That must have been very difficult.

Right, i was specifically outlining depression. Taking care of a sick person, i would also err on the side of giving more specifics eg. "Tell me if you want me to get you groceries or something".

But there is a difference between empty platitudes such as "thoughts and prayers" and a genuine albeit abbreviated "I'm your friend and I love you, I don't know how I could help you, but if you know, don't hesitate to ask on account of it being too much."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS

While it may seem like I am being oversensive about the subject, it is understandable because I left out a large part of the context. When you have heard of this phrase hundreds of times over multiple years by people who were not in the position to help you in the least bit, it becomes a meaningless platitude.

It's not for you they say it, but for them and or others. Or to put it more directly, you don't say it for them, you say it for you.

It's like forgiveness, if you forgive someone, the main benefit is to you. By forgiving someone you take a load off your own shoulders. It's often meaningless to them if those forgiven know they are.

Different strokes. I just told a friend that they should let me know if there's anything I can do to help, which I've never done before (for this friend). His mother is having surgery this week. I've known this person my whole life and he's a lot like me, so I know that taking your advice wouldn't be the right path for this.

I would like to be told by a friend that they care about me and would like to help in some way if they can. What I wouldn't like is if they said "OK, I'm going to choose a thing that I think I would want in your situation and do it for you, and you have no choice because I'm going to do it anyway." Chances are, what you thought was helpful is NOT what I need in a difficult moment and I don't want to be subjected to another person's choices being superimposed on my situation. Lucky for me I know that my friend feels the same way, and we have different ways of approaching these things with each other because of it.

"I'm at Costco. What do you need? And don't say 'nothing'. I'm going to bring you something, and that's that" seems incredibly aggressive to me, and if I had many friends who behaved that way I would be endlessly frustrated.

maybe it's a trick because there is no you? You know, the idea of "no self" or non-duality:

Sam Harris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajfkO_X0l0

Paul Hedderman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2T9e-uW1Dc

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