RE: Let me introduce myself!
In my blog post I was thinking about the same problem but from a different angle. I think people are not allowed to have authentic connections due to lack of privacy. Privacy encourages authenticity while transparency in my opinion encourages wearing the mask (inauthenticity). The mask is what people wear when they know they have an audience and so their behavior inevitably changes in order to impress or meet expectations of this audience (which does judge).
In my blog post it is called Self Monitoring. When a person corrects what they say on Steemit for example because they know it's going to the blockchain for life. When a person measures their morality not based on how they feel about anything in particular but based on how others will respond to their decisions.
I would like to know what you think of the concept of "virtue signals"? That is when a person inauthentically expresses an opinion or behavior to send the signal to the others that they are a "good person". This behavior in my opinion evolves from increasing the level of transparency and as a result people put on the appearance of good behavior but is this really enough? Is it enough to simply look like a good person?
I agree that in some cultures "how are you" really means "how are you". In particular, in Russia/Ukraine and some other places (possibly Netherlands too), if you ask a person "how are you?" it's authentic. In the USA it would depend on context, who is asking it, etc. From you I would assume it's authentic based on what you tell me about your values.
The way I tend to do things is adapt to individual persons, circumstances, context, time. Generally though when I ask a person how they are doing (if I know the person or have some history) it's because I'd like to know.