13 Quirky Ways to Respond to ‘How Are You?’ in 2026

The year 2026 was long. Well, it is long, since it’s still going on; miraculously we’re only a little over halfway through. So, buckle up, sprinkletits — we have a long way to go.

Amidst the impending clusterfuckery of 2026, we’re still being asked ‘How are you?’ approximately another thousand times. And people don’t seem to like answers like ‘Well, I put my car up on bricks in my yard because the gay of Hormuz is still more puckered than my butthole.’

The standard answers to this question are ‘fine’ and ‘great’. Fine is for when things are shite, and great is for when things are fine. But let’s get creative with our responses, because we need some shits n’ giggles.

Here are some of my contenders for answering the world’s most boring question…

If you’re a millennial like me, this harkens back to a different time, when the rock band Panic! at the Disco was popular. And some of us would like to crawl back into an emo hole where we can be socially alienated misanthropes. But with a bitchin’ soundtrack.

It’s a good answer for this year because we’re panicking at the disco — and everywhere else.

If your crowd wouldn’t get the panicky-discoey reference, you could use ‘Same shit, different shoe’.

Ah made-up legal shields. Even if they don’t work, people might think you’re nuts, or liable to do something whackadoodle. And nobody messes with the crazy people <insert evil grin here>. Even the other crazy people leave you alone, either because you’re one of them, or you might be more batshit than they are.

I like this one because it’s not just a response — it’s instructional.

It also loops them in on your nefarious plans so you’ll find out how good of a friend they are. Are they really in this with you, or were they asking in a perfunctory fashion? A friend who will carry out your ditch-digging will is a ride-or-die bestie.

Sometimes you need to answer an I-don’t-really-care question with another question. It’s an Uno-reverse answer that could start a real conversation.

For example: compared to your friend Willy, who is on his fifth divorce and recently got booted from a Margaritaville for being too margarita-fied, well — you’re doing pretty good.

Here is another answer-a-question-with-a-question response. This one allows them to refocus their question on the type of info that would be interesting to them. For example: if they say financially and you say you still have Costco hot dog money, they know you’re not starving.

If they opt for sociopathically, either run, or team up with them to become a supervillain duo.

Persisting horrors might be a new phrase coined by a meme a few years ago, but its old-timey sound makes it feel like you’re being historical for dramatic effect. And it’s just a great way to darkly declare that you’re still not dead yet and still at least half-assing life.

This one combines being historical with getting your Southern on. The original meaning was from doctors of ‘yore’, who thought that bad gasses from the stomach or womb traveled to the head, making you feel faint or out of control. It was later used by fancy old-timey ladies in Victorian England and then the South, to excuse themselves from places they didn’t want to be.

So basically you can Irish-goodbye it with this phrase.

A ‘can’t complain’ answer lets them know that you have a rant inside you dying to get out. They’ll either let you release the Kraken or listen to you burp out the gases of said festering rant.

Perhaps you’re looking for a little feedback to see if your vision of you is one that others share. But be ready for them to say you’re one more pyjama day away from an all-inclusive trip to the asylum.

If that is their answer, meh; a trip to the grippy-socks facility with its three meals a day and no laundry doesn’t sound that bad right now.

Ooh, now you have my interest. I will absolutely ask follow-up questions because I want the kind of tea that’s spilled in a therapist’s office. If you’re close to a psychotic break, let me know; I could use a break myself, and we could go twinsies.

I’ve long thought we should have some sort of scoring system to our responses to how are you. Sure you’re great, but is that a six out of ten or an eleven (because you don’t understand how numbers work)?

Maybe you were a nine, but then you caught your belt loop on the kitchen cabinet, and that brought you down to a firkin four.

Alternately, we could use a word-based grading scale. It could go from woo-hoo to Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah to meh to fuck it.

Perhaps you’ve already had a psychotic break and are in full-blown superpowers mode. Now this sounds interesting. This is a game I’ll absolutely play with you. Like by pointing out that you’re wearing clothes, which screws with invisibility. If you really want to fly under the radar, you need to be buck-assed naked.

Or at least that’s how I do it.

I’ve never liked the perfunctory nature of the question ‘how are you?’, but I think we have an opportunity to spice that mofo up. So let’s ditch the fines and greats and replace them with the much more intriguing ‘Life is soup and I’m a fork’.

Or just lean in real close and whisper ‘Shhh, it’s a secret’.

Then twitch a little.