Yeah pretty much. Most of us don’t even ask.

Yeah...

I am an American but have had a lot of friends from all over the world.

We are kind of exceptional in the extent of normalized, utterly disingenuous 'standard social interactions and phrases' that we use.

We talk like NPCs using throwaway, canned dialogue lines, and if we don't do NPC talk, well then that is actually viewed as antisocial...

Even though basically everyone else in the world would view this all as the opposite, inverted. Such forced bullshit conversations are generally viewed as bullshit and disingenuous.

Land of the individual!...

So long as you conform to various social norms that are so routine most of us don't ever even stop to question their prevalence or function.

Ehhhhh, this is not standard in all places. If someone asks me how I am I will answer honestly but vaguely. "Living the dream, I've been better, meh, good, pretty good." It's common for other people to answer the same way, too. The part that's not as socially acceptable is to go into detail about it if you don't know the people well/people don't have follow up questions about it.

Why would you do that ngl. If someone asks how I am, of course I tell the truth. If they don't want to know, they shouldn't have asked.

In the US. That's the point. If I get asked that, the other person generally has some degree of interest in my genuine answer

Well then the question mark is a lie

Are you supposed to answer it? Yes? So its a question wowsies…

They interpreted it as [acknowledgement that they are aware of your presence], which it most likely is.

I've been to Egypt several times, and sometimes I've stayed with people who have moved there.

The impression I get is that there very few ways for people born there to raise themselves up above what I call "The Hustle". There's a state of being where the key to survival is extracting money out of everyone you meet. By fair means or foul, you must make money.

It can be making sure every person that walks into your shop buys something. It can be being a kerb crawling tuk tuk driver pestering walkers by. It can be thieving. It can be taking bribes in local government. Everybody is on the hustle. You can't afford to trust people because they'll take any advantage they can. It's a permanent state of stress and fear.

...and then there are the immigrant whales that move there, buy a big house on the coast and exploit the locals by flashing the cash.

All of that said, when people do manage to find something stable, they're a great people, but there are so few decent ways to make enough money.

Mentality is just merciless and cruel. Years of generational human abuse. Abused become abusers. Corruption, nepotism, patriarchy. On Egypt Facebook your feed is full of videos of animal abuse and laughing smileys in comments. It’s a dark place