How Are You?

"I'd love to Chiquito, but I have a date with my boy friend."

"Can't you shake him?"

"No, no, I don't," she said sadly, and I loved the way she said it.

That little conversation comes from Jack Kerouac's On the Road and I just love that last phrase there. It's a conversation that Sal, the main character, has with a girl that the's trying to pick up in a bus stop.

Certain people have a way of asking the question, "how are you?" or some form of it, and they have the ability to just make me feel like I'm the most important person in the world to them in that moment. I love when it doesn't just feel like it's a routine greeting that isn't expected to elicit a response, but like an actual inquiry into my well-being. For me, it turns out that it's just one of those things that I love more than anything.

Some people I've known through the years are amazing at it, and some I've known have gotten really good at it over time. I didn't always think she was good at it, but one girl I dated got to a point where it felt like to me that her most important part of the day was hearing about what I had been up to and what I was thinking about. She just always wanted to know. When we first started dating it actually was kind of tiresome because I wasn't used to talking about those seemingly mundane things in so much depth, but she really honestly wanted to know. Whereas it had once been something that kind of bothered me about her, it eventually became one of the things that I loved most.

Some people I've known started out with that quality, but then the interest tapered and it was gone altogether. I guess really it just depends on how much the person cares.

I've just been thinking about it because there is one girl at work and she'll ask the question, and I love answering her. I love telling her because I feel like she really wants to know. It's not like it's something that everyone does well. I don't know why I'm so sensitive to it, but I really am. And with her at least, I don't think it really has to do with her being attracted to me or anything like that, but just that she really truly wants to know. I love seeing her just for that alone.