By Chris Cosci

"What's new?" On the surface, this seems like a fairly easy question to answer. However, few people ever seem to have an answer other than "not much." How is this possible? Even after not seeing a person for six months, that person will almost always answer the "what's new" question with "not much."

Actually, "not much" is just one of several typical responses. There's also the popular, "nothing really." Then there's the old standby, "ah, you know -- same old, same old." Whatever the response, it usually signifies that nothing is happening in a person's life. There's nothing new. Either people really feel that nothing new has happened, or everybody is leading an extremely boring life.

Of course, one reason why this question is so deceptively difficult is that most of the new things that happen are, in fact, rather mundane. If, after being asked what's new, somebody were to say, "Ooh, I clipped my toenails this morning," nobody would ever ask that person "what's new" again.

I think people get so caught up in the minutiae of daily life that it takes a rather significant event to qualify as something new. In order to adequately answer the question, people probably feel they need something exciting ("I'm getting married!"), something incredible ("I won the lottery!"), or something unexpected ("I was mauled by a grizzly bear!")

Even when people do have something noteworthy to mention, they can still be stumped because they know that most people don't really want to hear a detailed answer. In a way, people have become conditioned to expect the "not much" or "nothing really" response. Therefore, the question has become less an actual question than a random sentence used to fill a void. If somebody were to actually provide a response, many people would stammer for a minute, trying to comprehend this unusual breach of convention. "Yeah, not much new on my end, either... wait, did you say a grizzly bear?"

Still, even when somebody responds with "not much," at least that person is providing some sort of response to the question. After all, this is standard procedure. One person asks a question, another person provides an answer. It seems like such a natural process, but it doesn't always work that way.

For instance, take the question, "How's it going?" Sometimes, people will actually provide a response to this question. Of course, that response is again limited to a few standard options: "all right," "okay" or "good." However, there are some people who don't even answer the question. Instead, they respond by asking the exact same question. The entire conversation is: "How's it going?" "How's it going?"

You can't do that! Imagine if people did this with other questions. "Hey, what time is it?" "Hey, what time is it?" It doesn't make any sense. Basically, people are using "how's it going" as a straightforward replacement for the word "hello." This is the first step toward a society where people stop listening to each other and just use anything for a greeting. "Hey, the frog ate my Jell-o." "Hey, monkeys in my pants."

There's already some confusion between people who use the questioning greeting and people who actually answer questions. People often ask me, "How's it going?" Granted, I don't usually have anything significant to say, but I generally respond with, "it's going all right -- how about you?" It really throws me off when the other person doesn't respond back. It's as if that person figured the conversation was over after the question was first asked. Done -- nothing more to say.

I'll admit it; I'm not always looking for someone to respond with a twenty-minute speech on all the details of life. Still, is it really asking too much for a simple "good" or "okay"? Maybe I just have to come up with something new to ask. And if I do, I'll actually have something to say when somebody asks me, "What's new?"