Our cultural aversion to superficial answers leaves ‘Wie geht’s?’ sounding like a trick question. Perhaps it is time to let our guard down

In the early autumn, over pizza and wine, I had a conversation with a dear friend. He’s Turkish. We were in Ayvalık, a small town on Turkey’s Aegean coast, talking about cultural imprints, when he suddenly paused and looked at me. “You know what?” he said. “Whenever I ask you how you are, you never really answer. You go into a meta space immediately – talking about politics or about bigger things that worry you – but you never say how you actually are.”

I’ve been thinking about his observation ever since, debating in my mind whether it was true – and I’ve recently reached the conclusion that, unfortunately, he was right.

Carolin Würfel is a writer, screenwriter and journalist who lives in Berlin and Istanbul. She is the author of Three Women Dreamed of Socialism