I'm Fine

It is a commonly accepted reality that the words "I'm fine" often mean nothing. To most people, they are just expulsions of noise. They are just sounds. They are not words - they do not deserve that moniker.
The thing is, some people genuinely are fine when they say that. It's impossible to tell, especially if you can't actually see the speaker's face. So what do you do, particularly if you don't know the person very well? Do you take them at their word, but potentially miss something so catastrophically important that you'll never forgive yourself for ignoring it? Do you decide to keep pushing, but run the risk of driving them away with your constant questioning of their emotional state and ignoring what they say in favour of acting on instincts?
It can drive a person mad with disturbing ease.
They say sticks and stones can break your bones, and it's true: with force, they will. The rather optimistic end of that proverb is "but words will never hurt me". A more realistic ending (taken, of all things, from an episode of Fairly OddParents) is "but words leave deep psychological wounds that will never heal".
Compliments are just like sharp words. Both leave marks on a person. The problem is that marks left by compliments and their ilk, as beautiful as they may be, are fleeting and far too easily forgotten. They tend to fade quickly, whereas their opposites are like permanent ink on pale skin - virtually indestructible.
What people don't realize is that the word "fine" has multiple meanings. There is the usual one, as seen in the sentence "It's a fine day today." However, fine can also mean penalty. Fine can mean small. Fine can mean crushed.
So perhaps everyone who says "I'm fine" is telling the truth, in a way. But perhaps, like I am too wont to do, they say it just to get people off their back. The trouble is identifying who is who.
Look, I don't particularly like people. I am fascinated by them, yes. I would dearly like to spend the rest of my life watching people and how they live their lives, learning them far deeper than perhaps they know themselves, and I very much dislike seeing people unhappy or in pain. But I do not like them, not really. I have found that they tend to suffer from a stunningly wide variety of hamartia.
They tend to forget me. It gets lonely.
I have been accused of being unfeeling and distant. I have been accused of treating people like experiments rather than living things. I have been accused of misogyny and sadistic tendencies.
It may be that I am these things. In my head, however, I am too wrapped up in other people. I am watching with interest how they choose to act in given situations: what makes them sad, what makes them happy, the difference in behaviour around different sorts of people. It is fascinating, and I don't understand why no one else sees the human as a fantastic yet flawed magnum opus of their own unwitting creation.
I suppose a more accurate description is that I like people against my better judgement. Or that I dislike the fact that I like people. I shouldn't like people. By all rights, I should be a bitter cynic isolated from the madding crowds. But I, despite aforementioned better judgement, am not a sensible person by any means, and it is far too easy to be distracted by a new person to fall in love with.
Because that's what I do - I fall in love with everyone I meet. How could I not? In every single person there is something brand new and precious. I don't know how to put it into words properly. I don't know how to make others understand that my eyes and my imagination are captured by the unique beauty of the human form, whatever its defining characteristics.
It seems there is a terribleness that only I can see, and yet in and of itself it is a gorgeous phenomenon worthy of study. And there is a quiet beauty that I've heard of but never seen, and everyone always tells me I'm a fool for missing it. But no matter how hard I try, I can't make my eyes believe, I can't make them normal, and sometimes it's a burden that I do not wish to bear.
All I know is that I can always hear the symphony that is a new person to know calling out for me in my dreams, but sound is such a fickle mistress (as I know only too well). I've searched the wide world over looking for the utterly simple complexities that I hear every night. But I am slowly becoming convinced that this glorious beyond-music is locked amongst the stars because when I face the world at first light, there are only discordant notes that don't make sense in any way, shape, or form.
I'm so close and yet so far, and the music must lead me to the most wonderful story ever known. I'm sure of it. I have to be. But as of now, I am left with the unreasonable and unhealthy love of humanity to keep me company, and that's really not much at all but it's all I've ever had and that's almost reassuring, in a way.
So, to answer your question, I'm fine.
Make of that what you will.